Harding there for athletes to talk to
By Aubrey Walder
Sue Harding, IVCC’s athletic secretary, loves her job because of all of the students she gets to interact with.
"The biggest peak of the job (is) that I (am) sort of an away-from-home Mom," Harding said. "I get real attached to kids, but it happens mostly with out-of-district kids. It seemed like they needed someone to talk to and tell problems to.
"They needed someone to give them advice and act like their mothers, someone to talk to them like their Mom would."
Harding applied for the job, seven and one-half years ago, because of the secretarial aspect of it. The athletic director at the time, Vince McMahon, had to talk her into taking the position after it was offered to her.
Now, Harding finds the most gratification in the non-secretarial parts of her job.
"I have a lot more interaction with kids than most secretaries on campus," she said. "I love becoming involved in their lives."
Harding, who didn’t have a big interest in sports when she applied for the job, said the lack of enthusiasm for the college’s athletic programs is one of the down-sides of her job.
"We cannot get anyone enthused to come and be a spectator," she said. "It’s hard for kids when no one is cheering them on."
The other drawback, she said, is the location of the athletic office, in the gym away from the main campus.
"I kind of get the feeling that we’re left out in that building (gym)," she said. "It’s almost like we’ve been forgotten, lost in the shuffle."
An Oglesby resident, Harding attended IVCC right out of high school, and she continues to take classes. Before taking the athletic job, she was an office manager and spent a year in England with her husband. Her 21-year-old son has also attended IVCC.
Her current job requires her to make appointments for the athletes’ physicals, arrange contracts for games and officials, check eligibility of athletes, handle insurance papers, make game programs, and "keep the coaches in line." She is also attending training sessions on the new administrative software being phased in to handle college record-keeping.
Saying that her job has not changed much over the years, Harding remembers the first group of students she worked with. She explained that those students had been used to swearing, and loudly, and she had to ask them to stop.
"I didn’t want to be talking on the phone or having a meeting with the kids outside swearing," she said. "It wasn’t professional.
How did the athletes react?
"There were these boys that were 300 pounds apologizing for accidentally cussing," she said.
One student Harding remembers fondly, however, had some problems with the restriction.
"We argued and fought all the time in the beginning because he didn’t want to conform to my new rules. After Christmas, though, he said ‘I turned over a new leaf; I figured out it’s much easier to do what you say than listen to you complain.’"
March 15, 1999 the Apache