Episode #144: Dr. Bob Dranoff

🎙️  From the Commissioner’s Chair: What NCAA Division II Leadership Really Looks Like | Bob Dranoff

 What does it actually mean to lead an NCAA conference?

In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Matt Rogers sits down with Bob Dranoff, former Commissioner of the East Coast Conference, for a rare, behind-the-scenes look at leadership from the highest level of Division II athletics.

Bob shares what most coaches and athletic directors never get to see—the reality of conference leadership. From balancing presidents, athletic directors, coaches, and student-athletes, to running championships, managing membership, and navigating limited resources, this conversation pulls back the curtain on the complexity of the commissioner’s role.

They dive deep into what makes Division II special, why empathy matters more than ever in leadership, how athletic directors can better support coaches, and the growing challenges facing college athletics—from professionalization to burnout to changing family expectations.

This episode is packed with perspective for:

• College coaches
• Athletic directors
• Administrators and aspiring leaders
• Anyone seeking a clearer, more grounded view of leadership in college athletics

📘 Resources Mentioned & Recommended:

• Significant Recruiting: The Playbook for Prospective College Athletes
  👉 https://amzn.to/3LMRRjk
  
  
• The Recruit’s Journal (sport-specific editions)
  👉 https://coachmattrogers.com/journals

Transcript

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On the latest edition of The Significant Coaching Podcast, a presentation of the coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel. Available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcast. I'm your host Matt Rogers. This week I'm joined by Bob Doff, longtime division two, athletic director and former commissioner of the East Coast Conference. In this conversation, Bob breaks down what conference leadership really looks like. We also get into what separates strong athletic directors. What matters most when hiring coaches and a leadership word? I love from Bob Empathy because in today's athletics landscape, EQ might matter as much as anything on the resume. Before we jump in, a quick reminder. My new weekly blog is Live where I give college and high school coaches advice on building a proper cover letter. When you're applying for jobs you can find it all. Plus our past podcast episodes, my recruiting books and resources@coachmattrogers.com. Alright, let's get into my conversation with Dr. Bob Doff. Bob, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show. I wanna dive in'cause I don't think a lot of people understand what that commissioner role is. Maybe you watch on ESPN and that there's commissioners kind of negotiating the Division one football tournament and things like that. And then you see the NCAA basketball tournament. But I don't think people really understand that role of a commissioner. And you were a commissioner a long time. Walk us through that. What is that job like? What is that role? First of all, Matt, thanks. I appreciate chance to talk to you. I and your and the folks that listen when I had spent a long time spent most of my career in division two as an ad. And then I was there in, in what was called the the school I was the athletic director at, was here on Long Island. And the conference was the New York Collegiate Athletic Conference. And I had gone away for a while, took another job in, in, in junior college. I was finishing up my doctorate and and when I was asked to consider coming back in that leadership role I asked that question too. When I was in ad, we took the athletic directors would share the leadership role in the conference, right? It would rotate, you were the president of the conference. And then, but that whole dynamic had changed over the years. And I didn't pay a ton, a ton of attention. It was a part-time job in the beginning for someone and usually they were looking at somebody that was retired and would come in and provide some guidance and leadership. So when I got into the role, I knew more about it at that point. And the responsibilities ranged from governance and helping change rules within the conference. Mainly the main thing was running championships. We were at 18 or 19 when I left as commissioner. That's important obviously, to all the schools and the student athletes. The promotion of the conference financial administration division two conferences for the most part are most of them are funded through grant money that comes from the NCAA tied into division one basketball and other revenue. But that was a significant part of what we funded, so we would have to help organize that. Probably my favorite part was the student athlete engagement. We created some good leadership programs and worked closely with the conference student athlete Advisory committee. I that's the, what I came from as an administrator. And so that was important. Being a liaison between athletic directors, presidents because I was hired by the presidents of the conference and then involving the coaches and then the student athletes, that was a pretty significant part of the job as a commissioner. You have to walk all those lines and it's not always the easiest balancing act. Your personal the reality of a conference is that as the leader you are constantly trying to make schools and the individuals that lead those schools, athletic directors, coaches, presidents, understand it's a bigger picture. We can never be successful unless we all work together towards the goals that we set and, that's not the easiest thing in athletics, you know that, your personal needs and your personal interest and what you think should be better be done better or be done differently sometimes has to be, reduced a little bit because you have to understand what the