Wicomico Hosts National Speaker On Crowd Management For Address To All Bayside Conference Schools

Wicomico County Public Schools will host a national speaker on athletic contest management for a Feb. 21 school safety training session for representatives from all Bayside Conference schools and representatives of the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office and Salisbury Police Department.
The topic of speaker Jay Hammes’ presentation will be athletic contest management. Nearly all school districts have security measures in place during school days. However, similar risk management policies are too often overlooked for evening events. Safe Sport Zone has developed plans to assure safer environments for activities occurring at times other than during the regular school hours.
For interscholastic athletics to survive, the games kids play have to be enjoyable, entertaining, safe, and educationally driven. Safe Sport Zone is committed to these principles. Safe Sport Zone has developed a staffing model for athletic administrators to adopt as a best practice. Spectator issues, identifying all fans, athletic concerns, facilities maintenance, evacuation procedures, and applications for almost any emergency are all part of the exercises. 
Hammes has been involved in athletics his entire life as a player, a coach, a P.E. teacher and is presently in his 20th year of athletic administration, both at the high school and collegiate level. His passion for high school athletics has him currently speaking throughout the country on maintaining a safer environment for after-school events.
He is currently working with the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association and is the chair and lead instructor of the leadership training course called “Contest Management”, which covers athletic event security. He has been published numerous times and endorsed by both the NIAAA and the NFHS to instruct schools/school districts on after-school safety training throughout the country.