Eric Sorenson
When the 2024-25 school year ends at the end of June, AIA Executive Director David Hines will turn over the keys to Dr. Jim Dean, who will officially take over on July 1st.
Hines has been associated with the AIA for 17 years, serving in his current role since 2017.
To many, his biggest conceptual win has been the Open Division football playoff format which debuted in 2019. He’s also re-formatted the basketball post-season to an Open Division concept, as well as added girls flag football and wrestling, and sanctioned beach volleyball.
Thanks @AZCardinals and @azfamily for supporting Girls Flag football and @AZPreps365! Proud to partner with you! https://t.co/zyaTDFgLnS
— David Hines (@DavidHinesAz) August 3, 2024
Earlier this month, “Zone Read” spoke to Hines at length about his hits, misses, navigating the COVID era, the growth of prep sports in Arizona, the legacy he leaves behind, and much more.
Below is the first of two installments as we go all-access and in-depth with David Hines.
You look so relaxed! Are you in a “substitute teacher mode” as you come down the stretch here? “[laughing] It’s good! It’s good. I’ve just been working on cleaning my office and getting ready for Jim to step in.
“I’ll still go in [to the office], but I’ll just float around and finish anything we have. At this point, we’re really just preparing for next year. I’m feeling good.”
After years of dedicated service, leadership, and unwavering commitment to Arizona’s athletes, we say farewell (but never goodbye) to our Executive Director, David Hines!
Thank you for everything you’ve poured into the AIA, your vision, your time, your heart. From the sidelines… pic.twitter.com/mMWGqY6rJY
— AZPreps365 (@AZPreps365) June 6, 2025
Did you calendar a time when you wanted to retire? Why now? “My contract was re-negotiated to a three-year contract which is now up. So, when the [executive] board said, ‘OK, we’re going to review this.’ I said, ‘Just to let you know, this will be my last contract.’
“At the end of this contract, I’ll be 70. I don’t need to go longer than that…I started coaching 50 years ago. It was a good time.
“I’ve enjoyed it. I really have.”
Was the job more difficult than you expected it would be when you moved into that office that you’re now cleaning out? “I had no intention of being the Executive Director of the AIA. I was fine working as a tournament coordinator.
“I think the biggest thing you learn is, if you’re going to be in charge of a good-sized organization, you have a lot of people you work with who are really good and you lean on. But in the end, you’re the one that has to make the [tough] decisions. The buck stops here.
“It’s different when you get in that position. A lot of things we do will help some people, and frustrate others. That’s kind of the nature of what we do.”
In a way, it’s almost like your coaching days, right? You can’t make every player, parent, assistant coach, whoever, happy. Did you see those same themes as the AIA Executive Director? “You’re right. Things come up. We work real closely with our board…we have a lot of people with experience. When we discuss big decisions, we rely on experts in the field [in individual sports] to give us feedback.
“I think the biggest thing is people think the board, or the office, makes the rules. We don’t. My job is to adhere to the rules that the members put in…if you don’t like it, we can change a rule. We can modify a rule. We can suggest some things, but ultimately it goes to the membership and we are in charge of maintaining the integrity of whatever the membership has decided to go with.
“So, sometimes that makes people happy and sometimes that doesn’t make people happy.”
Pull back the curtain during COVID and take us inside some of those early meetings when the world was essentially shut down. I believe that period really defined your legacy. Open-ended question – what do you feel you did right, and what, if anything, would you have done differently? “I think the toughest thing we had to deal with, Eric, was that we didn’t know anything. This had never happened before. What I really did was rely on our sports medicine advisory committee made up by about 23 doctors and athletic trainers.
“I think what really helped us was, across the country, governors were involved, telling people what to do. Some states in the south were like, ‘We’re not shutting down [football].’ So now we’re trying to navigate this and I don’t have a medical background. I rely on the people who do.
“We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We didn’t know if this was going to go south…we had a lot of people in certain ethnic backgrounds that had a harder time with COVID than others. We wanted the kids to play but we knew that had to go home and when they went home, they’re dealing with parents, grandparents. People who had medical issues. If [the kids] brought something home, it could be detrimental to the family.
“We had a state that was a little all over the board. Some districts were not doing anything and staying remote. The north shut down and didn’t play at all. Tucson played a three-game season. Phoenix Union played two or three. That really made it a challenge.”
How did you personally deal with all the stress during COVID? That was obviously a very turbulent time. That had to have been very hard. “I got a lot of gray hair [laughing]. We had a board meeting when we decided to shut [football] down and then two days later, one of the members said, ‘I’d like to revisit this.’ So, we delayed [the season] a couple of weeks, reduced the number of games.
“I think the biggest challenge was the mask. We’ll play, but you have to wear the mask. That divided a lot of people. I think the people who did the best, were the kids themselves. They didn’t necessary like it, but they wanted to play, and they respected the decision.”
Do you feel the Open Division format, for football, is here to stay? “Yes, for this reason – we still have schools that are, for lack a of a better term, destination school. Very successful. As we’ve now, more of those schools are 6A schools. Now the 4A has dropped out, the 5A has dropped out. But even at the 6A, we have this big disparity.
Basha punches their ticket to the Open State semi-finals. @BashaAthletics @MarquesReischl @CUSDAthletics @AZPreps365 pic.twitter.com/deczkAhQjJ
— David Hines (@DavidHinesAz) November 23, 2024
“So, the reason to keep The Open is to get those teams that are ultra-competitive to let them play against each other and let the schools that are probably losing some kids to those destination-type schools, give them an opportunity to compete for a division championship.
“I think we’re more competitive. No one wants to see a 65-0 game on either side.”
Thanks @FOXSPORTSAZ for showing this Throwback Thursday 1997 State Championship game. I was the AD at Mt View and our AIA Assistant Director Joe Paddock was coaching at Amphi. We’re watching the game together. pic.twitter.com/5FW8auc6bh
— David Hines (@DavidHinesAz) October 16, 2020
You’ve lived in this state a long time and seen the growth in population and high school football. Is the sport almost getting ‘too big for its own good,’ with all the transferring, off-season drama, recruiting spotlight, etc. if that makes sense? “Well, I think here in Arizona, because we have grown so much, we’ve seen the state grow and more people come in. We have a lot of kids that are very talented. I think coaches have done a good job. I think our kids keep getting better and better.
“Even with transfers, it’s something that’s happening all over the country and other states are having to deal with it…I think the frustrating thing for us is, in this day and age of NIL and everybody trying to get everybody ready for the next level, there are kids that are given advice that are probably not the best for them. They’re probably not that really elite kid. A lot of those prep schools have a different philosophy than we do.”
