You can often find Brandon Sutphin, Annandale’s Director of Student Activities, supporting all of Annandale’s team, conducting lunch duty in the cafeteria, or cracking jokes with students and getting to know everyone in the building.
Sutphin started his journey towards becoming a DSA by graduating from Radford university and then getting his administrative degree in education leadership from Old Dominion as a graduate student. Working as an assistant DSA at Justice high school for 6 years helped prepare Sutphin for the pressure of becoming the head DSA at Annandale.
“I applied, interviewed, and was granted the privileges of having this job by Derose,” said a grinning Sutphin.
Annandale’s Director of Student Activities has one main goal, “Putting Annandale back on the map in terms of respectability,” expressed Sutphin. “I think for [our community] as athletes and students sometimes have heard it from various members of communities around us that Annandale is not a great school, which I totally disagree with.”
Sutphin is all about putting others first, something he learned from his time at Justice high school. “The priority is for you guys to make sure that you’re getting the best opportunities that you guys have and what we can offer here at Annandale high school,” stated Sutphin. “One of my main focuses is to make sure that [our students] have a great experience.”
Senior Bilawal Zia recognizes Sutphin’s hard work and success. “He’s [Sutphin] always energetic and ready to help out anyone in need,” said Zia. “I love seeing him involved all around the campus.”
Another thing he learned from being apart of the Annandale community is understanding how to get the most out of everyone around him. “Being an Atom is you understand that people come from diverse backgrounds and you’re accepting of them your understanding of them,” said Sutphin. “We know how to all work together as one to come together for the same goal.”
A big accomplishment and advancement Sutphin has helped push for the Annandale community is the expansion of new teams and adding levels to many of the sports we have to offer here at 4700 Medford Drive. Additions like forensics, speech, debate, and E-Sports are all due to Sutphin’s support and hard work. Creating more opportunities for everyone in our diverse community to have a chance to have fun and express themselves is a large part of what Sutphin works to create in this community.
“Our clubs are growing, our teams continue to get bigger,” noted Sutphin.
Another accomplishment that can be a testament to Sutphin’s hard work is “We’re providing opportunities for kids and our tryout numbers continuing to go up each year,” expressed Sutphin with a smile.
One thing that brings Sutphin joy is seeing the improvements throughout the Annandale campus, specifically the athletic facilities.
“The gymnasium looks gorgeous, we’ve upgraded the new turf, baseball netting, the softball fields getting worked on to it,” said Sutphin. “To update facilities to make [our school] proud is a big accomplished is something that I really take pride in.
A typical workday for Sutphin includes reviewing athletic budgets, ordering new equipment for the various teams, media coverage, and the occasional cafeteria lunch duty.
Whether or not you play sports or participate in any clubs or activities, you can always find Sutphin with his charming smile and occasional “dad joke” checking in on his athletes and asking for suggestions on how to create a better experience for our community. One thing that makes him so special is not only his willingness to hear peoples’ advice and ideas, but to actually listen and take action.
For those wanting to follow Sutphins whereabouts, you can follow him on instagram @atomsathletics.
