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COSIDA CAPITAL ONE CONTINUING EDUCATION WEBINAR

January 8, 2020

TRIP DURHAM: Welcome, everyone. This is the first webinar in our June Stewart Leadership Series. If you haven't realized already, the June Stewart Leadership Series was launched this past fall. The intention with the series was to help educate those in the profession about creating a better work experience, not only for themselves but also for others within their unit.

Two, the JSLS, that's how we sort of put it in short form, it offers some insights, tips, podcasts and webinars, all resources on how to be a better advocate for yourself as well as those within your unit of sports information.

With all that as the background, all that as our setup, let me introduce to you our three panelists. My name is Trip Durham. I am a NACMA past president. I'm also the founder and owner of 2D Consulting, LLC, here in North Carolina.

Our panelists are from all over the country.

We'll introduce to you Sara Braun. She arrived at Rogers State after two years at the Mid-America Christian University in Oklahoma City. She was the school's first full-time sports information director. She was promoted to the role of associated AD for external ops in July of '16 after helping Rogers State earn full membership into NCAA Division II. She also serves as a SWA, as well, wearing a whole lot of hats. She's a 2007 graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University earning a degree in public relations.

Moving to Dr. Kristene Kelly now. She arrived in Dartmouth in August of 2018 after spending two years as the athletic director at Keene State. That's where she oversaw a group of more than 35, yes, 35 people. She supervised both in coaching and staff administration. Through all that there were 18 sports that she had to keep a handle on with the Division III Owls at the time. Kristene is the senior associate AD for varsity sports and the SWA for the Big Green. She is a 2000 grad of a school here in North Carolina, Johnson C. Smith, just outside of Charlotte. She has two bachelors degrees in physical education and community arts.

Last but certainly not least, the AD of our group, Omar Banks. He is at Campbell. He arrived at Campbell after spending some time in Blacksburg. While he was at Virginia Tech, Omar served as the CFO for two years in the 40th largest collegiate athletic department in the nation. He was named the athletic director of Campbell on June 25th of 2019. He began his collegiate career in 1998 at North Carolina State as a media intern with sports information.

All of these folks have a pretty good feel of what sports information is all about. That's why they're part of the panel today. To boot, Omar was also a student-athlete with football for the Richard Spiders. That's where he got his undergrad. All that said, I'm hyperventilating now. Let me tee up a question so we can get into the panel discussion.

Kristene, we'll start with you. Your bio, as we made mention a few minutes ago, you oversaw a group of more than 35 coaches and staff, 18 sports at Keene State. When you think about your relationship with them, how did you perceive their value as a supervisor? Really my question is rooted into the idea of best practice, giving our SIDs a tip or two about how they can continue to develop their interpersonal skills with their supervisors. Take it away.

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: Thank you, Trip. Also to everyone who is joining us today, shout out to all the SIDs out there. I'm still an SID at heart. I may not physically be an SID now, but I'm still an SID.

To answer your question, first of all you have to recognize that they're all individuals. No two coaches are the same. I think everyone, regardless if you're an SID, marketing person, academic, everyone wants to be heard, they want to feel valued and supported.

Sometimes your coaches or your staff just need a space to vent. One of the things I did was have one-on-one discussions with all of our head coaches at least once a month. That was very important because, again, when you're at a Division III institution, it's hard to navigate, you're one person dealing with a whole lot of different things.

Here at Dartmouth, I'm lucky where we have a huge team of people, so it's not just me. When I was at Keene State as the athletic director, it took a lot to be able to have all those meetings. You still have to have time for meetings on campus, meetings with student-athletes, staying visible, recognizing everyone as individuals.

For my SIDs out there, get to know your supervisor. I think that's important for them to be able to get to know you as well. We're all individuals. Ask them out to lunch. Have those one-on-one meetings. Don't make your first conversation be about something you need or a promotion you want.

A lot of us are millennials, I'm not a millennial, but a lot of our SIDs are millennials. They want the here and now. Don't make your first conversation with a supervisor about something you want. Have them get an opportunity to know you because they can be your best advocate as well. Those are some of the things I did at Keene State.

TRIP DURHAM: As we start to move towards Sara, how do you explain, especially in your role as SID, your last stop where you were the first-ever SID, using that sort of as your muse, how do you explain to people what your role is? How do you create that value within the rest of the athletic staff? To Kristene's point, you certainly don't want to do it on the first conversation. How have you gone about making sure people know what it is you do?

SARA BRAUN: Yeah, I think that's definitely really important. One thing, I was 23 years old, it was my first job out of college. So I really heavily relied on the veteran SIDs in our conference. I was in the Sooner Athletic Conference.

