OHSAA Booster Summit

By Rachel Allenick

I recently had the opportunity to be part of the OHSAA Booster Summit in Dublin, OH and I wanted to share my experience with everyone. More than 300 superintendents, school treasurers, high school principals, athletic administrators and booster club officers attended this event that was designed to help schools identify how to best utilize boosters in support of interscholastic athletic programs. The OHSAA had to cut off registration a week before the deadline because they had reached their maximum number of attendees, which goes to show how successful this event was for the OHSAA.

I was very excited to be part of this event for a couple different reasons. For one, some of our state association sponsors target booster clubs and two, my father was an Athletic Director for a number of years so I understand how difficult it can be to run a successful booster club.  

The Booster Summit was broken up into different sessions and included speakers from the OHSAA and outside groups. We had the pleasure of hearing from Steve Beden, President of the Washington State Booster Club Association. He started off with his local booster club the same way most parents do…not knowing much and kind of being thrown into it since his kids played high school sports. He was able to take his experiences and turn it into lessons for others to use within their respective booster clubs. Steve covered the booster basics, fund raising, building and increasing support, booster club "dos and don’ts", as well as building strong relationships with alumni and school officials.   

Steve Craig, Attorney for the OHSAA, spoke about the booster legalese, compliance and structure and Jeff Jordan, OHSAA CFO, went over accounting practices and fundamentals. At the end of each session there was a question and answer time. There were some great questions asked and I believe people got the answers they were looking for.

In between sessions and at the end of the Booster Summit I had the chance to speak with some of the attendees and I heard nothing but positive feedback. Everyone was glad they were able to attend an event like this and were hoping the OHSAA would be willing to host more events similar to this one.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the Booster Summit, please feel free to call your state association representative at Home Team Marketing or your counterpart at the OHSAA.