Everett High athletic director Tammy Turner gets ready for new school sports year

New coaches, pilot program, football schedule changes highlight the 2024-25 calendar

By Joe McConnell

Summer vacation is over for Everett High School Athletic Director Tammy Turner. The games are the fun part, but now it’s all about the paperwork from the finalization of the sports and bus schedules to the completed players forms, which includes their medical and parental permission papers. They all have to be sorted out and checked for accuracy, before getting down to the business of touchdowns, goals and stopwatches.

However, when it’s all said and done, the Crimson Tide’s sports mission remains the same, according to Turner, and she spells it out this way: “Our mission is to develop young adults that excel both on and off the field. We want our student-athletes to understand the value of hard work and integrity and to apply those principles as students, athletes and leaders in our community.”

Going into any new high school sports season, optimism runs rampant. Dreams of winning titles will always be first and foremost in the athlete’s mind. But for Turner, the expectations go beyond the here and now. It’s all about Crimson Tide history.

“Our expectations have, and always will be high for our student-athletes and coaches,” she said. “Whether they are in class, on the field/court or out in the community, they all know the rich history and tradition that they represent.”

Turner has some help this year with the addition of Steve Gallagher to the athletic department. “(Gallagher) shares my philosophy on Everett Athletics, so that’s why I’m happy that he has been added to the team,” Turner said.

New Tide coaches this fall

Everett sports fans will see a couple of new faces along the sidelines this fall. Rodney Landaverde is now in charge of the boys’ soccer program, while Nicola Jones takes over field hockey.

The football team, under the direction of second-year coach Justin Flores, will sub-out three traditional Greater Boston League (GBL) rivals – Somerville, Malden and Lynn English – for Brockton, Taunton and Mansfield – for the sake of the Division 1 power rankings. Flores hopes to avoid last year’s disappointment of not making the playoffs with a team that lost just once.

Pilot program for basketball this winter

Starting with the basketball season this winter, the GBL is piloting a new format to give teams a better shot in the power rankings system. Depending on last year’s records, the top four teams will play each other twice, and the same goes for the bottom four. Each team will then play once against its counterparts in the other division to round out the schedule.

“This may or may not help with the power rankings,” said Turner. “We will discuss the results of it after the season is over.”

Football begins today

But in the meantime, the fall season kicks off today (Aug. 16) with football practice. All other EHS fall sports teams will begin their practices next week on Aug. 19. Student-athletes may still register online to play this fall at https://everetths-ar.rschooltoday.com/.