A lot of great SIDs, including my mentor at Oklahoma Baptist who I worked under as a student and student-athlete at OBU. I leaned on him and a couple other SIDs in our conference to help me navigate through that first year as a first-time SID.

They'd never had an SID before. That was something that became really important to me, that mentorship, getting involved in NAIASIDA and CoSIDA became really important. I met great people and was able to bounce ideas off of them, like how do I show my value and tell people how important this job is. They really helped me with that.

It took a while, but I was definitely able to show how important the sports information role was to the university. I still follow them via social media and their website. I love to see the things that they've done now 10 to 12 years later, from where it started to where they've come now. It's exciting to know I got to be a small part of that 10 years ago.

TRIP DURHAM: Sara, did you have an aha moment at such a young age in which it clicked for you saying, okay, yes, now I know that I'm conveying to other people what it is I do, what my value is?

SARA BRAUN: I think something Kristene said is really important: getting to know the people you work with, getting to know your boss and his tics, and our coaches, how they work and how they run. All of them are different. So you had to approach each of them a little bit differently. I think that is something that I learned.

Once I learned the way to communicate with each of those people differently, they started to respect me and the job I did, the value that I was able to add to the department. They started to gain that trust. It became a great relationship because of that.

TRIP DURHAM: Omar, Sara talks about the wide range of people. Even though we didn't mention it in your bio, you've had a wide range of experiences both in the non-profit world of college athletics, but also you spent time in the for-profit world. From that perspective of seeing it from both sides, with the thought of conveying value within the department of sports information, how does a communications administrator establish or perpetuate the brand of who they are?

OMAR BANKS: Great question. Again, thank you for all the SIDs that are out there listening to this. I'm really humbled that people are actually taking time to listen to all three of us. With that being said...

I would say knowing yourself. I've always tried to do a good job of making sure I portray who I am to others and be consistent. ID what your core values are and you have to live by them. They show up every day, right, in what you do in your job, how you communicate to others, the behaviors that you display. Ultimately it's going to reflect in how others see you. Know yourself. Live to your values.

TRIP DURHAM: Kristene.

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: What Omar was saying. When you talk about the brand, we each have a brand, right, regardless of whether we're an SID for an administrator, whatever. With SIDs, you're always going to have the technical aspect of the job. You're always going to have to do the stats, the website. There are all those different pieces that are there.

It's really hard to quantify what an SID does. Sometimes people put a lot of value in the marketing people because you can go with how many butts are in the seats, you can go with your development people, your fundraising people, how much money they can bring in. With SIDs it's hard to quantify that.

What I always say is just ensure you're able to be respected and you present yourself in a respectful type of way. When I say 'present yourself', I remember when I was an SID similar to Sara, I was 23 when I started, I used to wear sweats to work every day. How would I be perceived as an administrator, more than just an SID if I'm coming to work dressed as if I can sweep the floors today. Granted, we all sweep the floors. You see me now, I'm sweeping the floors in a suit. There's a difference.

Understanding the brand, perceiving it and presenting yourself in a very professional way, too.

TRIP DURHAM: Omar, Kristene was making the point about personal appearances being part of the brand. While perception should not be solely about that outer presentation, how important is it to come to work buttoned up, I mean that literally and metaphorically, whether it's with a tie or with a sweater vest? How important is that presentation at least from what you see as an athletic director?

Omar's microphone may not be reengaged.

OMAR BANKS: Can you hear me now?

TRIP DURHAM: You are good. Go.

OMAR BANKS: Got it.

I think it's very important. Some person's perception is someone else's reality. If someone is seeing you for the first time, again, if you're wearing sweats, you look like you just stepped off the city bus after five transfers, unfortunately that's what somebody is going to look like and say this person might not be professional.

It is a part of the brand. It is something that should be very seriously considered.

TRIP DURHAM: Sara, there's a little bit of a follow-up to your answer a little while ago. It's within that realm of advocacy, something we talked about at the top. How do you advocate for yourself? There are obviously several different elements within sports information, butts in seat is metric when which you can advocate, the number press releases, stories, personal profiles you put out. That could be an advocacy metric. How do you know how to advocate for yourself? Is it something you put a full court press on? Are you subtle about the advocacy for yourself? How do you go about it or how have you seen people go about it in the right way?

SARA BRAUN: I think kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier: you advocate for yourself differently with different people. So I think it depends on who you're talking about, who you're trying to advocate with.

I think building relationships becomes really important. Not just in the athletic department, but also in the community and on your campus, letting them know how you can add value in showing them. I think that's a big part of it, too, is being able to show the value you add through hard work and dedication (interruption in audio).

