By Mike Deak
InkFreeNews

NAPPANEE – The hunt for a new athletic director at NorthWood High School is over.

Roman Smith

Roman Smith, currently the assistant athletic director at Warsaw Community High School, is making the jump back to the head chair. After one year as assistant to Matt Binkerd at Warsaw, NorthWood announced Smith as the replacement for Norm Sellers, who is retiring at the end of this school year. The announcement was made Monday night at the Wa-Nee School Board meeting.

Smith comes to NorthWood with four years of athletic administrative experience. His first three years he served as AD at Lakeland High School, where he helped oversee significant turnaround in several of its flagship programs. Last July, Smith was hired to assist Binkerd at Warsaw, where he has been part of the brains behind the marketing and promotion of the athletic department, as well as the usual day-to-day handling of officials, team constructs and public relations.

Sellers is retiring from athletic administration after decades of service in education-based athletics. The longtime coach, official and administrator announced earlier this spring he is retiring, where he served NorthWood for the past 14 years. Sellers leaves an office that has overseen two state championships, a host of state-level athletes and dozens of conference and sectional championships.

The Warsaw Athletics Twitter published Tuesday morning, “Congratulations to Roman Smith on his new position at Northwood! He has been an incredible assistant AD at Warsaw this past year and will be just as incredible at Northwood in his new role!”

WaNee School Superintendent offered on the hiring: “We are excited to welcome Mr. Roman Smith to NorthWood High School and our proud Panther family. During our interview process, Mr. Smith demonstrated a high level of knowledge in athletic leadership and an ability to build strong relationships with students, athletes, staff and our community. These traits were confirmed when we spoke with many past and current supervisors with whom Mr. Smith has worked. We are excited for our NorthWood High School student athletes, our coaches and our programs. We are confident, under Mr. Smith’s leadership, each program will uphold and build upon our “Tradition of Excellence”.”