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    • Giatrelis folds uniforms while engaging with an athlete.

Behind the Scenes: Awesome Athletic Crew

Samantha Bernstein ’26 Sports Editor Hana Beauregard ’26 Sports Editor
The Hopkins Athletics Program offers an array of team sports, informal sports, and student health.
The Hopkins Athletics Program offers an array of team sports, informal sports, and student health. With it comes an Athletics department of ten dedicated individuals who work cohesively to improve the health of Hopkins and its athletic program. Despite their work, which includes regulating all Hopkins athletics, medical activity and ensuring consistent and reliable functionality of all sports-related equipment and resources, many students and adults are unaware of the duties the department takes on behind the scenes.

Director of Athletics Rocco DeMaio ’86 and Assistant Athletic Directors Kristen Wich and Christina Balsamo manage the coordination of games, referees, Hopkins coaches, and transportation to games. The athletic schedule is a large factor in the work of the Athletics department, according to DeMaio, in addition to “communications with other schools, the surrounding fields and gym spaces, and double and triple
checking websites and publications for schedules.” Wich stated, “Once the schedule is built, it is passed off to me, and I make sure that things are in place for those games: that we have all the officials lined up, all the fields assigned properly, transportation for away games, communication with the officials, and the bus companies and internally with our coaches.”

In regards to maintenance of athletic fields and spaces, Wich said, “We’re in close contact with the maintenance department. We work mostly with [Chris Malse] and [Suvadin Thapa]. Chris is here daily checking in with us about our needs.” DeMaio added, “They have a crew that does a lot of field setups and maintenance of fields. The tennis courts need to be kept up daily: taking the water off or blowing the leaves off. The new gym floor is a big project of cleaning daily. We also have a nightly cleaning company that comes in and cleans the gym.”

The Bud Erich Swim Center requires maintenance that Jason Nevis, Director of Aquatics, oversees. Nevis said, “In the morning I routinely check the boiler room downstairs where all the chemicals are located and 
the computer system which tells me the temperature and the pH level. I take the testing kit and I take a sample of the water. Then I test the chemicals with the droplets and I write it down in the log. If I have to change something, I’ll add chlorine or I’ll add dry acid.” He then cleans up the pool deck for the teams that use the Hopkins Pool, He stated, “I put [the creeper, which is the vacuum] in the pool so it [can] go around and pick up gum that might have been spit out, a band-aid that fell off or even hair.” Nevis also monitors the swim and water polo equipment: “I have to make sure kickboards aren’t falling apart or deteriorating. I have to order water polo balls to start the season and make sure that the [water polo] caps are in good condition.”

Director of Medical Services Matthew Ferreira and Assistant Athletics Trainers Jillian Gleason and Christina Balsamo take care of sports injuries and afflictions. Ferreira remarked, “I think for my position, specifically, I would say probably 40-50% is spent behind the scenes and I spend 50-60% actually interfacing with
the students.” Gleason said that her “student interaction time is probably 70-75% [of her work].” In attention to
tending to students’ injuries, Ferreira stated that he is “responsible for creating our coverage schedule.” He
described that while the other two trainers are “cover- ing [a] game, I stay at the trainer’s room” to ensure “that  the room is available for anybody that needs to walk in.” The athletic trainers also regulate medical activity that concerns the safety of Hopkins. Ferreira emphasized the importance of internal communication regarding Hopkins’ safety: “There’s good communication around on campus to make sure that everybody knows about the certain healthcare incidents that happened with the students and the faculty.” Gleason stated that she is “in charge of all of the school’s medical paperwork. So all those forms that parents have to fill out every year, I’m in charge of keeping track of those things and immunization records.” Gleason added that “we share amongst the athletic training staff, prepping game day stuff, so first aid goes out, water goes out, ice goes out. I make sure that our @Hopscores has a post with all the games for that day.”

Prior to every game, uniforms need to be handed out to players, and after games, they need to be collected: this role falls upon Equipment Managers Kenneth Ackerman and Peter Giatrelis. They prepare athletic equipment for sports, and open and close the Walter Camp Athletics Center in the morning and night. They do the majority of laundry in the fall and spring, Ackerman mentioned: “During the fall, you got football. We were spraying a lot of them with Shout. It’s good to get the dirt, grass, and stains out. And the same thing with baseball and softball in the spring.” Ackerman added that storage of equipment is something that has become increasingly difficult: “One of the biggest problems is that we’ve added, since I’ve been here, different sports: squash, rowing, both boys and girls water polo. So then we run out of room for storage. That’s the biggest problem, finding room and trying to get rid of the stuff that you’re not using anymore.” Ackerman remarked that his “favorite time [is] the winter because it’s easy for me. I’ll sit here and play music or something. It’s a fun job.” The significance of Ackerman’s and Giatrelis’s jobs are often unnoticed by athletes, despite their presence being crucial for all teams and sports.

The Hopkins Athletics Department and maintenance crew is an integral team that contributes to the safety of the Hopkins community. Scheduling, laundry, pool maintenance, and attention to medical concerns may be overlooked by students and faculty, but the work behind the scenes of the Hopkins Athletics Department sustains the thriving athletics program.
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