Episode #108: Ryan Callahan

🎙️  From the Mound to the Director’s Chair ⚾👔🏆

Ryan Callahan’s path through athletics is nothing short of remarkable. From his days as a standout pitcher at UW-Whitewater and in the San Francisco Giants organization, to returning home as the Director of Athletics overseeing 22 varsity programs, Ryan has lived nearly every side of the college athletics experience.

In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Ryan shares what he’s learned about leadership, loyalty, and culture while supervising coaching legends and guiding one of the most successful athletic departments in Division III sports. His insights will challenge you to think about leadership not as a position, but as a responsibility to elevate those around you.

Don’t miss this inspiring conversation—then come back on Monday, Sept 22 for Part 2, where Ryan offers his unique perspective on the college recruiting process from the AD’s chair.

👉 Listen now and explore more resources at CoachMattRogers.com

Transcript

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That are now saying I am struggling. This is such a new experience for me. High school was so easy. I had all my friends and now I'm going to a new place. I have new roommates. It's a new city, new experiences, and I'm not doing well and that's okay. But now what I tell my student athletes is that there's never a time in your life. For the four years that you're gonna be at college, that every single person that you come across on this university wants to see you succeed and do better. That's right. The only way that we're gonna see you do better and help you do better is if you tell us if you need help. Welcome back to the Significant Coaching Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. Today's guest has worn just about every hat you can wear in athletics, student athlete, professional pitcher, administrator, coach, and now athletic director. Ryan Callahan's story begins on the mound at UW Whitewater, where he was a three-time all-conference pitcher and part of one of the most successful eras in Warhawk baseball history. His journey took him into the San Francisco Giants organization and eventually back home this time to lead the very department where it all started. As Director of Athletics at UW Whitewater, Ryan oversees 22 varsity programs and sits on the chancellor's cabinet, shaping the vision for an entire athletic department. Along the way, he's had the privilege of leading and supervising some of the true giants of division three coaching legends who have built powerhouse programs and shaped generations of student athletes. That experience has taught him not just how to manage, but how to lead, balancing respect for tradition with a vision for the future, and finding ways to help great coaches be even greater. In this conversation, you'll hear Ryan's perspective on leadership, the lessons that carried over from the diamond to the boardroom, and how working alongside coaching legends has shaped his own philosophy of what it means to build and sustain a championship culture. And before we dive in, if you'd like to schedule me Matt Rogers to speak at your school or organization, you can learn more and connect with me directly@coachmattrogers.com. Alright, let's get into it. Here's my guest, Ryan Callahan. Ryan Callahan. So nice to see you. So excited to talk to you. You guys have built this world class athletics program up there in Wisconsin. It's a hidden gem, and I'm just, I'm excited to talk to you. Thanks for having Matt. When you sent me some of the previous podcasts, I listened to Coach Gard, one of our competitors to see what he had to say. And by the way, he did a great job. So I appreciate you promoting the division three, the smaller college, experience, which obviously is dear to my heart and dear to your heart. And it's pretty special. It is. And I, I. I find myself getting on that D three bandstand all the time because I had such a great experience. And I looked at Notre Dame, I looked at Illinois, I looked at Wisconsin, I looked at Marquette and I ended up at co college in Iowa, and I'm so thankful that I did because I was a small town kid. I realized once I got there how important it was for me to have smaller classrooms and, be able to acclimate. I think I would've gotten lost if there was 25,000 kids on that campus. Yeah, no, for sure. And I was in a similar boat, when you're dreaming of playing college sports, you dream about playing, division one Power five huge schools. And obviously that's a wonderful experience, I'm sure for a lot of those student athletes. But, you get lost in the anonymity of the larger schools. And I think when you're at a smaller school you really are somebody, whether it's the dean of the college or the provost or the president. Or the athletic director, they know you, and a lot of those larger schools, they just don't have that personal interaction, personal touch, which, I'm very grateful that I chose Whitewater and obviously you chose CO and you can probably name some of the administrators that you got to know, or the coaches from other teams that you got to know. It's if you're at some of those bigger schools you're not getting that experience. I've said this way too many times on this podcast, but I walked out of CO where the college president, the vp, the dean of students and the chair of my department, all made phone calls for me to help me get a job. Where else are you gonna, where else Outside of D three, you're gonna get that. Oh, a hundred percent. Every year I probably got about 20 to 25 letters of rec for students. Whether it's student workers too and student athletes that are looking to, whether get a career in athletics or just move on with their career. And it's really, it's really a highlight to have that at that relationship with a lot of those, up and coming professionals and being able to write a letter of rec and selfishly it's nice to be able to put like athletic director behind my name to say, Hey, this might help. Yeah. Absolutely. It's not just a random buddy that's writing you a letter of rec. So hopefully the title goes a long ways as well to help those kids move on or those young adults move on. That's right at college ad that's a huge recommendation. Let's talk about your student workers,'cause I, we haven't talked enough about that on the show. They're so valuable. To an athletic department, especially at the D three level where you don't have millions of dollars in a budget, you don't have a huge staff. Those students become such a huge part of making sure the athletics runs. Talk