“The real reason I wanted to become an Athletic Director is that I was not a fan of my coach growing up. I went in because I had a negative experience. I wanted to try and change that and be part of trying to help kids not have that when they’re coming up as well.’’ Sometimes a bad experience leads to something good; this is the case for Harwood’s athletic director Chris Langevin. If you haven’t met Chris before you might have seen him, he typically is found at Harwood sporting events standing tall with his radio by his side.

Chris has been working at Harwood for 5 years. His job is being the athletic director. His responsibilities are to organize the athletic department here at Harwood. There are many things that go into running an athletic department. These things include scheduling, hiring coaches, promoting programs and events, ordering equipment, constructing budgets, and facilitating operations. Athletic directors also often help fundraise events and supervise sports personnel. They try to develop the best sports teams in the state. 

As an AD Chris had to start somewhere. Growing up he played many sports, “I played soccer, baseball, and basketball coming up. Then when I got to high school, probably about 10th grade I focused a lot on basketball at that point. That was kind of my sport growing up.” As Chris continued to play sports he enjoyed, he still had to deal with his negative coach: “I thought that they favored certain teams, I thought that my coach didn’t have our best interests at heart and didn’t do certain things the right way. I wanted to become an AD to make sure that I didn’t end up in that role or didn’t end up going that way.” The negative experience that Chris had with his coach left a bad taste in his mouth, and he decided he didn’t want other kids to have to go through the same thing. 

After he graduated high school he went to college for sports. He spoke highly of the experience, stating,“I went to Springfield College in Massachusetts to do sports management. I started working in the athletic department at Springfield College and really enjoyed it.” After college, Chris continued his career in athletics.  He worked for Special Olympics Vermont for two and a half years before taking a job at South Burlington High School. When asked about his first AD job he said, “I got an offer to be an interim athletic director at South Burlington High School. After that year was over at South Burlington, I went to UVM. So that was how I got my foot in the door and then I interviewed here and ended up at Harwood.”

Chris had a lot of different experiences with sports before Harwood. He’s been at Harwood for 5 years now, but by no means does he have a normal schedule. Chris’s unique schedule revolves around the sports games each week. When asked about his wild schedule he said, “So it obviously depends on the games that we have. If we have home games on a Saturday, generally, I’ll be working six days Monday through Saturday, if we don’t have a home game on Saturday, then Monday through Friday.” Chris really likes his job and doesn’t mind the different hours, but he says there are also some parts that he doesn’t enjoy: “I mean, the tough part with this job is when issues arise somebody says something inappropriate in-game and you have to confront them about it. Talking to a student that’s not doing their schoolwork, maybe you have to sit them for a game for some reason. I’m not here to pull anybody from wanting to play the game or anything like that. I don’t want to pull anybody from a game.” There are always downsides to a job. For Chris, the downside is having to bench students for games. He takes no joy from having to bench students or to discipline them, but if a problem arises he will discipline the student accordingly. 

However, Chris realizes how supportive the Harwood community is. When it comes to supporting sports he’s noticed that Harwood is one of the best. When speaking about past championships Chris said, “just seeing that community kind of thrive and come together for our athletes is really cool.”

Chris has quite a few favorite memories from the time he has been at Harwood. One he shared was during the New Englands when a surprising amount of supporters showed up. “That’s not a close trip either. That’s still an hour and a half drive. But that to me, it was really cool to see that community every time we go to the championship, but specifically that one, just seeing that community kind of thrive and come together for our athletes is really cool.” Chris is happy to be at Harwood, and the school is beyond glad for his help.