Hawks eyes future as Nevada's new AD

Wednesday, June 2, 2021
Photo by Hank Layton | Daily Mail Sports Reporter

When David Hawks was a student at Nevada High School, he always took the long way to the wrestling room.

He could have cut through Wynn Gymnasium, of course, but that was where John McNeley, the boys head hoops coach at the time, was conducting his practices.

“He was the basketball coach and I was a wrestler, so we didn’t mingle a whole lot. I would never dare walk through his basketball practice,” said Hawks, a class of 2005 graduate who, now 35 and having coached the NHS wrestling team for five seasons, will take over as athletic director of the school district, a position previously held by “Coach Mac” since 2014. “I got to know him a little bit then, but not really until I came back where we formed a really good relationship. He was obviously a mentor, someone I looked up to, but he was a great friend to not only me but to all the coaches.”

McNeley, the winningest basketball coach in program history, died unexpectedly in March, just days after the completion of the 2020-2021 winter sports season — which included wrestling.

Hawks was one of several coaches who used his free time in the spring to help fulfill various high school and middle school athletic department duties, eventually interviewing for the permanent position. He was officially hired, effective July 1, after a 5-0 vote at the March 12 Nevada R-5 Board of Education meeting.

In his soon-to-be old office in the wrestling room on Tuesday, Hawks (whose new office will be in the administrative part of the high school building) said he learned a lot from — and about — McNeley after returning to NHS to coach the wrestling team.

“I was kind of shocked when I started opening up to him and he started opening up to me. We got to know each other on a whole different level. Obviously, I knew who he was and he knew who I was. But through that first semester, my first year back home, we really started to form a good relationship, and he helped me out a lot,” said Hawks, who added most of his and McNeley’s conversations revolved around his wife, Hannah, and their three-year-old son, Eldon, as well as McNeley’s wife, Jodie, and children, Morgan, Myles, Logan, and Lane. “That’s one of the biggest things he taught me: you’ve got to love your family. Some of our last conversations were after the Logan-Rogersville game that we won here. He’s quoted to a lot of people that that was the best night of his life. To be able to have a little bit of sharing of that moment with him means a lot.”

While Hawks has spent plenty of time looking back on his time as a coach at Nevada, he’s also been looking forward to his future there as its AD.

“I don’t think you really understand what all goes into being an athletic director. Everyone thinks it’s scheduling and that’s it, right? But there’s a lot more. And I certainly don’t know it all. I’m trying to figure it out as we go here,” said Hawks, whose first responsibility will be finding a new head wrestling coach, a position he stepped down from in order to focus on being the AD. “There’s a lot of behind-the-scene things that go on that need to be done, but I’m thankful to have the opportunity. I think there’s no doubt I will miss coaching. When I started my educational career, I wanted to be a wrestling coach and didn’t have anything past that. I wanted to be the wrestling coach at Nevada High School. To be able to have that opportunity was a huge honor for me, and it will be something that I’ll miss. But I know this is a good opportunity for me and my family. This is the next step that makes sense to maybe serve a bigger purpose here.”

Hawks, who earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and master’s and specialist degrees from Arkansas State University, added that he will still visit the wrestling room when his schedule allows it, and he will attend every competition he can. He’ll need to, in order to ensure he’s fulfilled his chief duty as the AD.

“As the athletic director, we want to be competitive within the Big 8 Conference across the board with all of our sports,” said Hawks, before echoing another lesson learned from his mentor, McNeley. “We’ll hold our coaches to a high standard to coach more than just athletics. Our coaches do a great job of that. We want coaches to not coach kids but coach young men and young women. And I think we do a good job of that at Nevada.”

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: