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Liberty's Jerry Carter says he didn't want to leave
The Three Stooges picture went with him.
Last Monday, Jerry Carter cleared out of the little office he spent 14 years in. Buried in the bowels of Liberty High, it was a second home to a man who gave everything he had to an Eagle athletics program he helped create in 1994.
After 28 years as a teacher, coach and activities director in Fauquier County, Carter, 53, recently moved over to Loudoun County to take the job as athletic director at Briar Woods High in Ashburn.
Carter accepted the job back in May, and started last week.
He was motivated, he said, by a Fauquier County School Board decision two years ago to demote the pay scale for Carter and Fauquier High activities director Allen Creasy. The two veteran administrators went from being classified as assistant principals on the high school level to assistant principals on the elementary school level.
Carter says the demotion hurt him personally and professionally. He feels the rationale was never explained.
"The change in salary scale initiated me looking for another job. If that had not happened I would still be at Liberty," said Carter.In Loudoun County, Carter is classified as an athletic director, meaning he is responsible for sports programs only, and not band or debate like he was at LHS. While he will be making more in salary and have such perks as a secretary and fields person, these are clearly bittersweet times for Carter, who wants county residents to know his conflicted feelings.
"That fact that after 12 years I was put on a different scale than the one I was hired necessitated trying to find employment somewhere else," Carter said.He said efforts were made over two years to restore the old status, including a discussion with the new superintendent.
Carter mentioned that he even went back to get his Master's Degree in Administration and Supervision in 2000, a step that some counties now require of ADs.
Nevertheless, Carter's memories are golden ones.
He can recall the first baskets Liberty's football, boys basketball and girls basketball teams scored. All had a common theme, he said.
"In girls basketball we scored off the opening tip, and in football off the opening kickoff. In boys basketball we scored off the tip on a dunk by Kevin Marshall," Carter said.Asked who tallied the first girls hoops and football points, Carter replied, "Tiffany Lewis and Wesley Cropp." Indeed, Cropp scored on an 85-yard kickoff return in a 37-0 win over Loudoun Valley in a game played at FHS since Liberty did not have home bleachers.
Carter downplays the role he had in making LHS sports a success. Under his watch, the school won several team and individual state titles, and added a new artificial surface football field funded primarily by Liberty alum Kip Hull.
Carter was instrumental in generating other contributions from the community for physical improvements, and emerged as a strong, forceful presence running the program.
A warm, gregarious figure oozing with Southern charm, Carter excelled at making friends and networking.
Nowadays, Carter is getting his feet wet at Briar Woods.
He says his new commute isn't so bad now that he lives in Warrenton. It still takes him about 45 minutes.
But the adjustment figures to be strange. Once a Fauquier County native, always a Fauquier County native, which is why Carter still feels some pangs of weirdness.
He says look for him at LHS, FHS and Kettle Run activities.
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