a little bit about how many students you have, some of the roles they play and why they're so valuable for you. Yeah, we probably go in and out of about 40 to 50 student workers over the course of the year. Some of that's gonna be graduation in the winter, and then some of that is going to be, they just want more hours. Obviously we have a few contests per week and then a number on the weekend. If they want to get a solid 30 hours a week, we can't, we really can't. Do that all the time. But our student workers, man, they're the backbone of who we are. It's, I come from a support staff background, so I have a soft spot in my heart for, the event management, the athletic trainers, the sids, the people that are walking, the officials and the referees at halftime, making sure they got their water and everything else and doing that. And we've been, man, I've been so fortunate in the. Six plus years that I've been, in this role. And then another couple years before that, we've had these student workers that are so handy with technology. Unlike Matt, you and I, obviously getting this podcast going. Our student workers would've figured this out in two minutes. It took us 21 minutes. They're running the scoreboard. They're putting stuff on the video board, they're running the stats to the coaches, they're getting there earlier, making sure that, I referred, coach Guard when they, when Plattville men's basketball comes here, that somebody's meeting him. Yeah. They look professional. They act professional, making sure that the student athletes that are coming here know where they're going. They have everything they need. And. You said it earlier, we've been very fortunate we have a successful program and a lot of that means that a lot of people want to come play us and see what facilities we have. Yeah. September 6th we have. I think six volleyball games, a soccer game, and a football game all in the matter of eight hours. And we got a fleet of students that, they're gonna kill it, they're gonna be running, they're gonna be running scoreboard, they're gonna be helping out with some of our stats. They're gonna be doing the live streaming. And if we don't, if we didn't have our student force that we have, we wouldn't be able to accommodate, and the flexibility that our coaches have with scheduling. I remember when I got the ad job at Maryville in like 2002. And we didn't have an SAD, we didn't have a compliance person. I didn't have an assistant ad, so I was trying to figure out stats, all the stat programs, I was trying to figure out, compliance. And I was writing the four year study, the NCAA four year study. And if I wouldn't have had the student staff I wouldn't have lasted a month.'cause they kept me afloat. They were the ones that could do all the things and knew where all the buttons needed to be pushed and where everything needed to be. So I love that. What's cool about it and where I want to dive in with you about that is it's a great thing for your resume because where you, if you want to be in athletics, there's nothing better than having a role in, in, in a department at any level. Oh, for sure. And we talk even with our student managers, if you look at, some of the power four, power five schools, even the ones, some coaches in the NBA. Yeah. A lot of these men and women, they started as a video, video person for the women's basketball team at Whitewater. And then they got to go to the next school, and the next school and the next school, and I think almost even more important, it gives'em a taste of what it's like. You really like, do you wanna work this night and do you wanna work this weekend? Because if you're having a hard time coming as a 19-year-old to this place, once find a partner and you potentially have a family, if it's hard at 20, it's gonna be harder at 40 when you have. When you have a family at home saying, Hey, when are you getting home? We gotta do this, and this. So it's really special. And I love the relationship that I have with the event managers.'cause we're all grinding it out. Yeah. I always joke hashtag D three life like. I might be taking tickets at the volleyball game on Saturday and being a ball boy on Monday for the women's soccer game. There's not a job that is too big or too small for you at administration and division three. Yep. And then that kinda shows the student workers man, if he's. If he's doing that. Yeah. I better do something too. Yeah. Yeah. And then just the relationships that you have, like I said,'cause you are grinding with them. You get to know'em a little bit. You get to know, who they are as people and what their aspirations are. And like you said, Matt, like if you can just be a reference, if you can, I've been around south southern Wisconsin for 44 years now. If I know somebody that is in this company or in this business, making a side call saying, Hey, look out for this person's resume. They're pretty talented. And especially the ones that were, that are here, were with me and my event people for, 2, 3, 4 years. Man, you get to know'em. Yeah. I think my event manager was invited to a couple weddings in the last few years of like student workers that he's had, and the coaches get to know him too. So then, then they feel a little bit, I don't know. They, hits, helps their ego a little bit. Yeah. Oh, the football coach knows who I am, or, the basketball coach knows who I am, or the soccer coach knows who I am. And our coaches do a great job of just, giving'em nothing but respect and, and saying hi to'em. And I think they understand that can make, that can make their day when they seem'em in the hallway walking to class and, just saying, hi, how are your day? How's your day going? But yeah they definitely run our department on a lot of these weekends when we just have. A ton of events going on. It's such a fun experience when you're in it. You just, you're working eight to 78 hour weeks in, in the heart of the season. When, like you said, when you've got seven, eight games, you get there, you probably get there right early in the morning, and you might not leave till 10, 11 o'clock at night. So it's such a long day. But when you have those relationships and you get to see the growth of those young people and what they're learning and how much maturity they're getting out of it. There's nothing better. I want to talk about your baseball career for just a little bit because I think your experience going from D three, getting to play, getting that time in the minor leagues, getting to play some big time professional baseball. What has that done to shape your leadership with your coaches