Riverside Brookfield High School has hired a new athletic director who will begin working next summer.
On Jan. 9, the RBHS District 208 Board of Education unanimously approved the hiring of Filberto “Fil” Torres who serves as the athletic director at East Aurora High School. Torres’s title will officially be assistant principal for athletics. He beat out 34 other applicants for the position.
“We had multiple rounds of interviews and Fil rose to the top of being the best candidate for the position,” said RBHS Superintendent Kevin Skinkis. “We had a large committee that conducted interviews that included teachers, coaches, student athletes, some parents and Fil’s presentation of his credentials rose to the top.”
The interview committee also included all of the school’s top administrators and school board member Nicohlas Novak.
Torres will begin work at RBHS July 1 and his annual salary will be $128,500. This year, RBHS has co-interim athletic directors, Tom Domin and Dan Jones, who are both retired athletic directors. Last summer, former athletic director Brendan Curtin stepped down and returned to the classroom as a PE teacher so that he could spend more time watching his teenage children play sports and also be an assistant football coach at Immaculate Conception High School, where his son is a football player.
Unlike most previous permanent athletic director hires at RBHS, Torres is an experienced athletic director, having been the athletic director at East Aurora for the past six years. He has worked at East Aurora for the past 12 years and before that, was the varsity basketball coach and athletic director at Lincoln Park High School. Before moving into administration at East Auroa, he was a PE and drivers education teacher and lower-level basketball coach.
Torres is very familiar with the Upstate 8 Conference which RBHS is joining next year as it expands to 14 teams. East Aurora is charter member of the Upstate 8 which was formed in 1963 and currently supervises boys basketball for the Upstate 8.
“I don’t think it hurt me that I have the relationships with the conference and I kind of know how the conference runs and everything,” Torres told the Landmark in a telephone interview. “I think that can only be a benefit to our students and our coaches because it’s obviously going to be a pretty big change from where they were at.”
Torres said that he is excited about coming to RBHS.
“My initial reaction when I got the call was beyond grateful and excited to be named the next AD,” Torres said. “I know that RB has a long history and tradition, kind of similar to my current school. I truly looking forward to meeting students, parents, staff members, coaches, getting to build those relationships that I’ve kind of built over my time at East Aurora.”
Torres grew up in Lisle and attended Naperville North High School. He was a starting guard on a sectional championship basketball team in 1998. After graduating from Naperville North in 1999, Torres attended the University of Arizona where he was a walk-on basketball player for legendary coach Lute Olson. He was the point guard for the scout team in practice and played in 24 games in his career, averaging 0.7 points per game.
“I only played when we were 35 points ahead,” Torres said.
After serving as an assistant athletic director at East Aurora, Torres said he decided that sports administration was the perfect job for him.
“One of those things where you kind dip your toe in and you find out you like it and I don’t see myself doing anything else besides being an athletic director,” Torres said.
East Aurora High School has about 3,900 students. Torres said that he is looking forward to working at a smaller high school.
“That’s going to be a welcome adjustment on my end to be able to get to know more people and to get to know students,” Torres said.
When he begins work next summer, Torres said that he wants to take things slow and observe how things work at RBHS.
“I’m not going to come in and change things on Day One,” Torres said. “It’s definitely going to more of a learning process and get to know you for at least for the first couple months and see how things are run.”