By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

Liberty High’s new athletic director, Danielle LaPoint, already has had a hectic initiation period and school doesn’t begin until next week.

She was in Ocala just days after being hired to attend a Florida High School Athletic Association seminar, then early last week she attended an Osceola County athletic directors gathering to learn about new programs being installed by Ryan Adams, who was named the county’s athletics coordinator in June.

LaPoint loves the action.

“It was my goal to do this,” she said while taking a brief break from her duties last week on the Liberty campus. “I believe in the student athlete, with the emphasis on student.”

Liberty Principal Robert Studly said that he selected LaPoint to replace Scott Birchler, who moved to Osceola High last month, because she stood out among a field of very good applicants.

“We interviewed eight outstanding candidates, but the committee, which included some of our coaches, believed Danielle was the best choice and I accepted their recommendation,” Studly said. “Danielle has been with us since the school started, and she is a very enthusiastic and dynamic individual. I’m extremely happy that she will have the job.”

Adams, who replaced Mike Brizendine as the county’s athletic director, sat in on the interviews at Liberty and was impressed with LaPoint.

“I think they made a good decision. They had a good process there to determine who should get the job, and she did a great job of describing her vision for it,” Adams said.

LaPoint, 27, coached flag football three seasons at Liberty and worked with the freshman football team in 2007.

“A lot of those players are seniors now,” she said. “We’re going to have a very good football team.”

LaPoint’s emphasis will be to prepare the school’s athletes for success in their future careers, whether or not that involves college.

“The most important thing is for us to be able to proudly advocate for our students when they leave our program, that we helped those students become everything they can be,” she said.

LaPoint, a native of Albany, N.Y., came to Florida about five years ago and spent one year at Horizon Middle School before she was hired by former Liberty Principal Gary Preisser. She developed an interest in athletics through her parents, she said.

“We’re very proud of our athletic program. We have excellent people here. Scott Birchler worked very hard to get us to this point, and my goal is to build on that,” she said. “I was very happy to see after our meetings that Ryan Adams and I are on the same page about many things, and that some programs that I had initially considered installing over a period of several years may in fact be condensed.”

Adams said he will soon announce a variety of changes at the county level that will benefit local athletes and their families.

LaPoint, who holds a master’s degree in health education, is working on a doctorate in athletic administration, she said.

She is working now to fill the coaching staff. Liberty needs a baseball coach to replace Birchler, a flag football coach and a tennis coach.

One of the changes Adams made after taking the county job is that no athletic director will coach a sport, so LaPoint surrendered her flag football coaching job.

“There’s so much to do (as the athletic director), it really isn’t practical to coach a team,” she said.

Adams said athletic directors who coach now will be grandfathered in. Adams was the athletic director  at New Dimensions High before accepting the county job.