conference is. And, one of the biggest challenges probably is that in any conference, definitely in East Coast Conference where I was the commissioner, is that you just have different levels of commitment of strength of what athletics means for that institution. And that's a, that again is a balancing act. And I'll tell you probably,'cause I'm sure you'll ask me this now, what was the biggest challenge? The biggest challenge for our conference was membership. That was, whether it was about sustaining, retaining, I guess that's the same thing, or finding new members. Yeah. That was almost a constant challenge for our conference. What's the thing when you look back and you think about the presidents you've worked with and the athletic directors you've worked with, what's, is there something that was misunderstood in terms of the role of the conference in terms of they didn't get how important it was because your job as a commissioner has to be, to promote the league. It has to be, to grow that league financially. The competitiveness of it. You're the guy at 30,000 feet going, I'm seeing all this happen and this is why we're good and this is why we're not so good. Was there things that they misunderstood about that role? I will tell you because I've heard I am still close with a few other commissioners that are still in the D two and then others that have, gotten to know over the years that are in division three. And so I've heard some of the horror stories of things that they dealt with presidents in their group. I had a really good relationship with all the presidents the original president who hired me, who had retired a few years later. I had a close relationship and he had a, he his name was drew Bogner. He was president at Malloy college, then university. Now he ended up being the chair of the D two President's group. Which was great for us. I think of the relationship and, but I will also say to you that, I understood that. In a lot of ways athletics wasn't a priority for them on their campus and it wasn't necessarily a priority for them as the conference goes. When you hear, like you said, you, you hear about the conference commissioners on D one level. Yeah. A massive job, harder probably now than ever before. Definitely harder now be than ever before. It's the same thing with the presidents who are, some of whom are really actively involved and some of the presidents are actively involved in division two, division three. If, I think for a lot of them, as long as they knew that I was an honest guy that would work hard and their athletic directors felt that they were we were. Keeping things together. They were okay with that as I was leaving, as I, was moving out. But like I said, cha membership was always a challenge. And the presidents knew that we needed more members. Every conference, I don't know that there's a conference that doesn't think about membership in division two. Maybe just a couple, for some of them they just said why don't you go talk to this school and have them come over? And, it's not as easy, it's not as easy as that. So I think that I don't, being a president of a, most of our, we had a combination of private and public schools. Some, a couple of the publics were very large, Queens College from previous guests that and thousands and thousands of students. And then we had some schools that were, a couple thousand. It's a challenge to run these schools and higher education right now is not an easy place to be. No. Yeah, not at all. I'm always curious because, I think about my wife. Of 28 years and the fact that we have two kids. And I wonder if for some reason she decided to leave us, how long we would survive,'cause she does all the scheduling. She makes sure we know where we're supposed to be. Every t every hour of the day, I'm involved, but it's basically, yes dear, where do I go? Be here. Yeah. Yeah. Be there. I know that, yeah, I know that. Who am I driving? And I feel like that's the job of the commissioner. I wonder how long if these schools understand. The work that you have to do to get a championship off, off the ground, where, what facilities it's gonna be, who's taking care of, who's gonna be on the, who's gonna be on the scores table, who the referees are, making sure there's equity and there's fairness and there's sponsorship and you're making money for the school. The role is much bigger than you're making. I appreciate your humility, but that's how I see it is you're the mom of this league. That you're the one, you didn't mention discipline, so you're also having to play that role with disciplinary issues when you got coaches that get outta line and student athletes that make some bad decisions, do you feel that, did you feel that those years as commissioner, did you feel like you were everybody's mother? I never thought about that. I and, in my house, that was a very similar situation with my wife Van and my daughters are both, adults now with their own families, but they're a lot like their mom. They'll be the ones running the show. They are the ones running the show. They're for the most part. I I think that, and I appreciate that. It is, it's a lot of work. We had a small operation two, it was three full-time, staff members. Myself I was super lucky to have a two consistent people there that, were just really good, right? And we all understood our roles, but they were never distinct. We would all support each other and not the best, not the smartest operation. We, I probably needed more staffing and we could have probably done a little bit more, but it was what we had. And I think, the one thing I would always say is that, listen, the one thing we knew how to do, maybe we weren't great in every other area, but we knew how to run championships and we were committed to making it a good event for our schools.'cause we knew how important it was not just to the conference and the exposure that we would hopefully get from that, but also the, for some student athletes, this was the ultimate experience they were gonna have. Yes. You mentioned some, you mentioned about the discipline part and when I think back on, the challenges and the tough. Parts about being a commissioner. That the thing I would regret, the most thing that would keep me up at night was, the, when we would have problems, yeah. Whether it was a fight in the game or, an ejection that you had to deal with or, fan issues or things That's right. Like that. I hated that stuff. And yeah, that was not my, that was my least favorite part of the job. That's hard on the soul. