Moving from a baseball diamond to an upstairs office, Dr. Earle Paynton is Northgate’s new athletic director. However, much of his work will be on courts, fields, the pool deck and back at the baseball fields where Paynton spent much of his four years when he was a student here.

Paynton took over as AD last summer from Steve Chappell. Like his predecessor,  he is a former Bronco and graduated class of 1987. He has already put in many hours at Northgate doing many activities in the current times and the past.

At UC Davis, Paynton played baseball at northgate and continued his career through college, this lead him to playing as long as he can and eventually he changed his career to be a sports doctor and chiropractor who has worked with many athletes from middle school all the way to hundreds professional athletes, some who we watch on TV daily.

His career as a sports doctor has led him to become friends with many people such Glenn Barker, the sports medicine instructor, last year Paynton worked with Barker in the sportsmed program for a while,

“For 20 years I was a team doctor. I’ve known Glenn for many years. When he asked me to come and help I came and helped with many different things,” Paynton said.

After this Dr. Paynton looked into coming back to Northgate because it is like home to him and there is such a great community of coworkers. He finally signed up as the A.D and looking forward to coming back to help athletes.

”…You guys have a lot of good things to learn. I think there is a lot to teach you athletes,” he said. ”I believe that we need to share visibility with scouts to the younger athletes to continue their careers.”  

“It changed but it hasn’t changed. Northgates football has never been a dominant team like Clayton Valley or De la Salle is. On the other side, we have always been good at baseball; we have always been good at certain sports, but we lack the size to compete. That is coming soon, as I see.”

Overall, he is stating that Northgate’s athletics are getting better but the range of goodness is the same comparing to other schools as it was in the 80’s. He said  himself that there is a constant level of ability in our sports, but he sees us continuing to grow in the years to come,

“My plan is to improve the level of the athletes and the quality of persons. These qualities give the people across all sports have a chance to be looked at,” Paynton said.

The new athletic director has some great ideas about how to shape and change the athletic program. All the athlete now and in the future hope that Dr. Earle Payton will be the best fit to continue us in the right direction for our sport careers.

Throughout the year Dr. Paynton has done a terrific job for Northgate by helping with whatever task has been set before him.