Fort Worth schools have a new athletic director. Here’s what he says he plans to do.
.jpg "The Trimble Tech Bulldogs take the field during their homecoming football game against Dallas Samuell at Farrington Field in September 2022.")
J.J. Calderon will be a busy man in the coming weeks.
As the new executive athletic director for the Fort Worth school district, he knows he has a lot to learn about its 140 campuses, the coaches and sports programs, and the direction he wants to take to ensure student athletes succeed on the field and in the classroom.
Calderon was hired July 25 after the retirement of Todd Vesely, who held the position since 2018. Calderon has served as athletics director for the Socorro school district in El Paso in 2019. Previously, he served as head coach for that district’s Eastlake High School, founding the varsity program in 2010.
The Star-Telegram recently spoke with Calderon about his background and plans for Fort Worth.
Can you explain your background and experience in athletic administration?
I started as an athletic coordinator at Riverside High School. I spent three years there, and then, I moved in to Socorro independent school district.
They hired me as the first athletic coordinator and head football coach at Eastlake High School. In 2019, I was hired as the district director of athletics in Socorro ISD. I’m going on my fifth year as an athletic director.
What aspects of your coaching career prepared you to be an athletic director?
I would say opening up a brand new campus. A new building and a new school at Eastlake High School. Preparing pretty well for a lot that’s going to take place.
Hiring a brand new staff from the very bottom, the facilities … working with a brand new community. All that was very, very helpful and a great experience in opening up a new campus. Especially building culture in any new community was huge.
How did your college career at Sul Ross State provide insight into what student athletes need to succeed?
Playing Division III football was really helpful. A lot of our athletes that I worked with, or actually a lot of athletes that I played with in college, went on to be coaches. I worked with quite a few in quite a few areas in the state of Texas.
So, you know, college athletics is obviously a little different. And I actually got an opportunity to coach a little bit afterwards as a volunteer assistant as well. So making those connections in college and … understanding different levels and getting out to different areas of the state.
I came from El Paso and got to meet other athletes across the state, and a lot of the athletes that we played with had similar aspirations to coach and enter some type of profession in athletics. So just to develop those skills there was helpful.
Participation in college athletics puts you on a good path for moving on to coaching ranks or athletic administration. It is important to emphasize helping our kids get to the college level so that they have those opportunities available to them.
What is your vision for the athletics programs in Fort Worth?
That’s tough, I guess, to align your vision and your goals. I think it has to align with the environment. I’m coming from outside. We’d like to get a little bit more familiar before we lock down where we want to go and what direction.
So just to kind of understand more from a director standpoint – how things are in Fort Worth and as far as their athletic programs go, what the needs are. But overall, just to provide support for student athletes, helping them to grow physically, academically – character building, those kinds of things are big for us and not just for varsity sports.
We’re really invested in our middle school sports with my current district, and we’re starting to see the benefits of that now. So just providing support to our student athletes is my main concern.
What are some ways you can ensure that students are supported academically and athletically?
Putting systems in place to help them develop professionally. Development for our coaches. Just make sure that our students are developing physically and they’re invested in the goals of the campus academically.
Providing professional development for our coaches, improving facilities, giving our student athletes an overall good experience, even if it’s a dream experience in a gym or in front of crowds. We want to make sure that we are supporting our student athletes and letting them know that our programs are going to help them grow and be effective members of the community.
How will you collaborate with coaches, teachers and administrators to enhance the overall student experience?
I’m very direct. I’ll get out and I do a lot of visiting. I spend a lot of time on campuses. I go to a lot of games, and I think just direct relationships with people and understanding what their needs are at each campus and, in general, as a district.
Early on, I think a lot of visits, a lot of communication and just being direct with our coaches will help us grow our programs and get us on a good path for success as the school, as a program and as a district.
What strategies do you have to improve the facilities and performance of Fort Worth teams?
There’s an important evaluation piece that has to take place on what the needs are overall. I wish I was a little bit more familiar with specific things like facilities and systems but I think there needs to be an evaluation piece first, before I can accurately assess what needs to be done.
Our facilities are a top priority, especially when it comes to safety and security. Those type of things are important, statewide. So, obviously just putting things in place for safety and making sure that facilities are good for everybody and not just student athletes but fans as well.
This story was originally published August 4, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
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