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you were an athletic and you were an athletic director for a long time, so you were, you had already been dealing with that for many. Yeah. Yeah. I broke up my share of fights and threw people outta gyms and look at me. I'm an old guy now. I should, it was, but I, that probably is why I'm I looked this way, but but for the most part, those were aberrations most of the time. Oh. I think, I truly bel and maybe it's also. Why I think division two is such an amazing space and in NCA athletics is that there's a lot of disparity between finances and programs, how they're run and success levels on the field or on the court, et cetera. But I think for the most part, people that I met and ran into, they were there for the right reasons. Yeah. Which was to grow these opportunities for the men and women that they were coaching and working with Bob. What's, what separates the D two experience from the D one and D three Spirit is because it, I think it, it often gets a bad rap. It's the middle child, it wasn't the first born, it wasn't the baby that, it's always in the middle. But I'm with you. I think there's something, and I coached and was an athletic director long enough, the D two level that. I just, I, there was something about it that was really special because you didn't have to deal with the craziness that D one has to, and the chaos and especially what they're dealing with right now. We're starting to see some of that funnel down into D two. But there, there's just something special about having that academic focus still, but still have that high level athletic experience. How do you define that when people ask you about division two? So as I mentioned, so I was 12 years as athletic director at Dowling College, which was, I gotta say was'cause they're no longer in business, but was a D two institution. And then 16 years as the commissioner of the East Coast Conference. So most of my career, at that level. And I didn't think about it a lot. Philosophy, mission, those kind of things. Yeah. Until I really started getting a chance to serve in other ways. And I did a lot of committee work within the NCAA and especially as a commissioner, I was on the management council, which is the group that kind of helps govern D two for a long time. I, I did it over COVID, so they had asked me to stick around for a little longer, but yeah. And then I was through a few different iterations of D two trying to define themselves. And you're right, I think the perception has been, and maybe, and still is, it's that middle ground, not, we're not D three because we're given scholarship, were not as good as D one. But I had a coach years ago who said, the reality of college sports is that every kid who wants to play a sport is gonna be able to find a space to be if they want it bad enough, and they're willing to. Yes, I agree. And I think division two. And you mentioned it already, balance is still the, in a lot of ways, the watch word for division two create a balanced opportunity for student athletes, meaning, as you said, high level athletics, if that's what your goal is and what you're pursuing. But also an understanding that, you'll have opportunities to do other things in your life as a student athlete. You can go to class, you don't have to take all your classes online, because there's so much travel and you're, most of the travels regional you, you wanna participate and be a leader in other ways on your campus, you'll have that opportunity. I and that was the part that attracted me. And the flip side of this, Matt, is that for schools that were in my conference. And the school, I was the athletic director of D three wasn't really an option because we needed to give athletic aid to attract student athletes. We didn't have the facilities that, like some of our the other d threes in the area. We didn't have the a large program like some of the other ones did. So scholarship was a major part of that to help grow enrollment at the institution. And I think a lot of D twos still see athletics as an enrollment driver. But how do you use that scholarship money? How do you build your program? How do you do things the right way for those student athletes? And I think that's always been the philosophy of D 2D three is, it's to me the purest form of college athletics. It's that I'm going there'cause I wanna participate. Y and D one and one of the, I think the misnomers when people think about college athletics today is that all they, the people that don't know that much, but they hear college athletics, their mind goes to those 300 something division one schools.'cause those are the ones that they see on TV and they read about and but the majority of the schools are not in division one. And the majority of the problems in college athletics comes from division one. And I think D two has had it right for a long time. Really good leadership on the national level and then on within the institutions and the conferences, some of the. Smartest people I met were the commissioners of the other division two, the conferences that let me into the group for a little while, and so I think D two is a special level. I think they're all, listen, 45 years in, I'll still tell you that college