Mar. 28, 2012:  Athletic Director Karen Peterson arrived at Bronxville High School in 1998, and on her first day of work, a torrential rainstorm pounded the school.  Peterson was sitting at her desk when her secretary knocked on the door and told her to move her car from the elementary school parking lot before it flooded.  A startled Peterson grabbed her keys and headed outside.  "I should have just driven off right then," laughed Peterson.

During the past 13 years, two floods, a fire, a freak October snowstorm, and a long-delayed construction project have given Peterson experience she never bargained for.  In addition to her regular duties as athletic director, Peterson has now become an expert at securing last-minute gym and field space, ordering and reordering new equipment, and sanitizing and shoveling the turf field, all while keeping her ear to the weather channel.

Peterson has become a moving expert, having relocated all the athletic equipment multiple times.  In 1999, the school started a construction project that required Peterson to move all the athletic equipment to storage under the Midland Avenue gym.  When the year-and-a-half project turned into a four-year fiasco, that gym became classrooms, and she had to move the equipment to storage pods on the kickball field.

"During the construction there were boxes of equipment that I moved eight times," said Peterson.  "Then the flood came and we lost it all."

She has also moved her office too many times to count.  During the construction, the athletic offices were moved to trailers on Hayes Practice Field, and it was two years before Peterson and some of her staff returned to the school building to temporary office space.  Peterson finally moved into her first-floor office in the new athletic wing in 2005, just two years before flooding destroyed it all.

"The first flood in 2007 was devastating," said Peterson.  "We didn't expect it to be that bad.  I had the Bronco mascot in my office, and when I opened the door, the Bronco head went floating by me."

Amazingly, Peterson was able to salvage the 2007 spring season.  The teams lost only one week and then started practices off-site so the turf field could be sanitized.

There are normal challenges for any athletic director, and Peterson easily handles every logistical complication regarding field space and expertly juggles scheduling of practices and games.  She hires and directs a top-notch coaching staff and handles everything from requests for new sport teams to Section 1 issues.

Peterson's challenges, however, have gone way beyond normal.  In the thirteen years she has been at Bronxville, the main gym has been out of commission for six years due to construction or flooding.  Luckily, Peterson has contacts in the area to help out the school when the gym is out of service, and both Concordia College and Sarah Lawrence College have allowed the Broncos to use their facilities.

It has not been all doom and gloom during Peterson's reign as athletic director.  The turf field project, spearheaded by a group of Bronxville residents, was a dream come true.  In just one year, Bronxville residents were able to raise funds and build an incredible athletic facility for The Bronxville School.  The field, which can be used year-round as long as it is snow-free, eliminated all the problems associated with grass.

There is a new construction project looming, and one can only hope that all will go smoothly.  If all goes according to plan, before the end of the year a new storage shed, a new press box, additional bleachers, and a concession stand with bathrooms will be constructed at Chambers Field.  The track and field coaches will be happy to see the pole vault mats find a new home in the storage shed.  They were destroyed by flood in '07, by fire in '09, and by flood again in '11.

The school is well prepared for flooding now.  Peterson sits at her metal desk in her cinder block office with file cabinets on wheels and ponders as to what might be next.  Locusts?

Pictured here:  Athletic Director Karen Peterson sitting at her desk in The Bronxville School.