Blanchard rehired as full-time MCS athletic director

In April, the board of education took action to lay off three Manchester Community Schools administrative positions effective June 30th, one of these was the high school assistant principal/athletic director, LaVell Blanchard. These layoffs were in the ongoing effort to “rightsize the district” to reflect the much smaller upcoming younger classes as the larger classes graduate. 

Superintendent Nick Steinmetz stated at the time that the layoffs did not mean that the district would operate without an athletic director in the future. He also stated that these layoffs did not mean that personnel laid-off wouldn’t have positions in the district in the future and that the district was working with outside organizations to generate finding streams to directly impact these positions. All of this played out as stated by Steinmetz as at the July 15th school board meeting, the board of education reinstated Blanchard as full-time athletic director, expanding the role, and bringing in outside funding. 

The athletic director role will now include overseeing and growing Manchester’s Rec sports programs and some funding for the position will come from the sports programs. Currently Youth Football and Cheer as well as MAYS (the youth baseball/softball program) have signed on. MSA (the youth soccer program)  hasn’t decided whether or not to participate and will discuss it at their upcoming meeting on July 31st. Although Manchester does have youth basketball and volleyball summer camps, they don’t have programs similar to the other sports, and one of the athletic director’s jobs will be to rework and build a basketball rec program and a volleyball rec program.

Superintendent Steinmetz reassured that they do not anticipate any participation fees in the rec sports increasing as a result of this partnership. He stated, "By creating a comprehensive rec and school athletic department, we will be able to become more efficient and reduce expenditures for both. Additionally, we are hoping simply the registration process and distribution of data by using a common platform. We are hoping to make it easier for the community... more of a one stop shop approach."

Blanchard played one year of football and two years of baseball at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor. But it was basketball, where he was named All-USA Honorable Mention in his junior year and to the first team in the 1999 USA Today All-USA high school basketball team, where he excelled. That success took him to the University of Michigan, where he was proud to play for “the Blue.” Blanchard was only the fifth player to lead an NCAA team in both scoring and rebounding four years in a row. For 12 years, he played professional basketball in Europe before returning to get his degree in Sports Management and Administration from Eastern Michigan University. He served as Assistant Athletic Director at Ypsilanti Community Schools, which was formed from the merger of the Ypsilanti and Willow Run districts in 2013, until 2018 when he was hired by Manchester Community Schools. 

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.