and with your athletes? I'll give you a little bit of a story. So one of my mentors was Paul Plinski. Yeah. And Paul Plinski is now at Colorado State Pueblo. Yeah. And he has a PhD and I always, when I was navigating my career and I would, bounce some ideas off of him and he said, I would encourage you to get a PhD because it gets you in the door and it gets you immediate respect whether you deserve it or not. That's a different story. But when you walk into a department meeting with, economics or marketing, the fact that you have that PhD is gonna give you some credibility right there. And I think with a playing career and there's a lot of adsd that have been very successful, far more far more successful than I am. But I think having that on my resume it gives people like oh, he, he knows what it's like. Yeah. He knows the grind. He knows how to work hard. He played at a higher level than the level that we're at right now. Yeah. He's seen some of those players that are playing, at Miller or AM FAM Stadium at Wrigley. He's been with a lot of those players. He has some of those contacts with the managers and some of those people. So I think it gives some credibility. I don't necessarily think it really, I hope it doesn't change too much. People's perspect, perspective of me, perception of me, but it is one of those things where I now I can walk in and say, Hey, this is who I am. I'm an athletic director at a successful Division III school. And by the way I did play some fairly high level athletics myself. You did. So it gives you a little bit more credibility, when it's all said and done now that's, 19, 20 years ago. What I think is really great about it is the reality of what D three really is. And it is great athletics. You can't go watch your football team and volleyball team and basketball teams, and baseball teams and not go, wow, the, these aren't, this isn't intramurals, this isn't, whoever wants to play gets to play. These are some of the best kids in the country that are coming to Whitewater to play your sports. No, for sure. And I think that's one of the things that is there's always gonna be a stigma with division three, right? Yeah. If you think about social media and the social media push over the last 20 plus years it's always D one. And I know we're gonna talk about recruiting in the future, but when I was recruiting we were, and I was in obviously coaching baseball. We talked to a lot of families and I remember talking to these young men and their parents and saying, what other schools are you looking at? Some D one, some this and that. And our standard response was like there's a low level division one. Then there's like Texas, like if you're looking at Texas, we're not in the same ballpark. Yes, literally buddy, you go do your thing at Texas. But if you're looking at some of the schools that are, some of the mid-majors that maybe not have had some of, a lot of success in baseball, then let's talk because your experience here is gonna be as good. If not better than some of your experiences as some of those mid-major Division one programs. The likelihood of you playing past college when you come here is gonna probably be even greater than the likelihood of you playing past college at some of those division one schools. And what we've had to a constant dialogue for the last 25 years at Whitewater is how do we break that Division one, division three stigma with our region? With our community, even to an extent with our state, and we've been fortunate to have some people that have done some really good things. Obviously, Lance Pol beat, Fresno State that Fresno State coach was the coach at North Dakota State, went to USC and he breed him pretty good. Pretty handily. We had a, an offensive lineman sign, an$80 million deal a couple years ago. Yep. Lake Bocker, making heaven saves for the Florida or Miami Marlins, so we, we have that. We have the we have the history of success with our individual athletes to say, Hey, if you come here, you're gonna have a chance. And now with the transfer portal, it's even more because we can say, Hey, if you come here. We'll give you a shot somewhere else. Yeah. So it's it's easy to sell whitewater, but it's hard to sell people when they have that division three stigma. And I think that's something that I know Coach Guard, a lot of the really successful coaches are trying to break. Yeah. You had the president from Juta Yeah. And what they've been able to do with volleyball is unbelievable. Yeah. How have they been able to keep those, young women that are so talented at Juta and the transfer portal time, or how do you get people in transfer portal time to a junior yada type school? Yeah. But that's, it's, we're always trying to break that stigma. Yeah. I think the key is really if you're a family and you've got a young athlete, there's a D three close to you, probably within an hour's drive, a hundred percent. Just go watch a game, go watch. And I guarantee you, you'll walk away going, wow, the talent on that field, the coaching that's going on. It's so impressive. And for us, as former athletes. I'm just amazed at how that bar continues to go up every year, aren't you? It's Matt. It, it is wild. It is absolutely wild. I'm getting to the age where, so my oldest is going into eighth grade and a lot of my friends that are my age have kids that are going into high school and I tell'em all the time, come to a game. You got a daughter that's good at basketball, come to a Warhawk game, have him, come to a Whitewater Oshkosh game to the better or Whitewater Scout last year. Any of those three, three teams. If you think your daughter is as good as you say she is, let's see what she's got against these girls, these women. Yeah. If your son is pretty good at football and he's 175 pound lineman I'll get you on the sidelines for a whitewater lacrosse game. Unless less then I wanna talk to you afterwards and be like, all right, what does my son have to do? That's what I wanna know. Yeah. I wanna hear your reaction to that. Yeah. Or if your son, if your daughter's a good softball player, come watch us play Oshkosh or Point, see what you think then.'cause you're exactly right. The number of student athletes that go play college sports is very small. And the number of athletes that can play at our level. Is even smaller. