Northern Lebanon’s Scott Kyper does all the things that good athletic directors do

Scott Kyper is the leader of the department. He is a coach of coaches. He is a liaison between the school district and the community.

But first and foremost, as an athletic director, Kyper is a servant, a sports supporter, an advocate for adolescence.

Kyper wears many hats, and they all fit him very well. And there are a big, golden “N” and a big, golden “L” embroidered on each and every one of them.

“I am the face of Northern Lebanon athletics,” said Kyper, who’s been the school district’s athletic director for three years. “I am one of the more visible people in the district. But I have a ton of people who help me to continue to push forward. While I am the face, I’m just a piece of the puzzle. It’s a collective effort here. I have my role and other people have their roles. As long as everyone does their role, Northern Lebanon athletics looks really, really good.”

The job of an athletic director is a thankless one. Most people aren’t sure what athletic directors do because much of their work is administrative stuff performed behind the scenes.

It involves long hours, personal interaction, and constant challenges. But the rewards are out of this world.

“I think if you’re not living it and breathing it every day, it’s hard to know exactly what we do,” said Kyper. “People don’t have enough information to make an informed analysis of what athletic directors do. Every single day is different for me because there’s a different challenge.

“For me, I’ve been a sports fanatic for my entire life. For me, the most rewarding part of my job is seeing kids experience success and being able to celebrate victories with coach. There are not many things in my life that give me that tingling sensation like watching a student-athlete excel.”

Too numerous to mention in this format, some of the formal duties involved with being an athletic director include scheduling athletic contests, game management, making sure athletes meet eligibility requirements, financial management, and hiring and firing coaches. Through integrity, an unwavering work ethic, character and dedication, Kyper is able to put his own personal stamp on the duties of an athletic director and make the role his own.

“A large piece of being an athletic director is the leadership component,” said Kyper, a 44-year-old resident of Palmyra. “We want our programs to be setting examples for young men and women. We want to give kids skills to be contributing members of society. I also have to be fiscally responsible and make sure each team and each coach has what they need.

“I think it’s about providing the best possible experience, not just for student-athletes, but students in general. We have students who just want to plug in somewhere. If that involves being a student-athlete, then here’s what we got.”

Northern Lebanon School District provides 20 interscholastic athletic opportunities for students throughout the school year – five sports in the spring, seven in the winter and eight in the fall. During the 2024-25 school year, 530 student-athletes in grades 7 through 12 competed in sports at Northern Lebanon.

“It’s a mixture of kids,” said Kyper. “It’s kids who have been playing sports their entire lives. It’s kids who are trying something different. It’s kids who like the idea of sports and want to be part of a team. In any construct of a team, everyone has a role, and you need everyone on that team to fulfill that role to be successful.

“A lot of stuff that athletic directors do, people don’t know about. When you walk into a gymnasium, the game just happens. That’s not the case. You also want to try to provide the best role models for sports programs. We want to move our total athletic program forward.”

Athletics play an important role in the overall education experience at Northern Lebanon. There are lessons that can be learned through extracurricular activities like sports that can’t be taught in classrooms.

Just as important is the role that scholastic sports play in the Northern Lebanon community at large.

“Sports provide the benefit of physical and mental health, and skill development, and there’s a social aspect to it,” said Kyper, a graduate of Central Cambria High School. “There are so many life lessons to be learned within the construct of sports. It allows for individual growth and collective growth.

“It’s really about trying to identify areas where we can improve. Day in and day out, I have to be able to reflect, look at myself in the mirror and ask myself, ‘Did I do right by my student-athletes, so they can walk away with a feeling of success, of belonging and of camaraderie?’”

Over the years, as the role that athletics play in our society has changed, the role of athletic directors has evolved as well. Kyper holds multiple higher education degrees, from Juniata College, Pennsylvania Western University, Drexel, and Penn State.

“At the heart of it, you’ve got to have a heart for kids,” he said. “You’ve got to want to provide the best experience for student-athletes. If you want kids to succeed, then you’ve got to keep moving it forward. I’m going to continue to challenge myself to create the best possible experiences for the kids who want to be student-athletes at Northern Lebanon.”