Throughout the 20 years that Dominion has been open, there have only been three Athletic Director’s in total. Two months ago, Darrell Wilson became the newest one, starting on July 1st, 2022, and in his short time in the position so far, he’s already making big changes and you’ve probably heard it. 

Friday night’s football game saw the arrival of new music and sound effects, from a new system called Neptune. Wilson said, “Neptune is an online music service that provides access to copyright protected music that the company provides.”

Going forward, Neptune can be found during games held in the gym and football field. “We’re hoping to be able to bring that to all our venues, whether in the stadium, in the gym, baseball, softball, and integrate that into the fan experience,” Wilson said. 

Wilson is also working to keep up the student engagement during Dominion home games with different games or prizes during the second half. “We’re trying to come up with some creative ways to try to keep students engaged in the second half, particularly with some giveaways, and some fun game kinds of things that we might be able to do, so we’re looking at some options there. We don’t have anything concrete yet, but maybe for homecoming, at least we’ll try to have some things we can roll out,” Wilson said. 

Another goal of Wilson’s is to learn more about both the athletes and the culture of Dominion. Wilson said, “I’m there, behind the sideline and [I have] had a couple conversations with a couple of athletes every once in a while. I want them to know that I’m accessible, and that I’m going to talk to them when I feel like I can and need to.” 

Wilson encourages more students to come out to home games and to fill D-Block. “I hope that everybody comes out to all the games and supports our students. I’ve been really excited about the student involvement with the D Block. I think D Block is a great group, and you know, we should encourage them to build their numbers and invite more students,” Wilson said. 

At the end of last year the gym received new scoreboards, new lights, and over the summer a new speaker system was also put in. Wilson mentioned that the stadium is being looked at for potential upgrades as well. “We’re looking at, obviously, the stadium because that’s our first facility that we’re using now,” Wilson said. “Some facelift kinds of things.” 

Despite overseeing all of the sports played at Dominion, Wilson was confident about his favorite part of the job. Wilson can often be seen around at home games on the sidelines, cheering our teams on. “I really missed getting to watch our athletes compete. And so I’ve really loved getting to be back at more, more games, more competitions. I missed that when I was away from it,” Wilson said. 

“It’s been great. I’ve had a lot of support from the administration, from coaches, and the assistant director, Ms. Gasser, has been phenomenal at teaching me how we do things at Dominion. So it’s just been great,” Wilson said.