Mollenkopf resigns at Caston athletic director

Blake Mollenkopf has stepped down as the athletic director at Caston after two years at the post.

Mollenkopf turned in his letter of resignation at Wednesday’s school board meeting.

He said it was “a phase of life decision.”

“I have four children ages 5 years old to 12,” Mollenkopf said. “The athletic director job requires a lot of time after school. I’ve been away from them for a lot of their activities.

“It’s mostly a family move.”

Mollenkopf, 37, said he will teach elementary physical education, grades K-5, beginning next school year. He will also continue to coach the Caston varsity baseball team.

“I’ll continue to coach and obviously that will loosen me up to be more involved with football at the lower levels and basketball at the lower levels,” he said.

Mollenkopf said he will be taking a pay cut with his changing of job titles. He did not want to say how much.

“An athletic director with working extra days and a stipend for extra time, an athletic director typically has a higher salary than a teacher does,” he said. “Financial things were not an influence in my decision. To be honest with you time is a more valuable commodity than money is. I’ll have more time needed to spend with family. I’ll have time to dedicate myself more to baseball and coaching. That’s overall more valuable to me per say than salary at this point.”

Mollenkopf was hired in 2016 as Caston’s athletic director after Debb Stevens retired after 25 years at the post. Stevens now helps Logansport athletic director Brian Strong as an administrator at LHS. Her official title is Fall, Winter, and Spring Supervision, although she helps with other various tasks within the athletic department voluntarily. Her position is part time.

Mollenkopf was previously a second grade teacher at Caston. He has coached the Caston baseball program the last 12 years and has averaged about 15 wins per season. He won the program’s first sectional title in 2012.

He added his current contract as athletic director runs through June 30.

“I’m sure they’ll go through the process of posting the position and in a couple of weeks begin the interview process,” he said, adding he expects the job to be filled at either the May or June school board meeting.

“I’ll stay on and help transition the new person. After that I’ll step back and teach PE and continue to work at Caston in that capacity.”

He said he had an administrative assistant title at Caston as well as being the athletic director, and that he’s assuming the new position will be similar.

“I very much wanted to be the athletic director. It was a great opportunity to guide the athletic program the last two years,” he said. “Evaluating things in my life, I keep faith first, family second and my job third. When those priorities get out of that order, I decided I needed to make an adjustment for my life to stay in that order.”