So far, the toughest thing about becoming the new Lincoln High School athletic director has been figuring out what the previous AD used to do.

Eve Claar last month succeeded Sid Wright, Lincoln’s athletic director for 21 years. Wright also went to school at Lincoln and had worked there since 1968, logging so many hours that Lincoln’s staff has yet to understand exactly how many tasks he handled.

“We kind of call it the Sid Factor,” Claar said. “We run into things no one knew he did, because he was here so long. He was here around the clock, so many people came to depend on that.”

For example, Claar said, some school groups are learning how to file facility requests - a mindless task in most districts, but something Lincoln staffers never had to do because Wright, a notorious workaholic, always was physically present at Lincoln to unlock the doors.

“People had never thought to ask,” Claar said, “because he’s always been here for 30 years. So, it’s a challenge.”

Claar takes on the new role without Wright’s embedded history, but brings experience that could help Lincoln improve its fundraising efforts.

Claar, who earned a masters degree in business administration from the University of Detroit Mercy, has been an assistant athletic director for Pioneer High School and athletic director for Lahser High School in Bloomfield Hills. She also worked as a stadium liaison for Birmingham Groves and Seaholm high schools in 2001-02, during which she led fundraising projects through those schools’ athletic facilities - experience that could be key to Claar’s new role.

The Lincoln Consolidated Schools district rests in a relatively rural area of Ypsilanti Township, boasting four full-sized soccer fields, six softball fields, two baseball fields and a football stadium - the type of real estate that youth and recreational sports leagues crave. Claar hopes to leverage that space for additional revenue.

“If you look around, the space is great,” she said. “I think there are opportunities for summer camps, soccer clubs, leagues rentals - we’ve got enough space out here that once we get organized, there are opportunities to get people out here to use it.”

That would be especially true, Claar said, if Lincoln could secure funding to purchase FieldTurf, an increasingly common playing surface for school facilities. When it rains, Claar said, she has to “keep her fingers crossed that the field will hold up.”

But if Lincoln were to implement artificial surfaces on at least some of its fields, Claar said, it could increase the district’s fundraising potential by $100,000 a year.

“That’s something I’ll be taking a look at,” Claar said. “There are opportunities for the athletic department to bring in fundraising dollars. There’s money to be had out there, I think.”

Of course, those are long-term goals for Claar, who’s only been on the job for a few weeks. For now, she’s still figuring out how to take over for a man who held the job so long that no one knows exactly what he did.

“The first priorities for me are events - making sure events are where we think they are and when we think they are,” Claar said.