Niles North Athletics Starting to Take Shape

In the past, you could have called Karl Costello a jack-of-all-trades.

About 10 years ago, Costello, 56, began his career at Niles North High School where there was no formal athletic director. As the "director of physical well-being," Costello was responsible for the physical education, health and driver's education programs.

And that was on top of directing the athletics program.

But the athletic culture has changed and improved rapidly, Costello said. And now Megan Wojtulewicz has been hired as the school's first assistant athletic director in its history.

"The main reason for this is that the expectations for athletics have increased within the district," Costello said. "We're doing a lot of things that we weren't doing 10 years ago."

Even more interesting is how Wojtulewicz heard about the job opening.

In her spare time, Wojtulewicz enjoys playing roller derby for the Windy City Rollers.  It just so happened that her friend, an English teacher at Niles North,  sent her an e-mail about the opportunity.

Wojtulewicz's passion for athletics can be traced back to growing up in Brookfield, where she ran track and cross-county while also playing softball at Riverside Brookfield High School. It was there that she set multiple school records in the triple jump and the 400-meter relays.

"Sports were always something that was a part of who I was growing up," said Wojtulewicz. "I went to college and decided, 'Hey, I want to coach.'

"I started volunteer coaching at the local high schools in college and I coached the three years I was teaching at Riverside Brookfield doing track and cross country," she said.

After majoring in physical education and health at Eastern Illinois University, Wojtulewicz, 30, set out to make athletics her full-time job. She moved into the Chicago Public Schools system at South Shore High School and started teaching physical education.

During her second year at South Shore, Wojtulewicz took over the athletic program, but was soon recruited to be the athletic director at Fenger High School as part of CPS's "Turnaround" program.

While Wojtulewicz was technically the athletic director at Fenger, her responsibilities read more like Costello's old position at Niles North.

"If you know how the Chicago Public Schools work, there are very few full-time athletic directors and I was one of them," Wojtulewicz said. "However, athletics were not my only responsibility as I had to manage all the activities that were unique to Turnaround [that] didn't really have to do with athletics."

After numerous rounds of interviews, Wojtulewicz was offered the job at Niles North and jumped at the opportunity.

Although her responsibilities will include some administrative work, including improving Niles North's athletics website and putting together the schedule for each team, Costello considers Wojtulewicz to be more of a "co-director" rather than an assistant.

"We weren't interested in having a manager," Costello said. "We needed another leader and she has outstanding leadership characteristics."

Hiring Wojtulewicz will help Costello continue to focus on the growth of community youth programs; something he said already takes up 50 percent of his time.

"We have to make sure that along with our zeal to develop youth programs, we don't fall down here at the high school," Costello said. "Therefore, we need someone full time here not only to assist, but also to lead."

And it seems that Wojtulewicz is more than ready – and capable – to do so. Drawing on her experiences, Wojtulewicz said she wants to recreate the atmosphere that she grew up with in Brookfield: a football stadium packed every Friday night.

"We really need to get the Niles North community - the people that pay the taxes and whose children go to the schools and participate in the athletics  - to buy in," Wojtulewicz said.

"That's the key to creating a true spirit and culture," she added, "that real 'Purple in my blood, I bleed purple, I am a Viking for life attitude.' "

Go to www.vikings219.org to visit Niles North's Athletics web site.