athletics to me is such a valuable thing for institutions and for the student athletes that, that get a chance to participate. Yeah. I think there's a lot of change that's come and even more that's probably gonna come. Some of it's gonna be good and some of it hasn't been good in my mind, but we've got some big mountains to climb, don't we? Yeah, it's a tough there's a lot of challenges out there that they're gonna really push for even more change. I think. I agree. I wanna get into the ad role a little bit when you look back at your career as an ad and I, and it's so nice for me now. As I've been out of being on a college campus for 10, 12 years now, so everything I do is from 30,000 feet and I look back at some of the decisions I made as a coach and I just I just wanna slap myself at some of the things I didn't do as an ad or I wish I would've done more of. And I'm like, why didn't I, when you're coaching and being an AD at the college level, it's 50, 60, sometimes 70 hour weeks where you don't breathe. You're just trying to get to tomorrow, let alone thinking, okay, how can we fix this for the next 10 years? You don't really get that perspective whole lot. You were a commissioner for 16 years, you were an ad for a long time. Now you're able to take a breath and look at all that. What separates good athletic directors from the ones that maybe are struggling at the division two level? Is there two or three things that you could pinpoint and go. Yeah, that's, that makes that program really good because of what they do. I I think a lot of it is philosophy. I hesitate to say that I think the reality is that I know for myself I was an athletic director at three different schools, a division three, division two, and then a junior college. None of them had a lot of resources or, and in some ways I was constantly fighting the battle of athletics, just being a necessary evil. I used to say that to people, including presidents, that, the only reason you have athletics is because somebody must have said that somewhere along the way. Oh, you need to have athletics. And then what ends up happening is you have to develop a certain, a whole other set of skills. I think I think the most important quality for a successful athletic director is, and again, the business has changed a great deal, is you see on the division one level, a lot of these people that are taking the leadership roles at these, the elite universities, the big time, institutions are really coming more from a business end and a revenue generating. And if that had been the way for all schools I never would've that one that came more out of the, I came out of the compliance and the student support end really, for my job at St. John's. I got a chance to do other things and run, programs and stuff, but but I would say to you that, the best ads that I know are ones who are committed to, leadership of their staff, that is driven by their desire to make those people better and the program better. That, that will are good communicators that are that wanna see people get better and not just, let me do something here so that I could take this and move on to the next place. I think what I just mentioned is, and it is true now even in division two and three, the expectation is that the people in an athletic director's role are gonna be able to drive some revenue. There are gonna be able to find ways to raise money, to find, sponsorship revenue to find donors for the athletic program. Big challenge obviously, as schools are all doing their own fundraising and then putting athletic draggers in a position where they have to try to find the revenue themselves. The other, I think the other part that goes along with that then is also being flexible enough to understand that programs are constantly changing. I there where most of the, a lot, obviously the revenue share part isn't part of the world for division two or three athletic directors and maybe even some division ones, but division two and three, but, and neither is for the most part NIL money. But probably coming, it's, the trickle down is just the reality of survival for some of these athletic programs that, or, pressure to expand athletic programs, offer more sports, offer more, and in some cases offer more with less, or not enough support. So it's navigating that part I think is you have a couple of friends who are in a D'S roles now. Where it's a very challenging time for all the things I just brought up. And then I have a couple of good friends who have done really well as athletic directors where they are because they have the full support over their institution who sees, who truly sees athletics as being a a consequential part of the overall college experience. And don't just say it, but are then give the support that is needed to make that happen. I agree. When you look back at your career as an ad, and obviously you were at a school. That ended up closing its doors. So I was at one of those schools, we, doors didn't close. We had president came in and completely reshaped the finances and were able to rebuild the school into a, into kind of a powerhouse when it was at its bare bones. And when you look back and you think about your student athletes, what was D two like for you in terms of the experience you wanted those D two athletes to have? How did you guide that and push that? Yeah. Unfortunately a lot of it was seat of the pants kind of thing. Yeah. Here's what we have, here's what we can do. Here's some ideas of how to do better. Wasn't always easy. Listen, I had one of the weirdest situations. I was an athletic director at a school that had one athletic facility, and it was the river behind the school where we developed a pretty good men's and women's rowing team. Okay. This was before rowing was a an NCAD two sport. It was, they're basically a club, but they participated at a very high level. Yeah. We considered'em