National Merit Award presented to Nodaway Valley’s Huff

GREENFIELD — Retiring Nodaway Valley athletic director David Huff was presented the 2015 State Award of Merit by the Iowa High School Athletic Directors Association (IHSADA) March 29 during the state conference for athletic administrators in Coralville.

This award is provided annually by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) for recognition of meritorious dedication to high school and middle school athletics.

Huff has worked 34 years in education, including 26 as an athletic director.

Only 27 Iowans have received this honor since 1989, including Curt Olson of Creston in 2003 and longtime Atlantic AD Rollin Dyer in 1993. Dyer was a former teacher and coach in Creston.

Huff, 56, plans to retire from education on June 30 from his roles of athletic director and technology instructor.

“I plan to stay active with the AD association’s executive board, which I’ve been on for nine years now,” said Huff, president of the association in 2010-11. “I’m involved in the historian aspect, doing the awards and keeping the history.”

Online instructor

Huff has also hooked up with the NIAAA learning institute, known as LPI, serving as an online teacher for classes taken by those seeking a master’s degree in athletic administration.

Huff and wife Kendalyn, Nodaway Valley’s cheerleading and dance team advisor, are the parents of six children, including two daughters in eighth and sixth grades.

“Kendalyn has basically raised four kids by herself, and we still have two that I can help with a little more now,” Huff said. His wife works full-time as a supervisor with Support Services of Central Iowa.

Huff was able to finish his career where he began in education — as a student at Greenfield and 1977 graduate. He had three previous stops after graduating from Westmar College.

He began as a math teacher at Fremont-Mills, where he also served as head football coach, head softball coach, and assistant girls basketball coach for four years.

He was a consumer math teacher and head football coach at Wilton in eastern Iowa, becoming athletic director in his fifth year there (1991). Huff was in Wilton 12 years total, eight as an athletic director, before returning to his southwest Iowa roots.

In the fall of 1997, Huff became athletic director at East Union, where he was also head girls track coach and head softball coach. He initially taught math classes before becoming a technology instructor.

NV beginnings

Greenfield and Bridgewater-Fontanelle had shared activities for many years, but came together in 2000-01 to form the Nodaway Valley school district. That first year Huff came on board as athletic director. He also served as head boys soccer coach for four years after the previous coed program branched into separate boys and girls squads, with the girls sharing a program with West Central Valley and Adair-Casey to form the “Valley girls” team.

Besides state championships in cross country and boys basketball, state tournament appearance by the softball team, football playoffs and other achievements on the athletic field, Huff has directed a program that has undergone several facility upgrades.

The track was resurfaced, and the stadium had an overhaul that included new bleachers, new concession area, new press box and video scoreboard. Scoreboards were also installed in the gym as well as the softball and baseball fields.

“It’s been a phenomenal run,” Huff said last week. “I give my coaches all the credit. They’re in the trenches doing the work. I just oversee and let them do their thing. One of my goals was to build a total athletic program, not just one or two sports, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that.”

Huff, who has handled much of public address announcing for local games, said another goal attained at Nodaway Valley was high academic standards in athletics.

“A goal of mine was to have 100 percent of our teams get the excellence in academic achievement award, and last year we got that,” Huff said. “Our coaches have bought into that. I told them, these are student-athletes, and the student part comes first.”

Huff said he was influenced in his philosophies of leadership by some of his early mentors, like Greenfield High coach Bob Daut and Ray Leto, the school’s principal and athletic director at the time.

Later, several eastern Iowa colleagues and Curt Olson in Creston became people to learn from as his career advanced.

“Once you get into that organization (athletic directors association), it’s like a family,” Huff said. “The ADs are all working together on scheduling, getting officials and those kinds of things. We help each other out.”

One of his highlights was getting the opportunity to hire Daut as a coach when NV needed a football coach in 2005, and he took it over for a year before current coach Steve Shantz took over.

“Not many guys get to hire the Hall of Fame coach they played for in high school,” Daut said. “I volunteered that year. One of my lifetime goals was to coach with him. That year, I think all but one of us on staff had played for him at one point or another.”