BELLAIRE — St. John Central’s Athletic Department is in need of stability.

Greg Stevens plans to provide just that.

The 1991 Bellaire High School graduate, who spent 20 years in the United States Marine Corps, was recently hired as the Fighting Irish’s Athletics Director. He replaces Jaela Koller, who stepped down during the winter sports season. Bubba Kapral, who is the head girls’ basketball coach, held the job in the interim.

“There’s been a lot of learning of the last month,” Stevens said. “This is something I am completely unfamiliar with, but everyone who I have reached out to for help and guidance has been great. I am excited about this opportunity.”

Stevens takes over an athletics department that has has fallen on hard times. The Irish have been plagued by declining enrollment, Ohio High School Athletic Association sanctions and are currently suspended from their state membership after they didn’t sponsor the required two sports during the fall season.

“We’re working to get it going,” Stevens said.

“We need to get more kids to the school.”

St. John Central, which celebrates commencement Sunday, had an enrollment of just 30 students. It sponsored just four sports, all of which were female. They had volleyball, basketball, softball and one track and field competitor.

“We don’t have any problems with our girls’ sports,” Stevens said. “We just have to get our boys’ numbers back up and field more teams.”

Prior to Stevens and Kapral’s tenure’s, St. John had announced it was bringing back football. It hired John Durdines — the fomer Bishop Donahue head coach — to guide the ship.

However, Stevens — just this week — called all seven of the grid opponents SJC had scheduled to inform them that they would not be fielding a team for the third consecutive season.

“Football has been something we’ve been working on, but we just don’t have the boys,” Stevens said.

Stevens, who had three combat deployments during his time in the Marines, called the decision “bittersweet.”

“It’s disappointing because it would be great to have a football team and football is king in the Ohio Valley,” Stevens said. “But, on the other end, being in the school and seeing the number of students there, it was going to be really hard.”

According to Stevens, Durdines remains committed to being the Irish could if and when the program is revitalized.

“Our goal is to start working now and get the numbers up to the point where we can field a team in 2019,” Stevens said.

One plus, however, for the Irish is that they will field a cross country and golf team in the fall and have a 21-game boys’ basketball schedule. All of those will allow the Irish to meet the OHSAA’s two-sport requirement, meaning they’ll be on track to re-gain their membership, which is St. John’s plan.

Stevens was brought to St. John to coach track after his aunt, who works at the school, told him of the opening.

“I ran cross country and track in high school and still enjoy running,” Stevens said. “After I agreed to coach, they brought up the idea of being the athletics director.”

The owner of a master’s degree in sports management from American Military University, Stevens had always thought about working in sports once his career in the military ended.

“I had played through my childhood and honeslty knew I didn’t want to coach, but I took a stab at it,” Stevens said. “Coaching track this season was something different, but since we only had one athlete, it was a nice learning experience.”

Greg and his wife, Kelly, who is from Davis, Calif, have four children. Taylor and Colton are graduates of St. Clairsville. Adeline and Lushen will be elementary students at St. John Central in the fall.