BELOIT — After taking a few remaining vacation days, Jon Dupuis will wind up his tenure as Beloit Memorial High School Athletic Director on Friday.
He’s busy this week closing on his house and planning a move to Sturgeon Bay where he will soon wear three hats: part-time athletic director, physical education teacher and head football coach.
His hiring there was approved in February and that last responsibility was added recently.
“Their head coach resigned earlier this month and they needed someone,” Dupuis said.
With 11 years of coaching experience, including a stint as head coach for the Purple Knights from 2011-14, that someone became Dupuis. At least he will be the school’s answer for 2024 while he wears an interim tag.
“It sure wasn’t something I expected, but we’ll see how things work out,” he said.
Hopefully, better than what transpired for Dupuis at his alma mater since he was hired in May, 2022.
Given the opportunity to discuss his experience as AD here, Dupuis respectfully declined. That wasn’t unexpected either. He has too much class and professionalism to level any potshots on the way out and he’s too straight a shooter to sugar-coat the situation.
Still, his decision to leave Beloit Memorial speaks volumes.
After all, this was always Dupuis’ dream job. To be honest, supporters (including this reporter) thought the job was his in 2018 when the school administration instead hired Joel Beard.
Disappointed, Dupuis took the athletic director position at Edgerton High School. He served in that capacity for six years, but he never forgot his hometown.
When Beard resigned to become AD at McHenry High School, Dupuis left the Crimson Tide to take over a Beloit Memorial position he knew faced a number of issues. It was a gamble, but a risk he was willing to take.
A bulldog of an athlete always willing to take a challenge head-on, Dupuis seemed the perfect choice to, as one past AD put it, “put the knight back on the horse.”
When he was hired, Dupuis said he “wanted to make sure Beloit was ready to make some changes over time to give kids the positive high school experience and opportunities like I had growing up. Edgerton was great, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to go back to my hometown. I have always bled purple so I’m excited about getting started.”
He may still bleed purple, but he’ll do it in Door County.
No one worked harder than Dupuis to fight for the changes he thought needed to be made at Beloit. No one is more disappointed than he that a whole lot of those changes never came to pass.
Plain and simple, that’s the reason he’ll be coaching the Clippers in the Packerland Conference, hoping to qualify for the WIAA Division 5 playoffs for a third straight season. Well, that’s what we can surmise anyway. The stability everyone expected to see with Dupuis ended up being just another short stint in a revolving door of ADs.
I’ve heard Beloit Memorial described as a “sleeping giant” and that it can return to its past glory when it was a conference contender in nearly every sport. Well, they have the “sleeping” part right.
There are some programs that have been solid or on the rise. Brad Dement has a firm hold on football if not the depth it takes to win consistently and Todd Marks has been a tremendous addition for boys basketball. Soccer is routinely competitive and Beloit always churns out some terrific individual swimmers.
Overall, though, Beloit needs to regroup in some areas with fresh leaders. It needs to find young, qualified, energetic coaches who will guide programs through major rebuilds. That’s no easy task for even the most experienced of ADs. Of course it will help if the administration rewards those leaders — and that AD — with the best support possible. That’s a big “if.”
Dupuis did his best to try to raise expectations, raise consciousness in the community and raise money for his programs. There were some success stories, but ultimately he is leaving with many of his goals unfulfilled.
That’s disappointing for anyone who knows Jon Dupuis. But it’s also disappointing for anyone who follows the Purple Knights. The bad news is this job isn’t getting any easier.
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