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Brown Cutchall honored in final year as AD


When Brown Cutchall began as an athletic director at Forbes Road in 2001, he was mostly concerned about making up the schedules and getting referees lined up for those contests.

"This job has certainly changed since then," Cutchall said recently.

After 16 years, Cutchall will be retiring from his position after this spring season.

And he will go out having won an award from the PIAA Athletic Directors Association, which recently named him the Region III Athletic Director of the Year. That region includes districts 5, 6, 9 and 10.

"It's time to move on," Cutchall said. "I retired from teaching last June and I stayed on to finish my term on the state AD board of directors."

Now he will have more time to spend with his wife Kathy on their farm near Hustontown, where they raise chickens, turkeys, guineas and geese.

While at Forbes Road, from which he graduated in 1978, Cutchall added softball and boys tennis as new sports (although tennis is no longer competing), and he helped form a co-op program with McConnellsburg for track & field.

The boys soccer team also has a co-op agreement with Tussey Mountain and there is a co-op with Everett for golf.

"It's a challenge at a small school like Forbes Road," Cutchall said. "The numbers are down in a lot of our sports, although we got 22 kids out for baseball and that's a really high number. We have a large group of 10-graders, but then behind them the grades are small. When we did the last report, we had only about 30 to 33 girls in grades nine through 11."

Prior to coming back to Forbes Road, Cutchall was a teacher and coach at Southern Fulton for 12 years. He coached girls basketball and softball, and his softball teams won five District 5 championships and numerous SIdeling Hill League titles. He was the P.O. Coach of the Year three times.

Cutchall has been a PIAA official in basketball and field hockey, he served on the District 5 committee for 15 years (he was the chairman at various times for golf, softball and basketball), is currently on the PIAA Board of Directors as the Junior High/Middle School representative, and also worked with the Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association.

"I'm proud of trying to do my best for the Forbes Road School District," he said. "I'm proud of all the sports here. I guess field hockey jumps out a little because my two daughters (Katie and Zoe, who is a sophomore) played, but I also remember 2004 when my son (Andrew) played on the first championship baseball team."

Cutchall said so much has changed since Larry Palmer, the former AD at Southern Fulton, encouraged him to become an athletic director.

"All those years when I coached softball, I never gave much thought to the scheduling," he said. "Now, I realize spring sports are the hardest to schedule. You schedule your games around your calendar, and the other schools have their own calendar, plus there are so many senior trips and events to deal with. And, of course, the weather is such a factor in the spring."

At least Cutchall knows he he has to go through that task only one more time.