Despite a 25 year-long career, this is a new beginning for Mr. Robbie St. John as the athletic director for Green Hope. With playing baseball and basketball to coaching, he has overall had a successful career across Virginia and North Carolina.
St. John grew up in Richmond, Virginia before attending Liberty University to play Division I baseball. He initially started his career with middle school basketball upon graduation from college. St. John elaborated on how he got his first full time job, “Basketball has always been my favorite sport to play, so the condition of me getting that middle school job was that I would take over their middle school basketball program.”
“I played basketball and baseball in high school, before that I ran the gambit of track and all the other things.” With basketball being his preferred sport to play, he also participated in track and field to improve his athletic performance.
He says how in addition to playing an abundant amount of sports, he also coached a variety of them, “Coaching wise it was basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball and golf only at the public high school level.”
“Then in college I went to play baseball and had an injury, so that squashed and then I ended up playing 2 years of college volleyball.” St. John explains.
Although he is looking forward to the upcoming basketball season, he intends to take a step back, being less involved with only the basketball program. Eight years ago, St. John moved to North Carolina where he began working as a basketball coach at Athens Drive. In the 2014-2015 season prior to his arrival– the basketball team did not win a single game, but during his tenure there, Athens Drive played in five state championships and won two conference championships. With multiple basketball players resulting in astounding success, many moved on to play at the collegiate level.
Earlier this year when the previous athletic director, Mr. Chad Smothers, announced his retirement, St. John saw the opportunity to become the head athletic director, ultimately seizing the chance.
Describing the factors that brought him to Green Hope, St. John says, “It was two fold, one this position coming open and getting to work with Mrs. Cleveland. We worked together at Athens Drive for a short time.”
He looks forward to cultivating the incredibly rich and committed athletic environment at Green Hope as he has done at many schools before. St. John states how part of his desire to become an athletic director was taking a step back from coaching, stating, “It’s probably a good time for me to take a break from the coaching and the day to day grind.”
As the head athletic director, St. John bears the responsibility for ensuring that all of Green Hope’s athletic programs hold their daily practices efficiently and coordinate all home games and transportation to away games.
With this new role, he looks forward to coordinating all of the athletic programs as a whole.
“There are things coming up that people haven’t seen and it’s going to be amazing for Green Hope.”
