Dunkirk hears updates on athletics program

OBSERVER Photo by Ashleigh Brown
Dunkirk’s Kingston Hall attempts to break a tackle against Lake Shore last September.

Andrew Burnside, Dunkirk City School District’s athletic director, offered a newsy summer break update at the recent city Board of Education meeting. Among other things, the girls’ varsity volleyball team will move back to the main gym and is hosting a new tournament.

Burnside started with some data about the sports programs: 366 athletes played for 42 teams in 2023-24, representing about 40% of the student population. Male and female athletes were almost equally split, with 184 females and 182 males.

Some 318 of the athletes passed all classes. Nine of the 12 who failed three or more classes did not finish their seasons.

Looking ahead, Burnside said the Varsity Club will return in 2024-25. The district is also creating assistant coaches that work across levels. “Teams are good in the short term but programs are continuously good,” he said.

Dunkirk’s seventh- and eighth-grade football team will come under full district control, with the addition of an assistant. “That’s our way to try to get these kids to buy into our athletics programs a little bit more,” Burnside said. “It is not anything against our current Dunkirk Midget program. Amanda DeGolier runs a wonderful program, it really does (instill) a lot of morals, ethics and skills in these athletes. But this just gives our varsity coaches two,extra years to work on the game plan that they’re working for, the schemes that they’re working for.”

Sanding, painting and other work on the main gym floor will allow the girls varsity volleyball team to play games there, instead of at the auxiliary gym.

The Dunkirk district will host its first-ever volleyball tournament during the 2024-25 season. It’s called the Routes 5 & 20 tournament and is set for Sept. 7. Teams from Dunkirk, Silver Creek, Brocton, Westfield, Forestville and Cassadaga Valley are set to play. Burnside said Fredonia was asked to play but could not make it due to a scheduling conflict, so Cassadaga Valley was invited instead.

Some other news from Burnside’s update:

— This summer’s morning lap swim program for adults had zero participants its first week but now has five or six people when it is offered.

— Fall sports registration starts Friday. Sports physicals are Aug. 8 at the high school.

— The homecoming varsity football game is Oct. 11. The annual matchup with Fredonia is at the Orange Bowl Oct. 25.

— Burnside wants to condense the athletics policy to remove redundancies.

— The process for getting varsity “D” letters will be tightened. Team members will no longer automatically get them, “We want this to be something earned, not just given,” Burnside said.

— The district will do a college athletics signing day for all students rather than have individual events. “We’re going to make this into a big deal,” Burnside said. It would allow coaches and family time to plan attendance and a luncheon or dinner will be offered after the event to further recognize the athletes, he said.

— Burnside wants to revamp the displays of athletics accomplishments at the high school entrance. He wants to digitize much of what’s there and put it on a website linked to a Marauders Wall of Honor. The site could even host digital copies of old yearbooks.

“Try to highlight the best of the best things. If we have a state champion team, that deserves to be hung on the wall,” he said. “But if you go through our trophy cases right now, we have some stuff that is — it’s an awesome accomplishment, but we need to create space for our future accomplishments as well.”

Burnside said “if we started on this soon,” the area near the entrance could be finished and reopened in late March.