Jerry Shafer is the new athletic director at West Orange High -- Observer Preps

WINTER GARDEN With the opening of Windermere High as a relief school for West Orange High, it’s a new day for the school’s athletics programs — and the Warriors will have a new face as athletic director to lead them forward.

Earlier this summer, Adam Miller stepped down as athletic director to spend more time with his two young children. And though Principal William Floyd said replacing Miller — whose tenure included some of the athletics program’s best years — was not easy, he believes he has his man in Jerry Shafer, outgoing athletic director at Leesburg High.

“I was looking for somebody with a proven track record. … Somebody who wants to make a good situation better,” Floyd said. “At his past school, (Shafer) had really good relationships with the community.”

Shafer comes to the Warriors’ Winter Garden campus after spending the last two years at Leesburg High. 

Before that, he began his career in Baltimore County, Maryland, before he spent six years in Colorado as a track and cross-country coach, winning a state title along the way.

Although thankful for his time at Leesburg, Shafer said he is more than excited about his new opportunity at West Orange.

“West Orange is what I would consider a blue blood school — a school with rich tradition,” Shafer said. “If you go to West Orange, you want your kids to go to West Orange. It’s a community school … as an athletic director, those are dream schools.”

Shafer inherits a program with just one opening — the Warriors are in need of a girls bowling coach — so he said he is going to focus a lot of time on getting to know is coaching staff and athletes. 

Contact Steven Ryzewski at [email protected].