Given the litany of changes happening across the NCAA, higher education, Division II, etc., how are you communicating current changes to your university leadership and athletics staff and how are you preparing both for future changes?
In times of rapid change and uncertainty, I believe the first step for anyone in an AD role is to ensure that you are qualified to be the subject matter expert on your campus. We aren’t in a position to just “keep our head down” and worry about what is happening right in front of us. There are so many resources available to us now that there is no excuse to not be well-educated on what is happening in the industry. That obviously doesn’t mean you have all the answers, but it puts you in a position to have the right conversations.
The challenge from there becomes sifting through all of that information and figuring out what is relevant to your various constituent groups, and that starts with knowing what is important to each of them. The things that matter to a governing board differ from what matters to your campus leadership, coaches, staff, donors, etc. Once you figure all of that out, then you can start working on communication.
We are handling the communication part in a variety of ways. I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to give brief presentations in a Board of Governors retreat and a campus town hall. Our campus leadership team is doing a deep dive on current issues in a retreat later this summer. With coaches and athletic staff, we rely on our regularly scheduled meetings to provide updates and send out relevant information directly as needed. In many ways, there is so much uncertainty right now and so few definite answers, the communication becomes as much about preparing everyone for what might happen as opposed to what we know. No one likes surprises.
There’s more and more being put on our communications and athletic training staffs than ever before. How do we not burn out our staff? What are you doing to help alleviate that?
This has obviously been a major topic at virtually every conference or convention I’ve attended over the past few years, and the challenge is real. For me, the most important thing is to simply be willing to think about the positions and their expectations differently than we have in the past. We have to recognize how we arrived at this point, and that means we cannot continue operating as we always have. This requires both an open mind and a critical examination of what duties or functions are most important in these roles.
With communications staff our primary goal has been to provide flexibility. Simple things like reduced office hours or the ability to work from home seem to go a long way. It’s also important to look at the rest of your staff and your campus partners to see who can help lighten the load for your communications staff. Whether it’s social media, broadcast operations, or any of the other myriad of responsibilities we’ve put on these staff members, chances are you have people on your campus that can help. We’ve had success working with our University Relations and Marketing team, our campus television station, and our communications department in a variety of ways.
For athletic trainers, the first question we asked is “how do we provide some relief without diminishing quality of care for our student-athletes?” We’ve moved away from “sport specific” athletic trainers, which has allowed us to stagger hours in the athletic training room. We still have the coverage we need, but the burden isn’t always on the same individual to be there all of the time based on which sports are in season. We’ve reduced in-person practice coverage expectations in sports with lower injury rates. There’s always someone available should an injury occur, they just might be in the athletic training room and not present at practice. We’ve also reduced travel expectations in sports with lower injury rates. That has required cooperation across the conference, and we’re fortunate in the MIAA that our Head Athletic Trainers all came together to put some guidelines and expectations in place for providing care for visiting teams. We are constantly evaluating the effectiveness of these changes for both our athletic trainers and our student-athletes, always going back to that first question.
At times, it feels like we’re seeing more turnover than ever with coaches and staff. When hiring a coach or administrator, how do you identify fit with your department’s culture? What are the key attributes you look for in candidates? More broadly, what actionable steps are you taking as AD to foster the culture you desire for your department?
Fit is possibly the most important aspect to making the best hire possible but the most difficult to quantify and evaluate. It’s also important to realize that turnover can happen even when the fit is outstanding. We recently lost a staff member after just 5 months who fit perfectly within our department and culture. He got an opportunity in Division I at the school he grew up cheering for and couldn’t turn that down. Those things happen. I attribute a lot of the higher turnover to the rapid changes we’re seeing within the industry and the increase in opportunities within the collegiate sport ecosystem but not on college campuses.
I’ve learned that setting expectations is critical. You have to be clear from the start what the job is, what it isn’t, and what you are looking for in the hire. That is important for both parties. A lack of clarity in expectations can lead to a bad hire, an unhappy employee, or both.
