Lake Brantley Athletic Director Jerri Kelly plans on retiring soon, which opens the door for someone to fill the position. As the Athletic Director, Kelly is in charge of a multitude of activities, such as scheduling, athletic events, and budgeting. Important duties such as these adds to the importance of having an equally great replacement for Kelly.

Kelly has to ensure that the athletic budget is equally spread out through each sporting department. This is important so teams can cover transportation funds for away games, maintenance for sport equipment, and extra commodities they may need.

“I am retiring soon and I need to teach someone how to do my job so that they can understand it,” Kelly said. “I am in charge of approximately 50 teams, 64 coaches, compliance, rules, budgets, schedules, transportation, event management and safety.”

In addition to Skip Clayton, there are two new assistant athletic directors this year, splitting the responsibilities, since they both coach. Kelly needs both assistants for fall due to how much time the football season consumes, while she has one in winter and the other in spring to lessen their workload during their coaching season.

Assistant athletic director Tyson Burgos is also a business teacher and baseball coach. He is currently designing a computer program that will automatically sort and gather grades in Skyward for student athletes. The program is designed to help track struggling academic athletes as well as those with outstanding GPAs.

“I am responsible for assisting the coaches and printing out their athletic certificates for their athletes,” Burgos said. “I also keep track of student athletes’ grade point average, attendance, and discipline.”

Assistant athletic director Mellissa Dallenbach is also an Algebra II teacher and girls’ soccer junior varsity head coach. She acts as the overseer for Booster Clubs, fundraisers and new game time music, which is currently Neptune Game Time Music. The game time music is the background music that plays when viewers watch the sports videos during the morning announcements. Sports videos may be of the football games or of other sports such as volleyball and basketball.

“Mostly, I work with the athletic Booster Clubs and fundraisers, like, the pumpkin patch and Christmas trees,” Dallenbach said. “I also assist with game management, setup and admin support.”
Kelly’s first assistant athletic director, Skip Clayton, has been teaching here for 13 years now and has been Kelly’s assistant for 12 years. Being a Brantley grad, Clayton understands the tradition that Lake Brantley Athletics has.

“I would want Skip Clayton to replace me,” Kelly said. “However, if he is unable to, then I would be looking for someone who was an athlete, who graduated from Lake Brantley, and wants a career as an athletic director. This could be a coach that has coached at Lake Brantley and understands our tradition.”