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New Director
of Athletics, Coaching, and Mentoring, Da’Mon Perry II

New Director
of Athletics, Coaching, and Mentoring, Da’Mon Perry II

February 28, 2022

Dear Community Member,

I am delighted to announce that Da’Mon Perry II has accepted McLean School’s offer to serve as Director of Athletics, Coaching, and Mentoring. I am confident that Da’Mon will provide the vision and leadership we seek as we continue to build a model athletics program that is both competitive and inclusive, and that is fully integrated into the life of the School.

Da’Mon impressed the Search Committee and other groups who met with him, including students, parents, coaches, teachers, staff, and administrators, with his embrace of McLean’s mission and culture, his clarity of vision and effectiveness in communicating it, and his commitment to gender equity and equity between sports. I am confident that he will inspire both students and coaches to find and manifest the best in themselves.

Da’Mon comes to us from two prominent West Coast schools: Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon, where he serves as Associate Director of Athletics; and University Prep in Seattle, where he was the Assistant Director of Athletics. In both positions he oversaw, individually or in partnership, all aspects of middle and upper school athletics. He holds a BA in Kinesiology from Whittier College and an MEd from the University of Washington. He is a Certified Athletic Administrator credentialed through the National Athletic Administrators Association.

Physical education and athletics are central to McLean, with benefits for fitness, well-being, skills development, and lessons for life, including teamwork, grit, resilience, and commitment to oneself and others. In addition to leading our Athletics, Coaching, and Mentoring Program, Da’Mon will join McLean’s Administrative Team, with shared responsibility for school-wide leadership.

Da’Mon’s appointment caps a four month national search that yielded four strong finalists. To ensure the strongest possible applicant pool, we retained two nationally recognized search firms. Carney Sandoe and Associates is the largest search firm for independent schools, with a practice specializing in athletic director searches. NEMNET is the leading search firm specialized in minority recruitment. Together, these firms provided us with over fifty qualified applicants, and both recommended Da’Mon to us.

I am deeply grateful to the search committee for the many hours invested in this thorough process, and to numerous other community members for meeting with and providing feedback on Da’Mon and the other three finalists. The committee was chaired by David Roth, McLean’s Assistant Head of School for Educational Programs, and included eleven administrators, faculty, and coaches listed below.

Da’Mon will join McLean in June, and we will provide opportunities for him to meet with members of the community over the summer. He will be moving here with his wife, Karelle Edwards-Perry, who is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate and a Mental Performance Consultant.

Please join me in welcoming Da’Mon and Karelle to our McLean Community.

With warm regards,

Michael Saxenian
Head of School

The Search Committee was made up of the following teachers, coaches, and administrators: David Roth, Chair, Jeff Berman, Mary Dickerson, Bobby Edwards, Melissa Gray-Hughes, Chip Miller, Cathy Patterson, Andy Ship, Robin Speller, Kerri Sullivan, and Nkosi White.