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's tough. And there's a reality to this too, that the, some of the division one coaches are, they're not just saying when they're in their office, they're now saying it to cameras. We're not recruiting freshmen. Yeah. Kalari said it two weeks ago. Patino said it yesterday. We're not recruiting freshmen. We, we can't expect an 18-year-old to come in and compete with a 23-year-old. But if you had a great year at UW Whitewater and you averaged 20 points per game on the basketball court, or you ran for 1400 yards of running back, I guarantee you those D one coaches are now paying attention to you.'cause you're a proven commodity now, right? Oh, a hundred percent. And that's and I think that's really tough for our coaches, it's, yeah. D three you, we talk about family, right? And I know that's a cliche, every high school t-shirt that has ever been given out has something with family on it. But it's true at our level, it is a close knit group. And part of it is because you spend so much time with each other. Especially with the change in, weeks to days for the ncaa, if you're maximizing those days, you're spending more time than you probably even thought you would spend with your teammates. And on top of that, you're probably living with three or four of your teammates too. Yeah. So over the course of your three to five to six years, however long it takes, you get outta your respective institution, you're literally spending 24 hours a day for up to 10 months with the same Yeah. At least three or four people and then whatever team you're on with those other people as well. Yeah, and it's it builds community, it builds family. It's built connectedness. But now with the transfer portal, our coaches have thrived upon development. Matt, I'm gonna get you in as a freshman and you're, this big, you're this strong. I'm gonna develop you into a player in three, four years. So by the time you're a junior mat, you're gonna be a stud. Yeah. Now all of a sudden, what if you become a stud as a freshman? And you're gone. And that's what our coach is about to deal with. We've lost Whew. We've lost a lot of players to the T support of the last two years. And some of'em, I don't blame'em. They're going to, they're all scholarship kids. Yeah. But it's hard for our coaches to adjust to that. Yeah. Because they get that relationship. They get to know you, they get to know your family. Your parents are coming to all the games or coming to the away games.'cause it's not very far. Yeah. Then all of a sudden you gotta go into the coach's office and say, coach, I'm. I'm transferring. Yeah. What do you say? What do you say? You have to support them and you're getting a full ride. Yeah. You're not paying anything for school. I think it's a feather in our cap. Our baseball team was really successful this year. We lost guys to four scholarship schools. Not what we want to hear, but hey, we won a national title's, so what are they gonna prove? That's right. And now they're gonna get the last two years that their school paid for. Yeah. And g not bad deal for those guys. And I guarantee a coach has got four kids ready to go that are ready to take all those innings. He probably does, but he won't tell me that. He is still pretty frustrated. Yeah. That's life. That's the part of this. Let's talk about coaching coaches.'cause I, I. I was an AD at 27. Ooh, that's young. And I think the closest person in age on the staff that was a head coach underneath me was probably 10 years older than me. But as I got older and older, I realized it doesn't matter how old I was, doesn't matter if that person's 60-year-old and got 10 national championships. I still had to do some coaching. It was just in a different way than maybe that 30 5-year-old coach. Yeah. How do you go about that? What is your perspective as an ad who's supervising these coaches and coaching these coaches? What role is that in your head and how do you put it into action? And Matt, you and I had a similar experience. I took over when I was about 37 and I walk into my first coaches meeting. And I have Pat Miller, who's won two national titles. John Denly, she was to won two national titles. Stacey Boudreaux, who won one, Brenda Vo, who's got seven. I got, it's like a hall of fame group. And I remember like sitting there like calling attention thinking, what am I doing That's really what you're saying yourself. I know what that feels like. Yeah. They're these, this, they're supposed to listen to me. This is impossible. But it kinda goes back to, playing at a high level and being, a whitewater person. There's a little bit of respect that I think was just there already. But once I got through that phase of almost. I was almost being coached by my coaches. I know that sounds really corny, but I was trying to figure out what, what is what makes Pat Miller tick? Alright. What can I do to motivate him to do X, Y, and Z? Football just, ran through seven national titles. It's been a couple years. How do I get. That program back to where it needs to be or where we think it needs to be. Yeah. In reality, and I think the first year was really learning from the coaches. What do you want from me? What do you need from me? And then after, taking that first year and just learning, and not doing anything crazy. To be honest with you, I don't think I made a single change in probably 18 months. Part of it was working, the other part was COVID, which, that was a big part of it, but ult ultimately we were really successful. It's like the old cliche in coaching it was not broken. Don't fix it. That's right. We were doing some good things, but then I think I was able to really step back and almost have that, that 30,000 foot view of, now I gotta figure out what is Coach Garr doing at Platteville that we can do at Whitewater? Pat doesn't necessarily know Greg Guard is doing, whether it's with fundraising, whether it's with scheduling.'cause those are the things that our coaches, I don't want them to worry about that, so now I'm trying to evaluate our programs against other programs. The WIC is very strong for just about every single sport, right? Let me take a look at what, Oshkosh football's doing. Let me figure out what lacrosse and Eau Claire wrestling are doing and really take that back and say, Hey, coach, why this is what they're doing. Why aren't we doing that? There's a couple times where, it was like, yeah, we tried that. Okay, then let's not do that. Stuff like that. But I think one of the, one of the biggest things, and I tell all of my student staff and I truly believe this within leadership, some of it, so much of it's being present. