Wojtulewicz excited about Niles North assistant AD job

Former roller derby player was athletic and activities director at Fenger

It has been a whirlwind year for new Niles North Assistant Athletic Director Megan Wojtulewicz.

But she wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.

About a year ago, Wojtulewicz was recruited from South Shore High School to become an athletics and activities director at Fenger High School, a Turnaround school in the Chicago Public School system on the south side of the city.

Although Wojtulewicz never really planned to leave Fenger any time soon, she said it was difficult to pass up the opportunity at Niles North.

“A friend of mine, Renee Scott, an English teacher here, sent me a job description,” said Wojtulewicz, 30, who started at Niles North on July 1. “The more I learned about it, they made this job for me. It’s like someone had me in mind when they wrote the job description. It’s a year-round job for me now instead of teaching.”

Despite being a white female in a male-dominated profession and part of a mostly African-American staff, along with the rising violence at the high school, Wojtulewicz said she never felt any pressure to leave Fenger after one year on the job.  

“I had no intentions of leaving until this job description came up and bit me,” she said. “I was planning on staying with the work we were doing there, but this job was just too good to be true. It was too great of a career opportunity for me long term than just stay in the CPS. I don’t regret a moment being in the CPS.”

Athletics have always been in Wojtulewicz’s bloodlines since growing up in the Riverside-Brookfield area behind her older brothers Dean and Matt, who were heralded athletes at the high school. Wojtulewicz was herself a talented softball player and cross country runner. She also taught physical education and coached cross country at Riverside-Brookfield and was a student teacher in the physical education department at Oak Park-River Forest before making her way to South Shore.

During her two years at South Shore, Wojtulewicz started as a physical education teacher and then was promoted to take over the school’s athletics and PE program.

“It’s just part of who I am with athletics being strong,” she said. “Those types of things are all of my personality.”   

But the most memorable chapter in Wojtulewicz’s athletic career began nearly five years ago after a phone call from her mom to check out the Windy City Rollers, an all-women roller derby league in Chicago.

“I got a phone call from my mom and she goes, ‘Turn on Channel 7, you have to do this,’” Wojtulewicz recalled. “I saw a little blurb on Channel 7 and I contacted someone from the WCR and it turned out that trials were two weeks later. I got some gear and I kind of went back and forth (deciding whether or not to try out. I did and) I realized I’m good at this compared to a lot of the other girls.”

Wojtulewicz has often read the ‘Teacher by day, Derby girl by night’ headlines defining the diversity of the women partaking in the sport.

“It was more of like a punk rock kind of thing to do,” Wojtulewicz said. “So the conservative teacher coming in it was sort of like unique since I didn’t have any tattoos or piercing or strangely colored hair at the time. And I just came out and blew them away with my athleticism. I did pretty well and it became part of my life. I was still coaching and I was still really just a young teacher at the time. I just absolutely fell in love with it. It was a life-changing experience. It was more than just a hobby. It became part of my life.”

After getting married, deciding to start a family and as the responsibilities at Fenger increased, Wojtulewicz retired from playing last November. However, she stuck around to coach the Hell’s Belles earlier this year.

“I wanted to finish up my all-star season (with the Windy City Rollers All-Star team) that year,” said Wojtulewicz, who is expecting her first child in November. “There’s no way I can do all of that now. Having a family and now having this job, which is even more of a time commitment than it was a Fenger, I had to give something up. I wasn’t ready to give up derby. My heart sinks every time I think about, but it’s something that just had to happen, unfortunately.”

Wojtulewicz replaces former assistant AD Carol Herlocker, who will return to a full-time PE teaching position and continue to coach the varsity boys and freshman girls volleyball teams and the bass fishing team.

Athletic director Karl Costello called Herlocker “one of the best athletic administrators I’ve ever worked with… . She’s one of the best in the Central Suburban League, if not, the state.”

After one month on the job, Wojtulewicz is determined to fulfill the void for years to come.

“(Herlocker) set the bar super high, which is something you have to respect,” Wojtulewicz said. “Her position was a little different than mine with some responsibilities. But the major thing was just scheduling and the preparing for all the events and keeping them neat and organized. She set me up for success. Everything is in perfect order ready to go. All the CSL stuff is all ready. That’s all due to her. I can’t thank her enough.”

Niles North is striving to improve its success on the playing field and its fan support. Wojtulewicz believes she was brought in to help with those areas.

“Winning and losing and striving to get better and striving to get better even if you’re already OK, that’s what we’re doing here,” Wojtulewicz said. “We’re OK with where we are right now to compete. But are we OK with being the bottom of the top of the barrel?

“If we played Riverside-Brookfield in a football game, we’d probably do OK. It’s a different level. But within our own league, we’re not as competitive but we’re getting there.

“It takes a whole community to really make that happen. You really have to convince people that this is valuable and it’s something that their kids are going to look back on for their whole lives and they’re going to benefit from their experiences as athletes not only physically and for their overall life on health, but mentally and socially as well.”