Longtime coach, administrator Cory taking over as A.D.

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As Keith Cory planned the next step in his coaching and athletic administration career, he often asked his colleagues about the Rhode Island high school sports scene.

“I have a lot of friends that are athletic directors in Rhode Island and I queried them on what were the schools where athletics was taken seriously, and where there was a buzz to athletics in the town,” Cory said. “To a person, they all said that Johnston had that.”

When he got the chance to be part of that buzz, Cory jumped at it. He was appointed in June as the athletic director for Johnston Public Schools. He started immediately, working all summer to square things away, chart a course for athletics in the schools and get a full slate of Panther teams ready for the new school year.

Football practice begins today. The rest of the fall sports teams start Monday. Games get underway when the calendar flips to September.

Cory can’t wait.

“I’m fortunate to be here, and I’m looking forward it,” he said.

Cory is taking over for David DelFino, who spent a year at the helm after filling in when former athletic director Gary Mazzie had to step down for health reasons.

The chance to be an athletic director at the high school level, in a sports hotbed like Johnston, was just what Cory was looking for. He’s been involved in athletics for more than 25 years, in both coaching and administration capacities. A native of Little Compton, Cory was an assistant athletic director at Salve Regina and has coached both soccer and lacrosse at the collegiate level. He was the athletic director at Friends Academy, a private school in Dartmouth, Mass., and has also served as Director of Recreation for the town of Tiverton.

His desire to enter the high school ranks was sparked by his coaching roots.

“When I started coaching 25 years ago on the college level, the contact you had with athletes really allowed you the chance to do a lot to help support them in their development and their life’s ventures,” Cory said. “That has kind of disappeared from the college level. To me, that’s now the high school level. I wanted to be able to have that affect, where life lessons could be taught through sports.”

At Johnston, his goal is to maintain and enhance the athletic opportunities that allow for those lessons. At the high school level, one of his main objectives will be handling the behind-the-scenes support that makes programs go, while freeing up the coaches to coach.

“To me this most important thing an athletic director does is to make the job of the coach easier, so that the coach can spend more time with the student-athletes – being a better mentor, being more available to the student-athletes and having their mind on the game more than the paper work,” he said. “That’s always been my goal, to take care of everything behind the scenes so that the coaches and athletes can stay at the front.”

He’s also looking to expand sports offerings. In the high school ranks, he’s hoping to start a competitive cheerleading program this winter.

“We have a good history of cheerleading here but they’ve never been in the competitive realm,” Cory said. “We’re looking to do that this winter, and I think we’ll do very well with it.”

For Ferri Middle School, his goal is to have boys’ and girls’ cross country, and girls’ volleyball this fall, if approval comes quickly enough.

“We’re looking to increase the offerings at the middle school level,” Cory said. “Right off the bat, we’re looking to add boys’ and girls’ cross country and girls’ volleyball for the fall. Our volleyball at the high school has done tremendous the last few years. We had 72 sign up as being interested for this year. My hope is to add it to the middle school and give these kids more of a base.”

As for cross country, it’s a prime example of athletics as opportunity. Most kids don’t grow up running competitively, but if they try it early enough, they may stick with it. At Friends Academy, Cory pushed to allow fifth graders to run it cross country, when sports had previously been open only to sixth grade and above. Kids gave it a shot and loved it, one of the reasons why athletic participation increased to 99 percent by the time Cory left the school.

“There’s a little bit of an athlete in everybody,” he said. “I’d like to see kids take a chance and see what they can do.”

The aim in everything is to build upon Johnston’s already proud athletic tradition. Cory’s office is across the gymnasium lobby from fully-stocked trophy cases, so he knows plenty about the sports world he’s joining.

He’s hoping to do his part.

“We have a tremendous history here,” he said. “It’s exciting to be a part of it.”

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