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't miss a single game, and you can call my wife and she'll tell you that I didn't miss a single game. For the first probably two and a half years of my career as ad. Yeah. Like the only games I missed were ever'cause of the NCAA convention and that was just'cause we had to. And I think once you get that respect of oh yeah, they're grinding it with me. Yeah. Then it's a lot easier to say, coach can't be doing that. Yeah. I was there, I saw it, or why are we recruiting this, and this? Have you looked at this or stuff like that. So I think the biggest thing one was just taking a year and just taking it all in. Nobody's gonna teach you exactly how to be an ad. They're just not Right. There's the compliance issue that, like you said, you had to figure all that out. Yeah, there's a lot of those things. We work in a state system, so there's a state system that I gotta follow as far as procurement and everything else, and HR and whatever else. And there's ever, there's, and there's other things that you just have to have kind of a big picture mentality and say, what are we trying to do here? And that's where I think for me, for years, three and four really helped. Then it went into, all right, now I think I gained their respect. I was at every game. I saw what they're doing. Now I can critique'em because I was there. And now let's talk about what are some future plans. Let's talk about roster development. Let's talk about facilities. And facilities aren't necessarily, you can't do those overnight. From co. Yeah, if you wanna get a new softball field or a new baseball field, you're talking 20 years down the road, maybe not 20, but close to it. Yeah. So then it got into the, to the planning phase of what are some of the small projects, some are, what are some of the medium projects and what are some of the big projects? And one of the obstacles that I had is that I went through. Man, I think I had six or seven chancellors to report to in my first five and a half years, yeah. So all of a sudden I have these short-term plans, and now I'm telling three different chancellors within eight months. And having to convince them that was, that's compliant. Exactly. Yeah. And now I think what, whatever, six plus years in I was reading a book on leadership and one of the things was like, my role as a CEO is to remove barriers from my upper management. And I feel like that's the role of an ad and specifically at a division three is whatever barriers my coaches have, let me try to remove those. Within reason, right? If somebody is teaching class Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, let me see if I can talk to the College of Ed to say, Hey, they're traveling on Wednesdays. They're not getting home until two in the morning from Menominee, Wisconsin. Do you really want this person teaching at eight o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday or a Thursday? No kidding. Yeah. So just trying to remove some of those barriers and really just advocate for what we do. And we're no different than the than most schools, right? Our athletes have a higher GPA, they have a higher retention rate. They have a higher graduation rate. We are more diverse, we have more out-of-state kids, so I think once you have that data and once you understand your plan. And you feel comfortable removing some of those barriers in front of your coaches for them to succeed. It's really just working across campus and within the community to really highlight and advocate for those programs that are doing really well that, I'm not saying we're at like the flute effect level in Boston College, but tell you Matt, when our football team was winning, we had the highest enrollment we've ever had. And I'm not saying it's a direct correlation or some people say it's just a coincidence, but if you look at the national average of enrollment, it was going down by a small percentage and we were going up. So it's really highlighting some of those things to say, if you invest money in us, we will provide a better enrollment numbers and retention and everything else for the school. And as from a D three background, the more enrollment. The more money your budget has, not just for you, but for everybody, right? Everybody wins and it's, every time you win a national championship, millions of dollars that would have to be spent just to get your name at that level nationally is free a hundred percent. And all of a sudden, kids in New York and California and Texas, and Mississippi, and Minnesota that maybe had never heard of you. Now knows, where is this place? They won a national championship. They're the best. They're the best in the country. Yeah, no, I look at our baseball team. We got a couple kids from Texas, a couple from Florida, and people are like, how did you get those? Like they, they reached out. Yeah. Like they reached out and said, this is who I am and this is where I'm at and do you like me? And it's yeah, get up here now. Yeah. That's what, it's 17. It's I like championships. I'd like to be a part of a national championship. Everybody wants that. Heck, all of sudden, all of a sudden you're a lot more attractive. Yep. Yeah. And it's not just the baseball team or it's not just the volleyball team. That must be a pretty good school if they're doing this with that, there must be some strength there in other places. So I love that. I want to get into mental health a little bit with you'cause. Again, you are a professional athlete, you've been a coach. You were, you've been an ad a long time, assistant ad for a long time. What are you doing as the ad to think about the mental health of your coaches and your athletes? Are there things that you guys are trying to implement every year from the ad? Space to make sure there's that balance of life. These kids and your coaches have that place where they know they can go when they're starting to hit some of those low points. Yeah it's funny you say this because I really think it's interesting. Division three talks about the student athlete experience. That's what it's all about. But there's less restrictions on practice time and everything at our level than there are division ones, which is. Funny, like division one, you have, you have the hours per week and That's right. Division three, like Matt, if I'm your basketball coach, I could have you practice five hours a week for six days a week. Yeah. And that's legal. Yeah. So anyway, it wasn't when I was coaching, but it is now. Yeah. So that's, that's a separate conversation that I think is interesting. But no, I, I. Mental health is it's one of those things that's really hard because you never see it. You know it's there but you don't see it. So one of the things that, that we focused on, and this is kudos to the WIC, we've really done a good job, I think as