The Riverside-Brookfield High School athletic department will be in experienced hands during the upcoming school year. Retired athletic directors Tom Domin and Dan Jones will serve as co-interim athletic directors this year, replacing Brendan Curtin who left the job this summer to return to the classroom.
Domin is familiar with RBHS. This will be the second stint as co-interim at RBHS for the former Willowbrook High School athletic director. From 2015 until 2018, Domin served with John Treiber as the co-interim athletic directors at RBHS after Art Ostrow left for Hinsdale South.
For one year after that, Domin mentored and helped Curtin during his first year as athletic director. This past spring Domin was back at RBHS for about six weeks working as a dean, filling in for Cara Weinberg who was on maternity leave.
Domin, 66, worked for 34 years at Willowbrook, including 14 years as athletic director, before retiring in 2015. He was a high school football star at Willowbrook, played football at the University of Notre Dame and played on Notre Dame’s 1977 national championship football team.
Domin, who has a strong relationship with Superintendent Kevin Skinkis and other administrators, will work two to three days a week.
“When you don’t have anything to do, sometimes it becomes a little bit like you’re trying to find stuff and now this is like you have an important two or three days that you know are full time and then you have a little bit of a break. It winds up being good and refreshing, but it doesn’t look like it’s a job,” Domin said.
Skinkis reached out to Treiber to see if he could help out again, but Treiber was unavailable.
But Dan Jones, who retired on July 1 from his position as the athletic director at Hinsdale Central, was available.
“He’ll be a good addition,” Skinkis said of Jones.
Domin doesn’t know Jones well, but Jones has a stellar reputation in the Illinois high school athletic community.
Jones has worked in education and athletics for 34 years, the last 11 as athletic director at Hinsdale Central. Under his leadership in the 2014-2015 school year, Hinsdale Central athletic teams won a remarkable seven state championships.
Before taking over at Hinsdale Central, Jones was the athletic director at DeKalb High School. Jones previously coached at St. Charles High School.
Domin and Jones will split the job, with Domin overseeing girls sports and Jones overseeing boys sports while sharing the day-to-day work and responsibility for overseeing events.
They both will be paid $600 a day. The school board approved hiring Domin at its July 10 meeting. Jones is expected to be officially hired at the school board’s Aug. 8 meeting and he will begin working in August. Jones could not be hired in July because of Teacher Retirement System rules.
Both Domin and Jones will receive their pensions while working at RBHS and can only work a certain number of days.
In addition to overseeing the athletic department this year, Domin and Jones will help in the search and interview process for a new permanent athletic director for RBHS. The search will get going in earnest in the fall.
