Del Van Cox, who is in his third year as the Assistant Director of Athletics for the Abilene ISD, was selected by the Texas High School Athletics Directors’ Association as the Region 2 Athletics Administrator of the Year for the 2021-22 school year.

Cox’s honor follows on the heels of retiring Abilene ISD Executive Director of Athletics Phil Blue earning the same honor from the organization last year. Cox will be recognized as the regional winner at the THSADA conference in Round Rock in June.

“It’s always an honor to be recognized by the people you work with every day and call on for advice,” Cox said. “It’s nice to be recognized by those people for the work that you’re doing.”

Aside from his duties overseeing athletics budgets for Abilene and Cooper high schools, Cox also works as a liaison for all middle school athletics programs and coordinates AISD-hosted tournaments and meets. His biggest task for the last two years has been preparing for the District 2-6A track and field meet, which ran off without a hitch last week at the Shotwell Annex.

The annex was built with funds from the November 2018 bond election, and it was showcased to the rest of the district on April 13-14 when it hosted approximately 2,000 athletes and spectators for the first large event in the new facility. Blue began discussing preparations for the meet about 24 months ago, and that’s when he essentially turned the meet over to Cox.

“The number of assignments you have to make and volunteers that are needed and all of the other things that go into a district track meet over a regular invitational meet is staggering,” Blue said. “Del Van had to do a lot to prepare for this meet, and that started a couple of years ago. He talked with coaches and got their input and spoke to directors of athletics in the district to get input, and all of that work and preparation turned into a great track meet.

“This award is certainly a reflection of how hard he worked to make the execution of the meet match the facility,” he said. “These coaches and administrators in the district know Del Van from his years at Abilene High and now in this job, and they know his work ethic and integrity. This was an easy decision.”

Cox deflected the credit for the well-run meet, saying instead that it took an entire team effort to make it work.

“We started planning for this two years ago when we volunteered to host the meet,” he said. “We had a lot of help from a lot of people, from the school board getting us the things we need to (Associate Superintendent for Operations) Scott McLean and his people making sure the facility was in shape to host the meet to Coach Blue supporting me and being a valuable resource. It takes a lot of people to put on a well-run track meet – a lot of planning and lining things up, and we had a lot of great help to get it done.”

Now, all of his work and the respect he’s earned throughout his time in high school athletics earned him the regional award. Voting for the award each year are athletics administrators in the region, which includes several of the districts in the West Texas area, including Lubbock, Midland, Ector County (Odessa), and San Angelo,

“The guys in those districts are the ones I’ve looked up to like Coach Blue, (incoming AISD Executive Director of Athletics) Jim Garfield, (Lubbock ISD Executive Director of Athletics) Mike Meeks, and others,” Cox said. “It’s a privilege and an honor to be blessed with an award like this one.”