Triad to form advisory board to study how to make team sports more successful

The trials and tribulations of team-oriented sports are nothing new to Triad’s athletic department.

While the high school has seen its fair share of individual athletes claim their own accolades, team sports participation and competitiveness have seen better days.

The athletic administration in Cardinal Country hopes to change that situation.

Athletes like current senior Awsom Mitchell and alumna Cayla Eaton have respectively made names for themselves at state-level competitions in wrestling and track and field. However, stakeholders are eager to see more out of the team sports Triad has to offer.

The Cardinals have seen success in the past in sports such as baseball and softball.

Prior to the expanded football playoffs, the gridiron team qualified for postseason action on almost a regular occurrence.

Triad’s Brody Hess (5) tries to get through defenders during a home football game last season. The Triad Athletics Strategic Plan for 2025-26 seeks to improve the culture and competitive spirit of Triad’s team-oriented sports.

(Journal-Tribune photo by Aleksei Pavloff)

Jason Malone took over as the high school’s athletic director last year. Before that, he spent time as a head coach with about 25 years of coaching experience. His most recent stint was being the head boys basketball coach for Triad — his alma mater.

“I’ve seen state championship softball teams, perennial playoff football teams, a baseball program that was competing for league titles and sometimes competing for regional titles and potentially going to state in a year-in, year-out basis,” he said. “We’ve lost that and I’ve seen both sides.”

With the ability to steer the ship that is Triad’s athletic program, Malone plans to address the increasing desire to see the Cardinals back on Ohio’s biggest stages for team sports.

Malone recently met with members of the Triad Local School Board of Education for its regular monthly meeting. In the administrative reports, Malone, who also serves as the dean of students, delivered an outline which seeks to “identify and analyze strengths and weaknesses of Triad’s athletic programs.”

“It is real simple: we’ve looked at the trends of our team sports for the past five years and competitively, we are not where we want to be,” Malone told the Journal-Tribune. “It is not a one sport or two sport thing… it goes across the board.”

“I’d say we have a lot of really great coaches and we have great student-athletes,” said Triad superintendent Vickie Maruniak. “It really is about putting all of those things into one focus.”

She said she hopes the advisory board will align all attention to areas that need it.

Maruniak shared how well-knitted the team sports are at Triad with coaches and players seemingly getting along well.

While that is all well and good, the goal will be how do the team-oriented sports propel themselves to the next level.

“I think one of the things we are looking at is starting a leadership program for maybe juniors and seniors,” said Maruniak. “We are not trying to lock down what will happen until the [advisory board] meets and that is about hearing everyone’s opinions and putting it all on the table.”

Malone’s bird’s eye view perspective of all the programs propelled him to address a culture restructuring which will hopefully see programs improve over time.

“I am not going to sit back and say, ‘this is how it is’ without trying something,” he said.

The idea of Triad making it back to a state championship level reputation is a goal for everyone.

Maruniak believes the process it will take to reach those levels will take time, not just with players but with the coaching staffs in all sports.

Malone’s strategic plan outlines the creation of an Athletic Advisory Board.

Those within it will incorporate coaches, student-athletes, parents, two board members and representatives from Triad youth athletic programs and Stay and Play.

Maruniak will also be a member of the advisory group.

“It is not just us looking at it from a lens of high school sports,” Malone said about the board’s makeup. “We want to have a full overview from everything we do from youth sports on up.”

The creation of the advisory board is set to take place in April.

Malone has already reached out to individuals who are intrigued with being a part of the advisory group.

While nothing is set in stone, there is interest from people in associated groups. The size of the board may consist of 12-to-14 people.

“I want these people to come to the meeting with ideas,” Malone said. “One thing that I’ve learned since I started this job is that I’ve had a lot of really good help.”

Utilizing the help he’s received thus far, Malone wants to hear more from community members who may have a better strategy of addressing involvement and competitive advantages.

Malone, while not being a fan of comparisons, said there are other school districts of similar size around North Lewisburg that have much more success than Triad does in some areas of sports.

“They have much more involvement and have more sports to offer than we do,” he said. “We want to figure out what are we missing that we can do better.”

There are several factors that go into why Triad has seen a dip in sports participation, according to Malone.

Reasons could be students not having good experiences in youth sports or, once they hit high school, they would rather work part-time than partake in school extracurricular activities.

Maruniak said she has regularly heard about students forgoing extracurricular activities for part-time jobs. Reasons for that, she said, point to economic uncertainty from the point of view of athletes and parents.

“I think a lot of our kids not only choose to work but have to work,” she said. “I’ve told Mr. Malone if we could pay athletes the same they’d get paid to work if they were on teams, I think they’d be here.

“I don’t think that is a Triad issue, I think that’s nationally,” she said.

“There are a number of reasons why participation numbers are down,” Malone said. “It is not just a ‘Triad’ thing.”

Malone informed the board of education there are three teams in the Ohio Heritage Conference that have junior varsity softball. He believes other schools are dealing with similar issues when it comes to fielding teams.

The athletic director has spoken with other schools in the area to gauge trends they are experiencing and how they are dealing with it.

“Nowhere is perfect,” Malone said. “There is not this ‘utopian school’ around that everything (is) going in the right direction… right now for us, we want to be better.”

Malone reiterated he wants parents of Triad students to know the athletic department is “working on something” to restore Cardinal pride in its team sports.

“We want people to know that the wheels are in motion,” Malone said.

Triad has had a lot of athletic director turnover in recent years.

Maruniak is eager to see the ideas that Malone and the soon-to-be-formed advisory board can outline to help build the sports culture at Triad.

The board will meet regularly on future dates to address the goals and ideas previously addressed to keep the ship steering in the direction the administration hopes to reach starting with the fall sports season.