varsity sport at our school and gave scholarship and all that kinda stuff. So we begged and borrowed, negotiated, traded for facilities, and that was a major part of my life. And within that, those facilities, we tried to give them the best experience we can, we could. And that was, to me was the whole thing. It, the trade, I think there for a lot of those students was the opportunity to continue playing to get a degree. While we had we had our men's soccer program was very good and we ended up, getting better because we were able to attract international students. I used to tell people, I think, they'd here in New York and they thought they were playing in Manhattan and they were, 45 miles out in Suffolk County, long Island, but we, so in exchange for supporting them and giving them aid to, participate and help grow our program. We were able to help them get a good education and a good experiences, at a campus. And man, it was not easy. It was not easy at that place. And but I think, consistent with that was my belief that our commitment had to be those students do they need help to be successful academically. We would help them get that success. We would try to provide help with life skills and things like that. And try to find them the best coaches we could within a program. I had all part-time coaches. Yeah. Boy, it's giving me PTSD here. Yeah. I'm thinking back on some of the situations we had, but within that. I'm still in touch with some of those students went on to become coaches and they're, they're coaching right now in NCA, sports and some of them went on, a lot. Education was a big program for us, so a lot of Suffolk County teachers came out of that athletic program. I'm proud, and we had success. We won our commissioners couple times, is the best overall program. And you know what, going back to one of the questions you asked me about what makes D two different I can't say it's only for D two obviously, but what I used to tell people all the time is, Hey, I had a group of coaches and administrators that just without work, everybody else, it's been such an, yeah, such a key. Yep. Yeah. But I don't think you could teach work ethic. I think I was no genius, but, we were able to pass on what the mission was, I think and everybody was, they just got it. Yeah I'm gonna ask you a selfish question'cause I told you this. I'm building an athletic department for a community college out in Oregon right now, and I'll be hiring three coaches here in the next, probably in the next three weeks. What are some of the things that you've learned in terms of qualities of a head coach that are your priorities? We always, we talk about practice planning and recruiting and fundraising and managing budgets. Those things are all great, but are there two or three things if you had to go back and hire coaches today, that would just be I'm gonna die on this hill. These coaches have to have these qualities. What are those things for you? One of the things I always found was funny is that not funny, the reality of coaching in college is there's no requirement, right? There's no certification that you need. You could have, you didn't necessarily ever played the sport in, in school, but, you had some experience. And the expectation is that when you get hired, you're gonna know how to do all these things, all the things you just talked about, and you're gonna know how to do'em. I'm gonna stop you for a second. It's so funny. I just did a keynote for a conference, a keynote speech, and that was the thing. I told'em, I asked all these commissioners at ad's. I go, who taught you how to create a budget? Who taught you how to recruit? Who taught you how to build a practice plan? And they all just kinda looked around and we just figured it out, right? That's what's so crazy about what we do. Yeah. You're right. I, I teach sports manage. Now, and on both on the undergrad and grad level. And the reality is, you come into the classroom for 14 weeks and get some content, it's not gonna make you ready to be the athletic director. Although, I guess that's the whole idea. You got a degree now you could go apply for these jobs. That's right. It's better than nothing, Matt, what made me ready for my job at St. John's 45 something years ago, i, I couldn't believe I got that job. I had been an intern the way I got into it I had no, I was gonna be the general manager of the met someday. That was my goal. Yep. Wasn't a college athlete. I went to school somewhere else. I transferred to St. John's.'cause my dad sold something in the New York Times one day and said, listen, this is a program in sports management. You think you wanna do that? I said, yeah, okay. I'll do that. I'll transfer there. That's great. And my senior year. Because my dad had passed, I, he had a business in Connecticut where, Bridgeport, Connecticut, where I grew up. Bridgeport, Fairfield. And I was coming back every weekend, to help run the store. And I had to get an internship and I said to the people at St. John's, I said, I gotta, I should probably do it in Connecticut.'cause this will gimme a, I could do it on weekends and maybe nights. And I did it at Fairfield University under a guy named Don Cook who went on, was the ad baseball coach there. Went on to be the ad at University of Hartford, then Sacred Heart University, all in Connecticut. To this day, he's still a friend. We talk every once in a while. Big impact on me. He's the one that told Jack Kaiser the ad at St. John's that I could. Help. And I could, I was a good guy and I'd do the job. And that's how I got my job at St. John's. Jack Kaiser, who passed away a few years ago, became my mentor, my friend, one of the best people I ever knew in my life. One of the architects of the Big East Conference, Jack Kaiser. And so how did I know how to do this stuff? And then they say, okay, and you're gonna be in charge of academics and compliance. So