TRIP DURHAM: The idea of casting your shadow on campus, making sure people know who you are. Just that simple movement of going to somebody else's office across campus, that creates an element of advocacy, doesn't it?

SARA BRAUN: It really does. I think, too, getting involved on campus has been really great for me because being able to collaborate with other units on campus has bridged gaps between athletics and faculty or athletics and student affairs. Having those relationships has been really beneficial to me as a professional, but also to our athletic department as a whole.

TRIP DURHAM: Kristene, what are the elements, the traits of a good advocate?

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: I think one is being a good listener. I think we talked about that a little bit earlier where a lot of people just want to be heard. I think that's really, really important, being respectful. Letting your employees know they are heard, that they're valued, that they're understood.

I think that's the one thing the three of us, Omar, Sara, myself, others in roles similar to ours, can do. We have that seat at the table right now. It's important for us to use that voice that we have.

I think Jack McWilliams, the commissioner of the CIAA down in Charlotte, one thing he said, if you don't have a seat at the table, you have to know someone who does, allow that person to advocate for you. Advocating for each other, understanding the needs of your area.

Again, as you are that person, let's say you are the SID, you want something, I don't know, some new equipment that's out there, how do you explain those priorities to your supervisor or to your athletic director? You have to understand what the priorities are.

I think being an advocate, I'm in that role, I can sit and help that SID. I was actually in a meeting earlier today talking about how we need more people, bodies, in our varsity athletics communications area. I said it so he could hear me say it knowing he and I just talked about this yesterday, but that's letting him know I heard him, that I understood what he was saying, and that I was going to go to bat for him and for that area as well.

I think being a good listener. Honestly, asking how are you. Again, we get so bogged down with all the specifics and technical aspects of the job, we forget that our SIDs are just people, just like we're people. Ask them how are you doing. Ask about their hobbies, those type of things. Get to know that individual.

TRIP DURHAM: I fell into a trap years ago in which I would pick up the phone, launch right into my question with somebody. There was one colleague that would always just take a breath and say, I'm fine, Trip, how are you this morning. There is that need to be empathetic. Take that quick 15 or 20 seconds to say I'm doing well, how are you. You just sort of ease right on into it.

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: Absolutely.

TRIP DURHAM: Omar, you have a ton of people that are coming to you on a regular basis advocating for either themselves professionally or for the department that they are a part of. Sports information directors always advocating, athletic directors always hearing. How do you know to take what is being advocated for and actually act upon it? What within the culture or framework tells you that's something I need to go act on?

OMAR BANKS: That's another really good question.

Being in this chair now for five months, it's really been just that, a lot of listening, a lot of advocating. You can actually call it testing. People are trying to see what they can get, and how I want to respond.

I think the biggest thing for me is, like you said, you have to discern what actions to take. For me, it's it goes down to a couple things. You're managing the flow of information because everybody is asking for things. Again, knowing your core values, understanding the mission, the vision and values of your department, those things that fall in line with student-athlete welfare, those are things that really get my antennas up very quickly. I want to make sure that our student-athletes are having the best experience possible.

So whenever I hear something in the line of a student-athlete or something that could be a potential issue, I'm always listening to that. Again, you have to discern the facts from the fluff, make the decisions.

A lot of times, again, Kristene said it earlier, you got to get to know people. I've had people since I've been here, a lot of crying wolf, and things are so small that I really don't understand why they're asking me the question.

However, I go back to the whole testing, they want to know how I'm going to respond. Again, trying to discern what's urgent, what's important, what's urgent and important, what's not urgent, what's not important.

It's really a lot of listening. For me it is a learning process. As a CFO, I had the opportunity to hear a lot of different issues, but they were all financial in nature. Now I'm hearing all the issues whether or not it's financially related. So now it's a different filter that I have to put on and really be discerning, have that discerning ear in order to make the right decisions.

TRIP DURHAM: Sara, Omar talked about testing. When you started at the sports information department years ago at Mid-American Christian, you were at a young age. Did you find that people were testing you during this process of start-up?

SARA BRAUN: Absolutely. There were a lot of times that I had to make decisions. I was in unchartered waters several times. But I think a lot of times I had to learn how to get tough really fast.

Making sure that even if I had to say no to someone or I had to prioritize, we had 16 sports, one SID, no student worker budget. It was a really small operation at the time. I had to prioritize things, make sure they understood the why. Everyone always wants to know the why.

So making sure you were able to articulate and communicate why someone else's things that they were advocating for or their game, whatever it might be, had to come before what another coach wanted or another administrator wanted. I think communicating that became really important and something I had to learn really fast.

