When Seth Cooke drives to work he has to remember to go to the right office.

Cooke is the new recreation director at the Mexico YMCA after serving in the same capacity for the city of Mexico. Cooke said the normal anxiety that comes with starting a new job was a lot easier to deal with.

“I had really good relationships with everybody and it was a really easy transition because it felt like I just moved offices,” Cooke said. “When I worked at the city I worked with these guys a lot and used these facilities a lot.”

Although Cooke loved his job with the city his new position will be more focused on sports. As recreation director for the city much of the time is spent with swimming pool programming, art projects, and other liberal arts.

“When I went to college and got a sports management degree this was the type of job I had in mind and it worked out great,” Cooke said.

While working at the city one of Cooke’s main responsibilities was providing sports programming for the adaptive recreation program and Special Olympics. His new role won’t change. That programming will be coming over to The Y with him. Cooke said it was one of the stipulations in taking the job. Cooke works well with the adaptive recreation athletes and making a change could have been disruptive. However, Cooke thinks leaving that program to someone else wouldn’t have sat right.

“I think it would have upset me more if I couldn’t bring them with me,” Cooke said. “I wanted to make sure I brought that program with me because that’s where my passion lies in the adaptive recreation programs and hanging out with those guys. I really wanted to make sure they came with me.”

Cooke said the move will allow the adaptive recreation program to grow and provide more opportunities for the athletes. Sports like volleyball, softball, and track and field are possible now when there were challenges before.

“I’m kind of hoping that this will allow us to get more sports opportunities for those guys and new sports they can learn, or if they already know they can have an opportunity to play it with their friends,” Cooke said.

Cooke is currently recruiting coaches for programs and is looking for more help.

“If I can get a coach who loves basketball and wants to work with that population that would be awesome,” Cooke said.

Cooke is also hoping to jump-start some new ideas for Mexico like forming a Blitzball league or hosting a tournament. There is currently a group in Columbia that plays and has a large online following.

“I’ve got to believe that people would want to play it too since they’re watching it,” Cooke said.

The game is similar to wiffle ball but with slightly different rules that take out a lot of the running.

“We could bring that inside and do it in the winter,” Cooke said. “You could get all kinds of ages because there’s no base running and you don’t have to worry about people getting hurt as much on that side of things. Definitely something I want to explore and see if there’s something I can do there.”

One of Cooke’s passions is also disc golf. Although he won’t be working for the city he will still be involved in the development of the disc golf course at Northeast Park. 

“I was excited when we started working on some improvements out there,” Cooke said. “We did a lot of work before I left and I didn’t want to see that fade away or get put on the back burner for a while. I want to continue to help out there when I can.”

Cooke got his first real taste of what the job will be like this past weekend with a youth basketball tournament. He said there would be lots of walking around and shaking hands.

“I’ll need to walk around and introduce myself,” Cooke said. “I’m still learning the coaches.”