for the first month, I was sat in a room and I would look at the NAA rule book. I don't even know what I was looking at, I was, I've been there, so you're right. But, so what are those qualities then? Our expectation is people will come in and can do these jobs. My first ad job at a D three school on Long Island, I took the job and I remember having a meeting with the coaches and they said how's recruiting going? And one of the coaches says, good, I just put up a bunch of flyers today. It was flyers on campus. Yeah. I said that's the plan. I said that's, so you know, to me, what are the quals you need? E experience is important, right? Knowledge of what the job entails, especially in, in, for example, in the role that you're talking about. Is it the most important thing? No, because I think that the desire and the commitment, but you do need somebody that understands. How this thing works, from identifying the student athlete to, to explaining to them the value of the institution and what they could do for them, and then trying to close the deal. And again, who, who teaches that? If you haven't gone through it or been part of it? It'ss tough, but, you need to be willing to do that. And then, the work ethic piece that I spoke about before that to me work ethic, resilience goes together, I remember when my, in that same school I was no, maybe my first year at st at Dowling, I had a coach who I had just been hired right before I got hired in a sport and was struggling, big time. He had taken over for another coach and students weren't all that supportive. The team wasn't doing well. Comes into my office, said Bob, I think maybe we should just close it down, I said. You mean stop playing. You don't do that. This is NCAA sports. You don't, if times get tough you have a commitment to other schools. You can't do that. You can't do that. And he ended up honestly being an excellent coach and having much success there. But to me and then, this sounds corny, but finding somebody that wants to be there, that wants the job for the right reasons, not just because they need a job, but because they see the opportunity that's being presented to them to grow you. I'm asked a lot about what I miss a, about being involved in college athletics and I missed it right from the start when I became a commissioner and was no longer on a campus. And that's the relationship with student athletes and I think that's always gonna be the most important thing for. College coach to have and believe you hear the horror stories that are out there of student of coaches that are fired, or student athletes that have run into major problems with coaches that who have treated them, in a dangerous way even, or and I always know that stories have two sides to'em, but, can you imagine being a, having, making your livelihood of being a coach and thinking that how am I gonna screw it up today? Oh, that this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be abusive to that team member. There's so much emotion that goes with coaching that for me as a, as an ad or someone that's hiring coaches I look at it with kind of the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays. Analogy. You, if you have the money, you can go out and you can buy your best coach that you can buy somebody that's done it, they're gonna step in. They know how to build a program. They know how to fundraise, they know how to booster, they know how to do all that. And you can it's like in a home that's already designed and furnished. You can walk in and live there. That's the Yankees, they're gonna, they're gonna have a minor league system, but they're gonna, they're gonna, they got the money to go buy the best of the best. Tampa's. We're gonna find those 17-year-old kids that have a lot of talent, and we're gonna develop the heck out of'em. We're gonna, we're gonna build'em up. We know we're gonna lose'em at 25, 26, but we're gonna maximize their talent, and then somebody's probably gonna steal'em away. For me that's what athletics looks like right now. You're, if you've got the money and you're a big program, you're gonna find great coaches that can come in and, hit the ground running and go. And if not, you have to be that athletic director that says, I'm gonna be a teacher. I'm gonna, yeah. I'm gonna teach'em how to recruit. I'm gonna teach'em how to run a practice. Nobody did that for me. I never had an ad that sat me down and said, Hey, you've got this skillset. Let's develop this and this. Yeah. You know what I mean? Too, that sometimes there's just not time. There isn't. No, yeah. I, y I ended up hiring plenty. Not plenty. I ended up hiring coaches that didn't work out, that I made bad decisions on and I did too. And others that I couldn't hold onto.'cause it was just not a good fit for them at that institution either. And then, sometimes I would hire coaches because. That was the best of the bunch that was available. And however, you're I think you're com you're right, to be in an opportunity, the best opportunity is for somebody that, that, knows that the person that hired him is in their corner and is gonna help them, get, try to get better. That's so such a big part of it, isn't it? I know it was for me, when I had an ad that had my back, it was just so much easier. Or an institution that you knew you had your back. Sometimes it wasn't always the ad, sometimes it was the vp, maybe it was the dean. Sometimes it was the president. But that I will tell you that. Sorry. Yeah. Hear the noise in the back. I think things have changed significantly since those days too though. Yeah. It's the expectations are greater. And then, everything's relative. The expectations at the division one level, you can't. I guess you can't afford to make mistakes and then pay out,$50 million to a coach. That was the bad decision, but in the, for the most part it's a major investment in these people and if you