As local temperatures continue to rise, former West Sedona School coach Pedro Ortega Sr. focuses both eyes on the first fall of sports at Sedona Red Rock Junior High.

“We’re a small school,” said Ortega, 52, who was approved two weeks ago as the junior high’s first athletic director by the Sedona-Oak Creek School District. “With two schools combined, we only have 125 students.”

That was the total enrollment reported to Ortega when he met May 16 with athletic directors from the rest of the Verde Valley Athletic Association to discuss next year’s schedules minus West Sedona and Big Park Community schools.

“We’re not just hiring a coach; he’s supervising events as well as preparing fields and buildings for six, seven teams,” said Jay Litwicki, whom the board approved as the first junior high principal April 5 after two years in the same position at Big Park. “That’s what people don’t see in the job: That’s a lot of supervision. I don’t know if one person could do that and the high school, because they’d be adding something like one-third more work.”

Ortega, a local for three decades who has coached just about every West Sedona sport in his 12 years at the school, was recommended by Litwicki for athletic director at the district board meeting June 7. The position carries an extra-duty stipend of $3,500, paid out of district tax credit donations.

“Hiring Pedro is a savings,” Litwicki said. “One of the things presented at the meeting is that we’d have one athletic director instead of two.”

Ortega’s first two objectives are the hiring of coaches and the development of fall sports schedules. Baseball, softball, track and coed soccer are spring sports in the works at Red Rock Junior High. In the meantime, Ortega works on acquiring uniforms for the Scorpions — the majority vote for mascot of the school’s incoming seventh- and eighth-grade students, selected over Warriors and five other choices.