a whole. We do screeners at the beginning of the year for every certified roster that's done by our university health and counseling center by a counseling trained professional. They evaluate those screeners to see if there's any kind of red flags. One of our counselors comes over to the Williams Center where our athletic is athletics are located once a week every, for the entire semester. So you know that this person's gonna be there for four hours, if not five hours or longer. That's fantastic. I love that idea. Just to meet and it's all anonymous. You don't need an appointment. You just walk in and you talk through some things and you go, sorry, and you just, talk to them about, whatever you would like to talk about. I think the other piece is that, because it's becoming much more prevalent and there's people like, Kevin Love that come out and others, professional athletes that are just saying I've been struggling. I think the coaches are now starting to look for it. I think they're trying to see, if like it's a sign to communicate with somebody. That's right. We had a, a situation last year where somebody said something to somebody else and it just kept going and it finally got to me and it's like everybody handled it perfect'cause somebody told somebody else. And that person told the coach. The coach told me, I told, the support group and we handled it, we managed it. And I think it's getting much more comfortable for people to talk about. Probably back in, in our age, in our era. You didn't really talk about mental health. No. I think mental health was confused with Just grind it out, Matt. That's right. Just grind it out, rub some dirt on it and get back out there. Yeah. And it's yeah. There are certain things that you do have to grind it out. Yeah. If you were, if you have a 10 page paper and you procrastinated and it's due in 12 hours. Dude, you better grind it out. That's right. You gotta grind that out. That's right. But if you're having that anxiety and you tried to write this paper three weeks ago and you just shut down and you just, become overly consumed, then you need some help. Yeah. Let's talk to somebody. So I think the beauty of where we're at now is mental health is much more open. People are talking, more free about it. Obviously the NCAA is having some waivers with mental health and, and being a little bit more flexible with some of that. I think that's positive. From our end, that's the student athlete piece, we do the screener. We have the mental health professional once a week for the entire year. We partner with our kinesiology department, who the department chair did a, her PhD is in like sports psych, so she meets with a lot of our teams, more focusing on performance, anxiety and performance, stuff less on. The other kind of side of mental health with, just social anxiety, depression and stuff like that. But don't you think that they go hand in hand? If you've got anxiety on the field, it's probably rolling over to other parts in your life that you're struggling with.'cause you're probably not sleeping, you're not communicating what's going on in your head. So to have that performance, anxiety support system, I think is huge. Yeah, no, for sure. And you're exactly right. If you're struggling writing a paper, you're probably gonna struggle shooting a free throw. That's right. Or you're struggling, doing whatever it is. And the other thing too, and this is a tale as all the time, these people are moving away from home for the first time. Yep. Like I, this is no joke, man. I was, went for a walk at lunch and I called my mom and I'm like, man, it was so cool to see all these freshmen, just coming in, moving around. And I called my mom and I'm like, I had the worst first week ever my freshman year. I didn't know anybody. That's right. I like wanted to go home. And she's no, you are staying, you're gonna suck this up and figure it out. Yeah. And thankfully she did, but I just remember that those. That was hard. Yeah. And you get all of these people experiencing something new. You don't know your roommate in your little, cubicle dorm. Yeah. Move going to the dining halls by yourself for the first time, whatever it is. So it's something that I think people used to just deal with. Not great. Yeah. That are now saying I am struggling. This is such a new experience for me. High school was so easy. I had all my friends and now I'm going to a new place. I have new roommates. It's a new city, new experiences, and I'm not doing well and that's okay. Yeah. But now what I tell my student athletes is that there's never a time in your life. For the four years that you're gonna be at college, that every single person that you come across on this university wants to see you succeed and do better. That's right. The only way that we're gonna see you do better and help you do better is if you tell us if you need help. That's right. That's it. Yeah. That was my failure in college. I didn't ask for help. My, my ego was too big or whatever it was. I couldn't go to a professor say I didn't understand that class. I didn't understand what you were teaching. I, it was like Greek to me. Yeah. I just tried to figure it out. When you use professionals, when you use those people that are a little bit smarter than you or have that specialty that you don't have, it's amazing what they can do. I had a, the first golf lesson I've had in years this morning, and'cause I've just such a bad golfer and I was like, I need to talk to somebody that can look at my swing and say, this is what you're doing wrong. Yeah. And it was four swings and she had me hit the ball further than I've ever hit it, straighter than I've ever hit it. And it was such easy things that she was telling me and the way she approached it. So I love that idea that you're giving your student athletes and your coaches that, that opportunity to say, Hey, it's okay. When you're struggling, come talk to us. Let's at least have the conversation and let's see if we can help you. So I love that. I think the other part of that is coaching though, too, right? Yeah. Like one of the things that I tell my coaches is go home. That's right. Go home. Get on. Like I'm gonna go home too. I got a partner. I got three kids. Yep. Go home. Like the days of just grinding it out in your office until one o'clock and coming back at eight o'clock in the morning or seven o'clock in the next morning. If you want to do that, good luck. Yeah. You're gonna burn out pretty quick. And now that we have, we have laptops that we can take home. We have cell phones that we can watch recruiting videos on. Yep. Don't