We try to identify fit by getting as many people involved in the process as possible. Regardless of the position, we try to have candidates meet with coaching staff, administrative and support staff, student-athletes (when appropriate), and relevant campus partners. I feel that the more feedback we can get from a good variety of staff members, the better chance we have of finding that fit.
As far as actionable steps to build culture, I’ve really had to take a step back recently and refocus some of my priorities. It is incredibly easy to get lost in the day-to-day or “the grind” as we might call it. There is never a shortage of “stuff” to get done or fires to put out. That’s happened to me, and it’s pulled me away from the thing that I believe is most important in building the culture you want - relationships with your people. So I’m working to refocus on those relationships and being intentional in finding time to listen, have meaningful conversations, and make sure I understand what is needed from me.
With NIL continuing to be a topic of discussion, what are you doing in the community, through partnerships, in communication with donors, etc. to bolster the opportunities for MSSU student-athletes?
This is a timely question, as I was just having this conversation with our booster club steering committee last night. To be frank, we aren’t currently doing enough and developing a more robust and defined NIL plan is a significant priority for me right now. We’ve been able to get by in Division II for the most part by checking some relatively easy boxes like access to a marketplace, co-branded apparel, and basic education. I believe that is getting ready to change quickly, driven by two significant recent developments.
First, the emergency legislation to eliminate the year-in-residence requirement for multi-time transfers makes the ability to retain student-athletes more important than ever. We’re moving into a period of unprecedented freedom to transfer and institutions will need NIL opportunities to keep student-athletes out of the portal. Second, the proposed settlement in the House case, and the revenue sharing that will come with it at the Division I level, will create an environment where the ability to earn money over and above scholarship, Pell, etc. becomes a cultural expectation for student-athletes at all levels.
For me, the first step is continuing to educate our community, our fans, and our donors about what is happening and why this is important in order for Missouri Southern to be successful. My hope is to tap into existing corporate partnerships and other local/regional business to create new opportunities for our student-athletes. We will welcome donor-funded NIL if presented appropriately, but we have so many fundraising needs within the department that we have to be careful not to undermine those.
You have previously expressed support for more data tools or metrics to make postseason selections. If you had all the power, what changes would you advocate for making better postseason selections? Should DII go the route DIII is going to move all team sport selections to a ratings index? Are there structural changes you would like to make with the selection process?
On the data-related questions, I am a huge proponent of utilizing relevant data in the selection process. We’ve always used basic metrics like RPI and Performance Indicator, but I believe there are a number of other tools that could improve the selection process. Even in a regional model, evaluating teams from conferences of varying strength that have played dramatically different schedules with few common opponents is a frequent challenge. Metrics like KPI and strength of record provide unbiased, results-based tools to help make sure the most deserving teams make the postseason.
However, I’m not necessarily an advocate of going to the Division III model. It has its benefits, namely simplification of the process and objective application of criteria across regions. Admittedly, I’m not an expert on their process, but I think it might try to create a “one size fits all” solution when that really isn’t the case. I still believe having people involved in the process is important to really dive in and evaluate teams based on the criteria. I just believe they need to have better criteria on which to make that evaluation. Neither solution is perfect. People will still have issues with whatever process is used. It’s just a matter of whether those issues are with a committee or with a ratings index.
One simple change I’d make for selections is to embrace quality, results-based metrics and raise or eliminate the limit on the number of criteria used in the selection process to give committees as many relevant tools as possible for evaluation.
If I had all the power, I would find a way to invest more resources in championships. With that investment I would expand the football bracket to 32 with AQs. I would move to a super-regional model for selections in all team sports, protecting AQs for all conferences but moving away from all regions being guaranteed representation at the championship final site. That would take a pretty significant investment, and it would put additional work on our sport committees when it comes to bracketing. However, I think that could potentially reduce the number of deserving teams that are left out of the postseason and increase the likelihood that our best teams are represented at our final sites. I understand why regionalization exists and is utilized, and it serves a great purpose in the regular season. I don’t think we should pretend it’s perfect as currently constructed, especially when it comes to championships.
