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You are here: Sports Features Rainy Crisp appointed interim AD at Navajo Prep

Rainy Crisp appointed interim AD at Navajo Prep

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Former Prep and state basketball standout in interim position

FARMINGTON – Rainy Crisp, a former standout basketball player and track and field athlete at Navajo Prep, has been named interim athletic director at the school, officials announced.

Crisp takes over for Mike Tillman who left the AD job about a month ago. No details were given as to whether Tillman was terminated or resigned.

“This is a great experience for me,” Crisp said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “I have worked and gone to school here so I am very familiar with Navajo Prep academically and athletically.”

Originally from Shiprock, on the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation, Crisp said she’s interested in the AD job permanently. Crisp has coached the girls basketball team at Navajo Prep for 11 years and girls volleyball for eight years. An all-state point guard for the Lady Eagles during her playing days, Crisp took the Lady Eagles to the 2008 and 2009 District 1-2A state title basketball games, winning the championship in 2009.

In volleyball, Crisp took 2A Prep to the state title game in 2007 and 2008 and advanced to the 3A title game in 2014. The Lady Eagles fell to Texico High School in each of those three title appearances. Prep moved up to the bigger 3A two years ago due to athletic redistricting and is set to begin 4A play come fall.

Betty Ojaye, executive director at Navajo Prep, said the search for a new AD would be done in-house first and then expand outward. She did not put a time line on a job hiring.

“It will be advertised regionally after we do an in-house search,” Ojaye said. “That’s where we are right now.”

Crisp is a 1998 graduate of Navajo Prep. She later graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in exercise science and a minor in education. She said she doesn’t want to leave coaching, saying if offered the Prep AD job she’d like to still coach.

“That’s my passion,” Crisp said of coaching. “There are people out there in 3A who coach and work as athletic directors.”

Besides Navajo Prep, District 1-3A includes Crownpoint, Newcomb, Tohatchi and Rehoboth Christian high schools.

Tillman was athletic director for five years.

By Bernie Dotson
Sun Correspondent