do stuff in the office that you can do at home.'cause you do need that break. You need that break from your job. You need that break from, the university setting of just people constantly, working, calling you and stopping in. Our coaches just need to take a break too, so when they're, when their practice is over. They're gone. I had a, our tennis coach, I when I was walking back into our complex, he was walking out. I said, I hope you're going home. And he goes, I am. I said, good. Yeah, sorry. Because he's been here for two weeks, run, running a lot of practices since they got back and he's Nope, I'm going home and I'm gonna, grab a nice dinner and hang out and then grind it back tomorrow. Yeah, but you gotta take some of that time for yourself. I'm not so sure that's not your most important role as ad. Is making sure people are finding that balance. Am I wrong? No, for sure. Yeah, and it's tough. It's a tough balance, right? Because you want. You want'em to work, you want'em to recruit, you want'em to win. That's right. But also like you want them to be happy too. That's right. I know that sounds so corny, but I really No, it's real. I wanna come into a workplace where people are, respectful, they're polite, they're nice. And if you're in the office, 20 outta 24 hours a day. Whew. That's rough. I don't know. You're gonna be nice to anybody. Yeah. I want, I wanna talk about just what you've, what you have at Whitewater and what you built and what you continue to build.'cause it's so special. It really is what you're doing. And I'm building an athletic department for a college out west that it's a college that's been around for a while and they wanna start athletics and I'm helping them build it. And one of the things I've been teaching them and talking about is. Doesn't matter what policies and procedure we put in place, we've gotta have the people that are gonna care about the kids gonna work hard. Sure. Gonna be good people, good citizens, good ambassadors. So I know you have that and a lot of schools do. A lot of schools have really great coaches and they have, they're surrounded by great people. What is it that white water's doing that's different? What is it that makes this place? Have so many national championships and you have so many kids that are going on and doing great things are there some things that you've been able to pinpoint from being a student there and now being a leader there after all these years? Yeah and I'll go in a couple different phases. I think when I was a student here, I remember walking into, the Williams Center and meeting these new people. And we have a lot of people from Northern Illinois. It's and there's some, that's where I grew up. Yeah. And man, there's some really good athletes in Northern Illinois and there, some of those suburbs and yeah. And then you have some really good athletes over in Milwaukee and you have some really good athletes in Madison. And we're like in the heart of that, millions and millions of people in were, my, my wife is from Illinois. She's an hour and a half away. Yeah, she came to Whitewater because it was close and it was affordable. Yeah. My best friend is from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, which was 55 minutes away. Yeah. And then my other buddy was from Madison. We're in a great location. You are, and we're never gonna lose that. We're never gonna change. Madison is not gonna go anywhere. Milwaukee and Chicago's not gonna go anywhere. So I think that was one of my first tastes of we're not just competing against people in Wisconsin now we have, 9 million people two hours away from us that we can recruit from. Yeah. And we're still affordable, and for a long time the regional comprehensives at in Illinois, it, they weren't great. We were a better, we were a better value for a lot of those students that were looking to have a athletic experience up here. So I think that's one of the things that, that really set us apart for the last, a hundred plus years. But a lot of it is gonna be coaching. If you look at the coaches that we've had and just going back 25 years, Lance is now at Kansas doing his thing over at Kansas. We have, John Vo Lynch, our baseball coach, who's just won his third title, Brenda Volk, who you know, she's gonna, oh, eclipse a thousand wins like a bad year for her. Is 30 wins. That's crazy. Stacey Boudreaux, who took over for Chris Russell, who won a national title and three runners up, this list of coaches that we've had at Whitewater for the last 25 to 40 years is really special. It is. They knew how to, they knew how to recruit, they knew how to win, and they knew how to raise money. And if you have those three things, you're gonna win. Whether you're at CO or Simpson or Whitewater or Benedictine, it doesn't matter. You're gonna find a way. And the last part of that, and now this is something I've really learned in the last eight years of being in administration, is administration supported athletics. They were saying, all right, we're gonna give you this coach, but guess what? They better recruit all outta state kids. I'm not gonna give you a, a$10,000 stipend for a football coach if they're gonna recruit Janesville, Milton, and Whitewater. That's right. They better be in, the northern suburbs of Illinois and potentially Michigan to get some kids out of there. That's right. So I think it's location, it's coaching coaches, and then overall administrative support over the last 30 years. That's really what makes this place special and their ability to say yes. Like I said before, what is my job? My job is to remove barriers from these coaches that have been there for 25, 30 years. They're winning. They're great people. What can I do to help? That's right. Let's try to get a turf field at this sport. Let's try to get lights. We just put in lights with softball. All right. That's gonna help us.'cause when we host regionals now, we don't gotta call a game in the third inning'cause it's too dark. That's right. Yeah. It changes your environment, it changes your culture when you can have night games too, and yeah, it can come out outside of class and have a night and watch the games. That's so great. It's really great. Yeah those are really, those are the three things that, that what I think separates this place. From our competition, other areas in the, in, in the state of Wisconsin. Yeah. I love it. And it, I just want to scream it at the mountaintops to all the executives at small colleges, you have to put the time and the money into athletics'cause it's gonna come back to you. Athletics is a boomerang when you do it right