Coach Moff has a positive impact on every sport

By Joshua Diaz ’27

DHS Athletic Director Jenn Moffat is also the assistant coach for the girls softball team. Her job as athletic director does not receive much recognition, but she has to be involved with every sport. She has to do things like prepare staff for games and make sure others are prepared like the ambulance for the football games. Her job is also involved with Derby Middle School and the two elementary schools.

She has been a part of Derby athletics for 32 years as a player and coach; she spent 27 years as assistant coach for the derby varsity softball team. She is also the organizer for the Powderpuff game and is assistant coach for the girls varsity football team and has won many awards, such as assistant softball coach of the year and a recipient of the Griffin Hospital “Women Making a Difference in the Valley” award. 

Her first goal this year is “to bring back our Class Act Council here in the building… we’re a Class Act school with CIAC, meaning we lead by example and we just recently picked 8 new members of our Class Act Council, something we had in existence prior to COVID and it kind of went away. These students are tasked with leading the school with sportsmanship.” Another one of her goals is for the athletes to focus more on their grades. She said, “We want everyone to be student first, athlete second.” 

The way she plans events is through a league schedule. She has to look for out of conference games and scrimmages as well as looking for staff, police presence, and security for football games and other sports. She also has to plan around other schools and sometimes needs to contact them due to a field- use issue or bussing, etc. She is on the same page with the other athletic directors, meeting once a month to talk about what they see around them. 

Students and coaches are able to communicate with her due to issues of scheduling, but she says it’s not too common. Her biggest struggle as athletic director is busing, sometimes needing to utilize other companies costing the schools budget a lot more due to low staff of bus drivers.

 I asked students how they felt she affected the school. One felt her methods were slow, referring to the long wait for there to be a volleyball team and league even though she was the one who started it. Another student said she keeps the sports organized. One of the athletes I asked didn’t even know who she was. Ms. Moffat’s role in DHS is very important but goes underappreciated by many of the students.