“Mr. Frank, we’re going to be 1–11 in our conference.”

A student on our girls field hockey team said this to me early in my first autumn as Head of School in 2014. The season hadn’t even started yet — and she was right. I was devastated, and I knew in that moment that things had to change.

At the time, our girls were competing in a conference where nearly every other institution was a Division I program. Save for us and one other school, these programs were exceptionally large Division I schools, creating an environment for our female student-athletes that was the exact opposite of what we wanted for them. It was brutally difficult to build morale, to sustain momentum, or to ask young people to find the deep-seated motivation to train, lead, sweat, and sacrifice day after day. The program was fraying at the edges.

Meanwhile, our boys were playing in a conference composed primarily of Division III programs with limited resources. More importantly, we did not share a common set of foundational values that placed students and their holistic growth at the top of every administrative decision. While we didn't win conference championships in every sport, we far too often won games handily — sometimes triggering the “slaughter rule,” where contests ended early because our lead was insurmountable. Win or lose, this, too, led to poor outcomes. It was a hollow victory, offering little room for authentic growth.

Membership in those conferences was not serving our students, and it was placing a hard ceiling on the growth of our athletic programs. Athletics Director Bruce Secrest and I surveyed every athletic conference in Virginia. We weighed our options carefully. One path meant driving up and down the I-95 corridor in relentless Northern Virginia traffic. The other path — the one we chose — led toward the coast, requiring us to navigate the traffic of the beach tunnel.

Later that year, we applied to and joined the Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools (TCIS).

Joining the TCIS was a conscious sacrifice, but it was a sacrifice made in service of the right fit. The conference is made up of an even mix of Division I, II, and III schools, each sharing mission-focused values and a commitment to doing what is right for kids. It is one of the most competitive conferences in Virginia.

The result? We now compete in every sport, every season, across both boys’ and girls’ programs.

It doesn’t guarantee wins. Winning a TCIS conference title is extraordinarily difficult. But since joining the conference, our teams have brought home more than 10 state championships. Being in the right conference with the right partner schools has provided the bedrock for that success.

Yet, as we look at our parent survey feedback each year, we know the work is far from finished. Progress is not a static line; it is a discipline of returning to our core values and refining our practices. Here, I want to unpack the realities of our athletic ecosystem — its complexities, its constraints, and the concrete ways we are moving forward.

We know that a team’s experience rises and falls on the leadership of its head coach. Finding, developing, and retaining high-caliber coaches is one of our most crucial responsibilities — and one of our greatest operational challenges.

It is exceedingly difficult to find qualified coaches who are available to start practice at 3:30 p.m., five days a week. For those who work outside of school, it means they have to leave work early or, in some cases, be willing to use personal days. The talent pool is self-limiting, and all schools, travel, and recreational programs are competing for the best coaches. 

While hiring is hard, maintaining low standards is unacceptable. We are sharpening our accountability systems:

Communication across an athletic department is an inherently complex operational task, but we recognize that mixed messages or late updates create unnecessary anxiety for families.

To streamline this, Assistant Athletics Director Kara Bacile has centralized the majority of department-wide communications. However, we must address two distinct sides of the communication equation.

The Family’s Role: Automated alerts and weekly emails only work if they are set. We ask parents to ensure their contact preferences are updated in the MSA portal at the start of each season and to make reviewing the weekly athletics preview a household routine.

We hear the frustration regarding travel times. Navigating tunnel traffic after a long workday is a heavy lift for parents and student-athletes alike.

To put our schedule into clearer context: Our conference comprises 10 member schools. In a standard conference schedule, a maximum of 5 games will be away contests. It is rare that all 5 away games require crossing through the tunnel, though weather reschedules and non-conference state tournament seeding matches can occasionally alter those ratios. Further, Varsity teams (and to a lesser extent JV teams) have an obligation to play full, competitive seasons in order to establish their place in the state rankings. This adds an average of 10-15 additional contests, outside conference play, which will add additional travel — an average of 5-6 will be away. Tournament appearances (conference and state) can add up to 3 more contests each; in State tournaments, if we are a top seed, our first-round game will be at home; conference tournaments are similar. Playing a Varsity sport is a true commitment, and we have to hold high standards and expectations from and to coaches and between players and coaches.

At the Middle School level, we recognize that our schedule has historically been more demanding than many of our local peer schools. Many private schools in the city practice only 1 to 3 times per week for an hour. We are currently re-evaluating our Middle School schedules with two distinct shifts in mind:

A common question raised by our parents is why our stands are not always packed on game days. The answer lies largely in the simple math of a close-knit, highly engaged school community.

We are a school of roughly 450 Upper and Middle School students. In any given season — take spring, for example — around 100 of those students are actively playing on our athletic teams on any given afternoon. When a quarter of the student body is out on the fields competing simultaneously, they cannot be in the bleachers cheering. Combine this with our students’ passionate involvement in fine arts, robotics, and outside pursuits, and time becomes a precious commodity.

School spirit is not merely a byproduct of “Friday Night Lights” — though Friday night basketball remains a cherished campus tradition. Spirit is built when students feel connected to something larger than themselves. While winning naturally drives attendance, our goal is to build an environment where students support one another not because of a team’s record, but because of who is wearing the jersey.

We reject the false dichotomy that a school must choose between character development and competitive excellence. We define “competitive” not as a mandate for statewide dominance, but as a standard where our teams prepare thoroughly, play with relentless effort, compete for winning records, and earn bids to state tournaments. We must be clear about our institutional identity: We do not desire to be an athletics mill, a school known primarily for its athletic program, driven by a win-at-all-costs mentality.

When our teams are competitive, the entire institution benefits:

In my opening addresses to our faculty and staff, I often reflect on Albert Camus’ interpretation of the “Myth of Sisyphus.” The gods condemned Sisyphus to roll a massive boulder up a mountain, only to watch it roll back down to the bottom for eternity. It is usually cited as a story of futility.

But Camus wrote that we must “imagine Sisyphus happy.” Sisyphus finds purpose in the task because it is his work to do. In committing to it, he finds meaning.

Building an athletic program that honors both inclusion and excellence, that balances heavy travel with academic rigor, and that demands accountability while supporting young coaches, is hard work. It is an uphill climb. Some days, the rock rolls back down.

But at Steward, 75% of our students will put on a jersey at some point during the year. They will step onto a court or a field. They will learn how to win with humility, how to lose with dignity, how to communicate through adversity, and how to look a teammate in the eye and say, I’ve got your back.

We are committed to providing the absolute best possible experience for all our students — for those pursuing Division I scholarship opportunities, for those seeking fitness and lifelong friendships, and for everyone in between.

This is our work. It is work we take on not because it is easy, but because our children are worth the effort. Thank you for walking this long, meaningful road alongside us.