Mike Erickson
Well Folks, with YCN Sports in our fourth year broadcasting games for the schools of Shepherd, Huntley Project and now Skyview, we’ve come a long way since our first broadcast in 2019! Can you believe it’s been that long with YCN Sports & Radio? This 2022-2023 sports season has been long and busy with 100 Fall sports games we broadcasted and over 116 games so far for basketball season, and we still have state tournaments this week to broadcast for Skyview girls’ and boys’ teams as well as Huntley Project girls’. Our broadcasters Anderson McNiven, Pappy, Chad, Dave Riley, Andy Schwab and I deal with a lot of athletic directors.
Imagine how many athletic directors we deal with from around the region on a consistent basis. I did not know how much work goes into being an athletic director in order for the kids to play sports, use the gyms, plan schedules, and run the events smoothly. For that reason, we, at YCN Sports, created the YCN Sports Athletic Director of the Year Award to recognize those great athletic directors and all they do (not only for the schools) but also to highlight those we truly think do a great job!
With that, YCN Sports awarded Mike Erickson, Athletic Director of Lockwood School District, with this year’s Athletic Director of the Year Award last Thursday at a tournament Lockwood was hosting for the Class C schools.
This is Erickson’s third year as the new athletic director for Lockwood, and he has been instrumental in getting the new school sports programs all set up as the school was built and classes started for the high school. Erickson has had to start from scratch in creating many different sports programs, hiring coaches, scheduling gym and game times, getting all those workers for games, scheduling referees, rescheduling games and gym time, as well as dealing with parents, coaches, and anything associated with a brand-new school sports programs and starting them from the bottom up.
In fact, one of the commitments that was made to the community of Lockwood when the community supported the $49 Million addition for the high school was that the school administration would use the new state of the art school and facilities to attract activities, tournaments, special events and more from outside the community to help support the community for many different reasons.
Erickson was instrumental in starting the Class B Tip Off Tournament each year for basketball teams kicking off their seasons with a tournament in Lockwood. Lockwood has also won bids to host basketball and other tournaments throughout the year.
Those many events that are scheduled at Lockwood also increases revenue for the school, community, local businesses, and more within Yellowstone County. In fact, I learned that Lockwood did so well at their tournament last December that they were able to give $1,000 to each team that attended to offset their costs and the school was still able to make some money to offset their own community expenses.
Erickson was able to get a tour of the facilities and learn all that goes into a new school and the logistics of new sports programs that occur during the same season. With so many positive changes that spotlights the Lockwood kids and uplifts the school and community in the public eye needs to be recognized on Mike’s behalf.
In addition, Erickson is very positive, receptive to work with and upbeat. He is such a delight to work with as a person that is genuine, positive and respectful at all times.
The athletic directors not only spend so much time scheduling the gym for their own school practices and games, but also for other community events. In addition, Mike schedules the times and events for the NFHS network for those who want to watch the events remotely due to distance, time, and/or unable to make the games. Erickson has to deal with unruly parents/fans and/or kids, but I’ve seen him act in very uplifting and positive ways that reflect on the school in a very good way. All of that on top of his regular job at the school, plus, Mike has been a Montana High School Referee for a number of years so he has taken a lot of time away from his family in order to help support the school and kids which needs to be recognized.
For those reasons (I’m sure there are many more), Mike Erickson was awarded the YCN Sports Athletic Director of the Year Award at last week’s basketball tournament games.
Congratulations to Mike Erickson! Lockwood is lucky to have someone like him that supports the school and community while also participating in everything else you do each year. It’s people like Mike that make our communities great!
Please help me in thanking and congratulating Mike Erickson as YCN Sports Athletic Director of the Year recipient this year!
Keep up the good work!
Until then, see you in
the paper.
JDM