TRIP DURHAM: So you said no, but then backed it up with the why. Is that part of your protocol in making sure the interpersonal relationships don't get askew?

SARA BRAUN: Right. I think that is a big part. Communication is so important. For the most part what I've learned, whether it be at Mid-America or Rogers State, people just want to feel included, they want to know what the reasoning is behind your answer, whether it's a yes or no, or a maybe. I think that's something that I really had to work on and make sure I knew what my why was to everything that I do.

TRIP DURHAM: Are you good at saying no now?

SARA BRAUN: I've gotten a lot better (laughter). With time, you get a lot better at that. I'm still working on that.

I got really involved on campus, but now I feel like I might be overly involved in the campus and community. I've had to start learning how to say no to some of those things a little bit better.

But, yeah, it does get a little bit easier, the longer you're in the profession, the more confidence you have. I think you have to be confident in your reasoning and know what your values are, like Omar said earlier. If you go out with confidence, you have good communication, I found that makes things go a lot smoother, especially when you have to say no.

TRIP DURHAM: Kristene and Omar, I want to split off onto that rail for a second. Inside sports information, I have this vision, I remember it from my days on campus, there's a stream of people coming into sports information, a stream of people leaving. They're always coming in asking something, they're always leaving with an answer yes or no. If you develop the way to say no, back it up with the why in sports information, do you as a follow-up to the brand conversation setting a tone for what is the brand of sports information by the way you handle the yeses and the nos? You guys deal with so many people. Kristene, you did at your last stop. Omar, you certainly do right now. Do you develop your own personality by saying no that other people can talk about?

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: I would say yes because for me, I tell people this all the time. I can say no with a smile, literally. I do that because I think you can say no. To Sara's point, you can communicate your point the way it needs to be communicated without being nasty. Sometimes people come across as angry, not really being empathetic and/or sympathetic to the situation that's happening.

Getting people to understand the why behind the what, a lot of times people don't really understand that. You have to be able to do that.

Even though I was athletic director at Keene State overseeing 35 coaches and staff, I have probably close to double that right now in Dartmouth in my role as a senior associate AD. Overseeing quite a few more sports, a much larger portfolio.

You talk about managing all different kinds of people, their own focus, that type of thing. Having to say no, again, you have to have the data and analytics that goes along behind it. You can't be anecdotal in anything you do.

Sometimes as a former SID I saw myself just being anecdotal because it was all about my feelings, how I felt. You have to take the emotions out of it, say here is the data, here is why we need this extra person because now we're required to stream all of our games on ESPN. Plus, in order to do that, we have to have someone to do it. According to the Ivy League rules, we have to do it. Just be very specific and data driven behind it, not just so anecdotal.

TRIP DURHAM: Omar, your thoughts as well? Can you set a tone throughout the rest of the department how it is you handle the word no or even the word yes?

OMAR BANKS: Actually, yes, you can. I agree with everything that Kristene said. In my role as a financial CFO, a lot of times I was the heavy in saying no on a lot of things just because, again, resources are finite, there's only so much can you do.

I think for those that know me, that have worked with me, I never tried to be a no person. I always tried to be a no but, let's try to figure out a solution, let's get down to all of the different pathways to see whether or not the answer is truly no or if it's something that we can talk about and figure out a different avenue in order to achieve the goal that we both want.

So you can get branded as a no, but I do think at least in my career people saw me as someone that tried to solve problems. If I said no, my no really meant no. You had the data behind it. You had everything that substantiated why it was no. People would not get upset by it.

Now, there are times where I just say no, get out of my face. That's a different tack. However, I think I always tried to make sure I was a no but type of person, tried to work towards a solution.

TRIP DURHAM: I always think back to when you were a kid, you asked your mom in the grocery store, can I have that candy bar. All you got as a kid was no. There is no reasoning as to why the answer was no. So you were just left as a kid to wonder why not. But I do think we take that into our adulthood. If we can help the why behind the answer, that truly gets us where we need to be.

This last block of questions as we start to round out our time, I really want to focus on leadership. I'll ask all three of you, Omar, we'll start with you first, do you have to be a leader in order to be an advocate?

OMAR BANKS: No.

TRIP DURHAM: And why?

OMAR BANKS: I was just kidding.

I would say this. In order to be an advocate, you don't have to be a leader. If you're going -- wait. Do you have to be a leader to be an advocate? The answer is no. If you're an advocate, there are certain elements of leadership that you have to display because you are very passionate about a cause, about a piece of equipment, about a social media stance. You have to be able to stand out and take the right approach as a leader to be the advocate if it's something you feel very passionate about.

TRIP DURHAM: Sara, do you have to be a leader in order to be an advocate?

