Bone

Harry Rubin, Copy Editor

Bob Bone is one of the most familiar names at CHS, but what exactly does he do?

Bone is the athletic director at CHS, and this is his tenth year on the job. Before coming to CHS, he spent 28 years coaching at area colleges and high schools, spending the final 20 of those years coaching at Collinsville High School.

Collinsville was Bone’s alma mater, and in high school he was a standout basketball and baseball player. He would go on to play both of those sports at UMSL.

After spending 13 years as Collinsville’s athletic director, Bone, after talking to Clayton’s previous athletic director, made the move to CHS.

Bone’s days at CHS are long and can be hectic. Every day he arrives to the CHS athletic office around 7:15 and begins his work.

“The first part of the day is figuring out what happened the day before,” Bone said. “I catch up on our scores and the scores of the other teams in the conference.”

Staying on top of sporting events is a large part of Bone’s work.

“I check the schedule. I double-check the schedule. There’s a lot of double-checking, checking the official schedule, the official website,” Bone said.

The next portion of Bone’s day is devoted to solving problems.

“We tend to have a lot of problems on a daily basis,” Bone said.

In ten years of working as the CHS athletic director, Bone has run into some interesting problems.

“We’ve had players that have taken warmups off that haven’t had uniforms on underneath,” Bone said. “We’ve had people that have had very– Well, I can’t get into some of them.”

Bone devotes a large portion of his time to dealing with the individual problems that athletes face.

“I meet with students about academic issues. We’ve got the new 2.0 GPA, so I meet with the kids about academic support, talk to their parents about that,” Bone said.

Bone often goes outside of his athletic director responsibilities to coach individual athletes. Lately, he has been spending some days working with girl’s basketball players on their shooting.

“It takes me back to my coaching days, when I spent 28 years as a basketball coach. It’s something close to my heart,” Bone said.

As the school day begins to wind down, Bone shifts his focus to that evening’s events. He meets most coaches informally once a week to check on how things are going. On most nights he attends one or two sporting events.

“I’ll normally get home around 9:30 if we’ve got stuff in the evening. The days can be long, but it’s an enjoyable day,” Bone said. “When I know I’ll be here for 14 hrs, I’ll try to get a run in, get a workout in in the center. I think just sitting at a desk all day would wear me out more than anything.”

Though the job can wear him out, Bone still finds it incredibly rewarding.

“I enjoy the most watching our kids be successful. Success at Clayton is not measured in terms of winning and losing. When you see the success and impact our coaching has had on the kid’s life- not just here but as they move on, that’s what’s rewarding about this job,” Bone said.