make a bad decision, people can get fired for that reason too. Yeah, absolutely. Bob, I wanna do a little rapid fire with you. Just get your, these can be short answers, this can be one word, this can be first thing that comes to your head. Just get your thoughts on a couple of things. Biggest challenge facing college athletics today at any level? I think the biggest challenge honestly is the professionalization of college athletics. And I'm I'm not gonna make it a one word answer, so if I'm, no, don't worry about that. If it doesn't turn out to be too rapid fire, to me the biggest challenge is professionalization on the other side is, where do academics fit in? I agree to college sports. And I, negotiating that right now is gonna be tough. One thing ad should stop doing immediately. Ooh, man, that's a tough one. Should stop doing. Not being flex. Does this make sense? Yeah. Not being flexible, being inflexible is believing that they have all the answers. That's what came to me. And I would've even thought, I don't think about the answers when I asked these, so that's what I was thinking. The flexibility Yeah. Is being inflexible. This is too much of a changing world and you're gonna have to run with it, I think for a while. Yeah. One thing ad should start doing immediately, getting the resume together? No. Is being willing to start, answer, asking questions, and looking for more support. I also think thinking about what the future looks like, further institution, that's, to me, understanding where the health of the institution and what they need from the athletic department is really important. Yeah. I'm finding myself talking to ad's more and more about being collaborator, collaborators and not just. Intercampus, but intercampus and using your coaches as master teachers. There's, there was, there's always been head coaches under me that were just so much smarter than I was at social media and marketing and things like that. So I think that answers right on. I, I just, with that, I think that's a great a great point. Master teachers also master recruiters, exactly. If you have a good coach that knows how to recruit for their team, they probably could teach some people about recruiting for the institution as well. And and with that, you gave an example of social media. I think that's the other thing that every coach needs to understand now is that the promotion piece doesn't just, if you have a sports info information or media person, a communications person within the department, they can't probably do it all by themselves. And coaches have to understand that they probably have to do as much promotion about their program. As they can, whether that's, putting out information or being willing to, communicate with people, getting out into the community, those kind of things. You can't sit there in a silo and think everybody's gonna come to you because it's, that ain't gonna happen. Especially at the levels you and I have worked at are our careers. We don't have that, that Madonna Prince. It's Dowling, Maryville, queens, most people don't know it. So social media has given us this opportunity to really promote the school and the name and the more that name is out there. It's so much easier to recruit when people know the name and they know the reputation a little bit. So it's a, can I go back a sec too?'cause I was just thinking of this and I had written down a note for myself. You know what, when I think about the biggest challenges for college coaches now from what I would hear, and then I still hear when I speak to coaches, it's the really this the changing athlete slash family expectations. What does participation mean at that institution? What does that college athletics mean? Yeah. You recruited me. That means I'm gonna play all the time. What happens when I don't, that means I'm gonna get a full scholarship. What's this scholarship even mean? And and I'm sure you hear this a lot on your calls that probably some of the hardest part, whether it's a college or a high school or a, youth coach is dealing with parents. And yes. And I think about challenges for coaches, and I'm sure you see this for yourself and then also the coaches that you talk to, is that we talk a lot. I think athletics has come along so far. College athletics I commend NCA institutions all the time about, especially in the areas of things like student athlete health and welfare, never before has more attention in my mind been paid to issues physical health, mental health. Concerns with wagering, things like that. But I don't think we talk enough about the mental health of the coaches and the staff and, the burnout factor is real. And we're expecting you hire a coach and like we said before, nobody certified that coach to say, okay, checks all the back. They know how to do all these things and, but now go out there and recruit and make, get this number of students and be successful. Or then you can't be here anymore. And by the way, you also have to pay attention to the academics and the health and welfare and, be fair to everybody and make sure that and deal with these families. