Though he looks like a jock, sporting basketball shorts and a tee shirt on all but the coldest Seattle days, Britt Atack is a man with a mission. But his is not the win-no-matter-what mission his square-jawed, muscular look or his Athletic Director's title might lead you to expect. "Sports are an avenue that lets the light in people come out," he says simply. "They create a glow in people that attracts others. It's what I want for myself, and I love to see it in others."
Creating opportunities for athletes to shine on 30 teams in seven sports requires a master juggler-especially in a school without its own fields or gym, and where players take a bus to almost every practice. It's a feat Britt performs with unfailing good humor and sometimes startling success. This spring, for example, five NWS Ultimate Frisbee players were named to the 2006 Junior Worlds Team. NWS teams won the 2006 Washington State Championships in both boys and girls Ultimate Frisbee. And the Varsity boys won the U.S. High School Western Division National Championship for the second year in a row.
Anyone who has gone to a NWS basketball or soccer game has seen Britt in super-dad mode, playing gleefully with his children while keeping an eye on his teams. That's not the role model he grew up with in Eugene, Oregon, where his father opened the first periodontal practice in the Pacific Northwest. Britt's laid-back look today is less a fashion statement than a reaction to being raised in a strict though loving home, where children were expected to uphold "a high level of decorum." This included wearing "nerdy" Fruit-'o-the-Loom undershirts, which he stuffed into the neck of his outer shirt to get past his parents and then ditched in the garage on his way to school.
At 13, his life began to change in a way that allowed him to see "the beauty in discipline." Britt's parents sent him to a summer camp at the Culver Military Academy, a naval school in rural Indiana with a fleet of World War II vessels, three-masted schooners, and sail boats. Camp life was tightly regimented. Campers were divided into naval companies and expected to make their beds with military corners, keep their clothes perfectly pressed, and stand at parade rest for 45 minutes at a time.
Younger and smaller than the other boys, Britt found himself swept along on a tide of camaraderie created by the intense competition between the companies. He lights up recalling that his crew team "rowed so fast that we pulled a water skier behind our boat," and talking about the inspirational speeches his counselor gave each week still gives him chills. "He taught us that we weren't just islands on our own," Britt says. "We bought in to the idea of being a team: setting goals, staying loyal, piling up medals each week because we were working together."
Camp Culver provided the team model Britt brings to NWS today.
He arrived in Seattle in 1990, where he met Art Scott, an uncle by marriage and then-Head of The Northwest School. Britt emerged from their meeting as coach of the varsity basketball team, which boasted one Japanese girl, Korean and Thai students, a Sikh, and now-famous pianist/composer Stephan Fandrich ('92). "We only won three games," Britt grins, "but we had the greatest vitality ever!" Soon he was asked to tutor International students in the residential program and to start a PE program.
Art Scott's contentious departure from the school in 1992 caught his nephew in a chaotic situation; almost overnight he became Athletic Director, acting Dean of Students, and a temporary middle school Spanish teacher. "The job snowballed on a wing and a prayer," he laughs. "It was such a relief when Kevin (Alexander) came to be the real Dean of Students and we got a real Spanish teacher!"
That brief classroom experience made Britt think that teaching was not for him. An interest in sports medicine drew him to a post-baccalaureate program at UW, where he worked briefly in a physical therapy clinic and volunteered at the hospital. But when he couldn't bring himself to write the essay part of a medical school application, he knew he still hadn't found the right path.
It took returning to NWS in 1996 as coach of the JV girls' basketball team to make him realize that he could build a career out of doing what he really enjoyed. He enrolled in Seattle University's master's program in Education and "finally was able to write an essay I could be proud of."
There are good reasons why this school, with its culture of Courtesy and Common Sense, has this Athletic Director. While many AD's stress good sportsmanship and dedication to the team, what sets Britt apart is his proactive belief that sports offer one of the purest ways to express gracious appreciation of others. He wants his teams to win as much as anyone does, but that is a byproduct of his deeper purpose -to encourage students to play with a level of intensity and authenticity they may not have experienced before, and may not yet have the vocabulary to express.
"Big egos miss the point of sports entirely," Britt says. "You don't do it alone. You need others, on your team and on the other side. Appreciating others is as integral to sports as it is to life. I tell my players to shake their opponents' hands with sincerity, because we learned from them and they pushed us to be our best, whether we won or lost."
-- NWS News Magazine, Spring 2006