you want more beds, want more kids in beds. Build your athletics, they're gonna grow that, they're gonna fill those beds for you. But you have to support athletics. You do. You can't just, and that's where I just I could scream this from the mountaintops. Like I, I know there's colleges in Wisconsin that I've buddies that are working and they're like 60% incoming freshman class is athletics. But they got one basketball coach and a$2,000 stipend assistant coach. Oh, that's not fair. That's not fair. No. That if you're getting 60% of your freshman class as recruited student athletes, every single one of your programs should have a full-time ahead and a full-time assistant.'cause they're bringing in the dollars for that campus. From your mouth to God's ears. I mean that I can't, we, we can't say it enough. We can't say it enough because the more full-time staff you have, your athletes are healthier. They're gonna get better faster. They're gonna get more coaching, they're gonna get more support. There's more eyes on them. There's not just one person that's getting burned out on discipline and order and leadership. You get to spread the wealth and everybody's healthier. And when your coaches are healthy, your kids are typically healthy. I just, and you're probably on the D three ticker, get the emails every day and everything else. And I looked at a job or it was a promotion and it was like the basketball coach is now the associate ad for compliance event management and strength and conditioning like. Oh that's 28 hours a day. That's right. How does that person survive? Yeah. How do they have a life? Yeah. Yeah, they probably got paid double what they were making as a head coach. But I'm gonna give that two months and that person's gonna be like, you can have the money. That's right. It's not about titles and it's not about always, a lot of it's about salaries. I get that. But yeah, you can't, at these smaller schools, you can't have a coach wearing 15 different hats. It's not fair To the university. Yeah. To the students or to them and their families. It's not. It's not. And I'm so glad that we're able to say that out loud'cause parents need to hear it just as much as the presidents and the board members need to hear it. The coaches need to know that there's people fighting for them. So I'm so glad you're out there doing it. Ryan, I wanna do a little rapid fire for you to wrap up the segment and just so people can get to know you a little bit. You down with that? Yep. All right. Best ballpark you ever played at? I got a tryout at the time it was Miller Park. So that was pretty cool. I'll say number two is I was in Spring, we in the Florida State League. We played at all the spring training grounds and the Yankee Stadium where now the Tampa Bay Razor playing. Yeah. Played there about 15, 20 games. That was pretty Sweet Stein Broder Field. Is that what it's called now? Yeah, it used to be called like Memorial. That's right. Park. Something like that. Yeah. But yeah, it was, those were probably the two that were pretty special. That's cool. Favorite UW Whitewater sports moment since you've been in ad? Oh, man. I'll tell you, I, I tell my kids this all the time. My top five moments in sports used to revolve around the Packers and the Badgers, and now they're 100% whitewater. That's right. I would say the one that I think about the most is Matt Anderson intercepted the St. John's quarterback on the last drive to go to the Stag Bowl in 2019. It was night game ESPN. I got down to the sideline just in time and it was so loud. It was awesome. Yeah, it was so cool. That's awesome. Then we lost to North Central, but that was a great moment before that. That's great. One word that best describes your leadership style. Oh man. Respectful. I could see that that, that comes 100% out. I'm gonna give you the dream dinner guest question. If you could pick three people in sports alive, past, who'd you like to have dinner with? Ooh, that's tough. I'll tell you what I watched the euchre celebration of life, so it'll be tough not to have ker there and just hear and just let him talk. Oh, just let him talk. You'd laugh all night. Just let him talk, I played hockey growing up, so I gotta go Gretzky in there just to hear some of his stories about what went through. And then man, Billie, Jean King, I gotta go. Her just what all, everything that she went through is just amazing. And the impact that she's had over the last, 50, 60 years is pretty special. You talked about the leadership book you're reading. Is there a book that you recommend to coaches? That are in athletics. Quint Studer. Quint Studer is a gentleman that he's a Whitewater grad and he got into hospital surveys and quality control and he sold, his company got out and he started writing a bunch of leadership books. And now I'm gonna blank. I think there's the leader in me, there's the Busy Leader's Handbook. That's another good one. And it's really quick. They're, very easy reads, but he's close with our baseball coach and our old football coach, and he would all, send me a couple copies and there's just some things in there about different scenarios and just. Having difficult conversations. But yeah, Quinn Studer's got some really good leadership books. That's great. I'll check those out. And we get to promote a Whitewater grad too, yeah, for sure. For sure. All right, coach. Thanks for doing this. It's an honor to have you on. So excited to see what you're gonna continue to do at Whitewater with all your great coaches, the student athletes. But I'm excited to come back and talk a little recruiting with you. Yeah, for sure, Matt. Thank you. What an incredible conversation with Ryan Callahan. His journey reminds us that leadership isn't about titles. It's about influence and trust and the ability to elevate those around you. From his days on the mound as a warhawk pitcher to overseeing now 22 varsity programs and working alongside some of the greatest coaches in Division three Sports Ryan has lived what it means to lead with loyalty and humility and vision. If you want to keep growing as a leader, or if your school or organization is looking for someone to challenge, inspire and prepare your athletes, coaches, or staff, I'd love to come speak with your community. You can learn more and connect with me directly@coachmattrogers.com. Don't miss part two of our conversation. Come back Monday, September 22nd for Ryan's significant recruiting episode where we dive into the college athletic director's perspective on recruiting. Until next time, stay focused, stay humble, and keep leading with significance.