CASSOPOLIS —Matt Brawley has been named the part-time athletic director at Cassopolis High School.

The board approved his hiring at a special meeting July 25.

Brawley, a 2000 Niles High School graduate, is a health and physical education teacher at Cassopolis High School and also serves as the Rangers’ varsity baseball coach.

The 2004 Olivet College graduate began teaching in the fall of 2004. He has been the baseball coach for the past three years.

According to Brawley, he will teach in the morning, work as the athletic director in the afternoon. He also confirmed that he will remain as the school’s baseball coach.

Brawley replaces Bob Guse, who resigned for personal reasons earlier this year.

“We want to run a successful program and have all our teams compete at the highest level,” Brawley said of his vision for the athletic department. “We want to have our athletes representing our school in a positive light.”

Despite his hiring so close to the beginning of the new school year, Brawley said he feels that he will be able to be prepared as fall sports practice begins next week.

He said that he is currently meeting with all the coaches and that things are pretty well set for the first few months.

“I just need to make sure everything is in place,” he said. “I was very fortunate that all the fall scheduling and a majority of the winter scheduling is all done,” he said. “That was a big help.”

Another big help was the fact that Cassopolis was able to secure community funding to cover the $18,000 budget deficit for the athletic department which was going to force the district into a pay-to-play situation.

One of the first things he will have to address is the hiring of new boys and girls varsity basketball coaches.

Both coaches resigned in July.