JJ Toczek has been around high school athletics his entire life.
His father, Joe Toczek, was a longtime athletic director and superintendent at Grand Island Northwest, but getting into athletics himself wasn’t always the plan for JJ.
At first, his long-term career plans pointed him toward hospital administration — then came a trip to the state volleyball tournament. That experience reenergized Toczek’s love for high school athletics and put him on a journey that eventually led him to Lincoln.
Since then, Toczek has worked at Mickle Middle School, Irving Middle School, Lincoln Southeast, Lincoln Northeast and Papillion-La Vista as a teacher and coach, before becoming Southeast’s athletic director for the past nine years.
Toczek succeeded Kathi Wieskamp in that role at Southeast; the same happened on a district level. On July 1, Toczek became the new director of athletics and activities for Lincoln Public Schools.
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“A light bulb kind of went on and I thought to myself, well, what can I do to take those experiences, the positives that I've been able to do, and, how can I take that and be able to share that or to be able to lead my fellow ADs at the six, soon-to-be seven, soon-to-be eight high schools in Lincoln? My support of them helps them support their student participants, their coaches, their families, so I’m always after that bigger picture,†Toczek said.
Here is more from Toczek in a wide-ranging Q&A with a focus on his vision for LPS:
There are new multisport athletic complexes being built at Lincoln Northwest and Standing Bear. What type of boost will these complexes bring to Lincoln athletics?
Toczek: “I think it's a positive and we're grateful for the community of Lincoln, who knew that athletics and activities should be a priority for our Lincoln Public Schools, student participants and our families. They voted through the bonds to not only give us new schools, but also give us places that are able to hold both athletic and activity events.
And I also look at this from an equity lens, where we make sure that our student participants within the city of Lincoln have fair and equitable opportunities and facilities to be able to perform in both athletics and activities. An example of that is that we worked to turf all of the football fields on site at our respective high schools. Not only football uses that, soccer uses it, marching band uses it and it’s also an instructional space for our PE and health classes.
It’s also to make sure that the experiences that student participants are having in Lincoln are fair and equitable to where they would compete or perform in the Metro area, Grand Island, Kearney or Columbus.â€
What sporting contests will be held at those new complexes?
Toczek: “The Union Bank and Trust stadium will be a championship facility where it could host varsity competitions in not just football and soccer, but also track competitions so that'll be great. We look at Standing Bear having a championship soccer field, it'll have numerous soccer fields, it'll have championship tennis courts and it'll also have a championship softball field within three other viable playing fields as well.â€
The pandemic impacted both academics and athletics heavily, so is LPS still dealing with any long-lasting effects from that?
Toczek: “It’s been steady progress coming back, and that progress is with participation numbers starting to go up again. We look at it from a district perspective, but also from an individual school perspective, with encouraging our student participants to become involved in both athletics and activities.
Academics, mental, emotional and social health are all better, statistically, for students who are involved in extracurricular activities. So, what can we as a community to really encourage our kids not just at high school, but also starting at the middle school level, to become involved with athletics and with activities?
We know that just nationally and globally, the effect that the pandemic did have on mental health, so we’re making sure we have those systems in place from a culturally responsive piece.
It goes back to having athletics and activities as that same place where kids can learn those life skills of citizenship, teamwork and leadership. It’s where we have kids coming from different feeder schools and different neighborhoods so that athletics and activities can bring everybody together and create that common ground. The impact of that is not only positive for the school, it's positive for the school district and positive for the Lincoln community.â€