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of work for somebody that's not making a ton of money, probably. It's funny how many coaches at the professional level will. Will have a good career and then they'll get fired or they'll get out and then two or three years later they'll get back in and all of a sudden they've reinvented themselves. And they're a different coach and I won't necessarily say a better coach, but they're different in a lot of different positive ways. I look at it now and if I had to go back and be an ad again, executive function skills that I didn't have 20 years ago that I have now, just in retrospect are so much different. You talk about health and wellness of your coaches, it was always an afterthought, about my coaches, or they did something like, oh, that wasn't in their character, they looked tired, they looked burned out they're losing their temper more. And then I would deal with it instead of being. Proactive with it and saying, every week we're gonna have just a conversation about mental health. We're gonna have a conversation about how you're doing, how your family's doing, how the healthy your team's doing. And you almost have to pencil it into your calendar these days where it's just says, okay, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be meeting with my track coach every other weekend, Wednesday from 11 to 1130, and we're gonna talk about their health and the health of their program. I would do that so much better today than I did 20 years ago. Yeah. I agree. And that well and I think that's, hopefully that's the progression you're making too. Yeah. I tried. Yeah. Yeah. I think the pressure comes in though if, somebody chooses that as they're living and then is realizing how difficult it is and yeah. It's a lot different once your feet are on the ground, that's for sure. Yeah. What's the word you associate more with most, with great leadership? Is there a word that you think of when you think of great leaders? Empathy. That's a great one. For me, that's always been, I think that social intelligence is just such an important part of being a leader anyways. Not just understanding your own or emotional intelligence, I should say. Not just understanding your own emotions, but having that empathy that, you're willing to, try to put yourself out there for others, but also try to understand where they're coming from. If I was trying to teach one skill or try to focus on one quality you asked before about, hiring people. I would say that now that I'm thinking about that probably is the most important. I love to me, that, that helps me so much, Bob, more than you can know.'Cause that's always my word I use, but I don't think I, I. I've put that on our list is how we need to shape our questions and how we need to shape our conversations in the interview. So that, I love that. Is there a book that you've read or a resource that you think ad should be reading or coaches should be reading or paying attention to? You know what a few years ago I pulled out an old book that I actually, when I was doing my doctorate one of the books that a professor gave to us was the Dale Carnegie had a make Friends and Influence people. And I said, I read this when I was, I think when I was a kid somewhere and I pulled it out and I don't know if you've ever looked in it's, today you probably could just, put in chat GPT give, give me, 10 important pieces of this. But, I tell people all the time, I said, that, which kind of goes to the thing I'm saying is how do you build these in the classes I teach now so at St. John's I teach teach the first class in the program, which is strategic Management of Athletics. And I teach the last class, which is a seminar course, the capstone, which I've made into really about getting a job or getting a better job, class. And so we spent a lot of time talking about talking to leaders or people in the business. Luckily, I've been teaching a long time now, so a lot of my former students come on and talk about their experiences and, but most of the time we, I try to spend a lot of time talking about the qualities that people need that are gonna make'em successful. And there's a ton of great resources out there for people to learn leadership and and to try to understand what it's about. But ultimately, to me it always ends up coming back to, some of the great people that have written about emotional intelligence and, and taking the steps needed to become better at listening to people and and building relationships, yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that gets made across the board in business or in education, is oftentimes we hire the resume or the iq and we don't put enough work into the EQ or the emotional intelligence and the social. Compatibility and the love for the school and the, yeah. And the grit that comes with wanting to fight for those people. It goes back to being a parent, it's, you talked about this, if your kids make a mistake, you don't fire'em and kick'em outta the house, you love'em and try and help'em overcome it. That's part of leadership too. And we've kinda lost that at times. Yeah. At times. Yep. Bob, this has been a pleasure. I, it's I could talk to you all day and I will, if you'll let me out, I'll be calling you Sure. Your brain as we go down this road. But thanks for doing this. I wanna bring you back for another conversation on recruiting and get, again, get that 30,000 foot view of college recruiting and building rosters and maybe get your perspective if your daughters were teenagers today, how you'd advise them. But thanks for doing this. My, my pleasure, Matt. I really liked your program and, i've already told a few people about it to get'em to start watching. I think you're doing a great job. Thank you, sir. Talk soon. That wraps up my conversation with Dr. Bob Doff, bob gave us a rare look behind the curtain of conference leadership, where the job isn't about headlines or TV contracts, but about people balance and holding together something much bigger than any one school or sport. His perspective on division two on leadership, rooted in empathy and on the responsibility we all have to student athletes and coaches alike is exactly the kind of voice this space needs more of. Right now. If this conversation resonated with you, I encourage you to subscribe to the show, leave a comment, or share it with a colleague. And as always, you can find all of our past episodes, my weekly blog, and my recruiting books, journals, and classes for coaches, administrators, and families@coachmattrogers.com. Until next time, stay focused on what you could control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance. I.