A ton of focus across the industry is centered on the high-profile issues facing DI. So much so that we recently heard GSC Commissioner Matt Wilson say: “Nobody’s talking about that so it’s really a drive for the 23 Division II commissioners, we have to lead. I think it’s our obligation and we’re trying to do it and whether there’s a roadblock in front of us or not, we’re going to push forward and try to find what that path looks like for our schools.” What leadership does the division need amidst this supposed lack of focus? What changes would you advocate for the betterment of DII?
It’s true that so much of the focus from industry leaders and national media is currently on the high-profile litigation in Division I, so in many ways it does seem like the rest of us are an afterthought. That can be frustrating. Very few people are talking about how some of these changes might impact Divisions II and III. My assumption is that those currently focused on the Division I issues believe that by solving some of those, they are ultimately also providing some solutions for the rest of us. It remains to be seen if they are right.
It would seem the biggest threats to Division II athletics are a potential breakaway from the NCAA of the top 60-70 Division I departments and the granting of employee status to student-athletes. Either the loss of revenue to fund the division or the increase in cost to individual institutions could be crippling. Based on Charlie Baker’s comments in Las Vegas, I think his hope is that the proposed House settlement keeps the former from happening for the foreseeable future and provides a better basis from which to seek legislative protection from the latter.
I do think the Division II leadership staff has our overall best interests in mind and is advocating for the membership, but I also think their voice is minimized or drowned out in the discourse. There’s also the perception from outside the division that in comparison to the issues at the DI level any problems we might have are minimal. That is where we have to continue to advocate for ourselves, and the Division II membership has always done that well. More than anything, with all of the uncertainty swirling around us, I believe we need to be creative, adaptive, and flexible. We can’t be tethered to the norms of how things have always been done, we need to make room for those that might decide they want to be part of Division II, and while we might not be driving a lot of the change, we have to be prepared to react to it.
What steps did you take early in your career to expand your responsibilities? At what point did you feel the need to diversify your experience from external relations and add compliance and event operations on your path to becoming an AD? What practical advice would you have for those of us just starting out as we seek to reach the same position one day?
I’ll answer the second question first. When I moved from the University of Evansville to Quincy University, it was less about diversifying my experience and more about finding a position and place that fit what I was looking for at that point in my career. As many do, I started out with aspirations to be an AD in the top tier of Division I. What I learned quickly is that isn’t the path for everyone, and my priorities at the time weren’t going to get me there. In a conversation with one of our women’s basketball assistant coaches at Evansville in which I was sharing some thoughts about what I was looking for in my career, he suggested I look into working at the Division II level. Despite some initial reservations, I decided to pursue that path and have found a home in Division II that continues to provide great satisfaction after 14 years.
Diversifying my experience in that move was an ancillary benefit that has served me well as an AD. Not only did I move from an external role to one focused on compliance and operations, I had a mentor there in Marty Bell (now the AD at Simpson College) that allowed me to take on supervisory responsibility and supported me when I advocated for sport oversight after a few years on staff. When I had the opportunity to become an AD, I felt prepared because of the breadth of experience I had been afforded to that point.
My advice to those starting out that wish to become an AD would be to ask questions and learn as much as you can about the roles of others in your department and beyond. It’s not always possible to get direct experience in multiple areas of a department, but you can always learn from your peers. If you have the opportunity to go to NACDA or a similar convention, don’t be afraid to get out of “your lane” and attend sessions on other topics. Ultimately, when you sit in the AD chair, all of those areas will fall under your purview and that working knowledge will prove very valuable. The other thing would be to find ways to get involved outside of your department. Take advantage of opportunities that are offered within your institution, at the conference level, or on the regional or national level. That might be committee work on your campus or conference, serving on a regional advisory committee, or something within the governance structure. Those experiences allow you to meet new people, build relationships, and learn things you will need to know when you become an AD.
