RIVER FALLS – River Falls High School new activities and athletic director David Crail has settled into the job quite well after beginning the role at the start of July. Crail was hired to replace former RFHS activities and athletic director Rollie Hall after Hall retired at the end of June after 18 years on the job.

Crail had worked at RFHS for four years previously as a social studies teacher and as the head coach for the high school varsity football team. Prior to moving to River Falls, Crail had spent years teaching social studies at Northwestern High School in Maple, Wis.

“A few years ago, I got my masters with the intent of someday looking for an opportunity as an activities or athletic director, but I didn't necessarily intend for it to be now,” said Crail. “My family and I moved down here a little over four years ago from Maple, Wis. When we moved down here, our family just kind of fell in love with the area. We've enjoyed just getting to know the people in the community, the proximity to the Twin Cities with everything that it has to offer there, but still the small town feel that River Falls offers.

Teaching in a new community that Crail and his family love helped in his decision to apply for the role of activities and athletics director when the it opened up. Crail shared what the decision-making process was like for him and his family when they first discussed applying for the job.

“When Mr. Hall decided to retire, and that job opened our thought process as a family was, well, this was what we, you know, what I want to do later in my career, but if we don't necessarily throw our name in the hat and see what happens with it now, maybe we lose out on the opportunity of being able to do it in a place that we really love. So, we talked about it and made the decision to go for it. I was fortunate enough to be able to get this position,” said Crail.

The search for a new activities and athletics director began in the late winter this year as Hall wanted to give the district a good amount of time for the pool of candidates to be reviewed. The district’s ideal candidate was someone who was centered on students’ welfare, a leader with strong communication skills, integrity and an individual who not only wants to help empower students, but the greater River Falls community.

Kit Luedtke, principal of River Falls High School, spoke on why the RFHS administration is glad to have Crail as a successor to Hall.

“In his short tenure as a social studies teacher and head varsity football coach, David made a tremendous impact in the lives of students, athletes and families,” Luedtke said. “His greatest leadership trait is his attention to detail and intentional purpose to truly make the organization and people he serves better. We had several screening and interview committees as a part of our process along with a rubric in which David demonstrated strong traits.”

At Northwestern, Crail coached multiple high school sports including football, girls’ basketball, baseball and track and field. This certainly helped provide Crail experience for the role he now finds himself in. Yet on the activities side, River Falls has more to offer students than Northwestern did, simply based on enrollment size, which will provide new learning experiences for Crail when school resumes in the fall.

“This role is an activities director. It's the title,” Crail said. “There's a number of different things that are included with our student council opportunities, marching band, musicals and all of those things. I did some of that when I was at Northwestern such as the student council advisor and advisors to different groups. So, I have a little bit of experience in the activities’ realm of things, but not to the level of, of what River Falls has to offer because there's certainly so many things that we do here.”

Crail would like to see activity groups and participation increase for students.

“I would like to continue to increase the participation in the things that we have from an activity standpoint. I think that RFHS probably provides more opportunity to have growth because there's really no ceiling on what type of activities you can have in this size of a high school,” Crail said. “If a student comes in and they have a passion for a certain activity, we can explore our ability as a district to support a club and organization and get them an advisor that can help them look into that activity and maybe give them opportunities within the scope of that activity that they couldn't do themselves. We're adding a couple of different activities that some advisors have wanted to do this upcoming year, that's probably the area where we're going to be able to impact and give more students the ability to participate in something within our district.”

The two new student groups being introduced this fall are a chess club and a group for foreign exchange students attending RFHS. One of the projects Crail has already gotten rolling in his first full month as the new AD is updating the high school website for prep sports. Crail said the goal is to make the website more accessible to game/match/meet recaps for each sport.

Luedtke shared the hopes that he and the district have for Crail with this position.

“We hope that David continues on his path of servant leadership and contributes his committed time to students and families in the greater River Falls community,” Luedtke said. “As the RFHS building principal, I have had the pleasure of hearing from many of our parents, community members, advisement staff, coaching staff, and students who are extremely excited to work with our new activities director David Crail for many years to come.”

Photo by Theodore Tollefson