SARA BRAUN: I think I agree with Omar. I think everyone has leadership qualities. Everyone is a leader in their own right. SIDs especially. As an SID, I was so passionate about what I did. I thought it's so important, the different things that SIDs provide for student-athlete experience, for the university. They're a big part of the front porch of the university, is athletics. Who is getting out there? The SIDs.

I don't think you have to necessarily be in a leadership role to advocate for yourself. But to be an advocate, you have to be able to back up what you're wanting to sell or what you're wanting to advocate for. Being able to articulate that to a leader is important.

TRIP DURHAM: Dr. Kelly?

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: I agree with both Omar and Sara. Absolutely you don't have to be a leader to be an advocate. Like Sara and Omar both said, you do have to have leadership qualities.

I keep going back to listening and communication. Are you listening to what this person is asking for? I think that's just really, really important. Do you believe in what it is they're asking for? When you talk about just some of their goals, are you able to help them grow and succeed in whatever their goals are in life?

I think you can advocate for someone easily, but again you have to get to know that person. I'm not going to advocate for anybody that I don't believe in. I have to be able to believe in you first to be able to advocate for you.

TRIP DURHAM: Like writing a letter of recommendation. You want one or four or five paragraphs strong, not just the one paragraph, because you really don't know if you can advocate for them.

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: Absolutely. So true. Very true.

TRIP DURHAM: I'm going to tweak the question. I originally had the idea of talking about transparency and honesty as a leader. You've covered some of that. The way I'm going to shape this question is going to sound a bit odd. Is it hard as a leader to be transparent? Is it hard to be honest? Transparency is such a buzz word over the last five or 10 years. Is it hard to maintain transparency and honesty?

SARA BRAUN: Thanks (laughter).

I think with that, I think trust, I think you have to build trust. I've worked for four athletic directors in the last 10 years at Rogers State. They're some of my greatest mentors still. Wren Baker, now at North Texas. Ryan Bradley is at Alabama. Ryan Irwin is now East Texas Baptist. Those three men were very transparent and very trustworthy.

Being the SWA, I really got to be involved, and I've always had a seat at the table. But sometimes there are things that they can't always lay all the cards on the table. But I always trusted that they had our RSU's best interests at heart.

I think gaining trust of your staff, of the people you work with, becomes really important because sometimes there might be something that happens in the president's cabinet's meeting that you can't be transparent with your whole staff about. I always knew that those people had RSU's best interest at heart. I trusted the way they were leading our athletic department.

For me, I think it can sometimes be hard to be transparent. But honesty and trustworthiness, if you have those two, the transparency will come.

TRIP DURHAM: Kristene, do you want that one next?

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: Sure. I'll take it.

What I will say, again, I think Sara hit the nail on the head in terms of transparency, you're not going to always be able to share everything that's happening. Your gut you may want to be able to say, hey, if you don't get it together, you're not going to have a job next year type of thing. Sometimes you just can't say that.

We live in such a litigious society, silence can never be misquoted, as the saying goes. With me, I live with integrity. For me, I think all of us live with a level of integrity. We have to be able to go home, put our heads down at night, know that we have done everything we could do to lead our departments or our units in the best possible way, one that I would be proud for my parents to read or see about it.

I think it's important to have that honesty and that transparency as much as you possibly can, because I don't think any of us have enough money to be sued by anyone. At the end of the day, be as transparent as you can be.

Again, that goes back to lining up with your vision and mission, understanding what it is. If I have to say no, you can understand why I'm saying no and not just me saying no.

Hopefully that explains a little bit more.

TRIP DURHAM: Omar, there's a lot there. You're not allowed to say ditto, okay. Your thoughts?

OMAR BANKS: I mean, everything is spot on from my perspective. I didn't say ditto (laughter).

Honesty is one of those leadership qualities, probably one of the most if not the most important leadership quality that allows people to trust and gravitate towards leaders.

When you have honesty from leadership, I do think transparency becomes more trust, if that makes sense, because you're trusting that the leader has shown you enough through his intentions, his or her intentions, his or her actions and honesty and integrity that you would understand that.

You cannot be transparent in every single situation. Therefore, that's what -- I'll end with that.

TRIP DURHAM: We have a question that has come in from the general membership. Kristene, we'll let you take a crack at it first. What is the best piece of advice you can offer a sports information director, regardless of where it is in their journey if they want to advance through the ranks of administration?

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: I talked about presentation. What I'm also going to say is do the best job where you are. Again, no offense to my millennials, I'm raising one sort of. In terms of the millennials, you cannot just start a job right now and expect to be promoted in two to three months. That is not how this works.

Do the best job you can where you are. I always use this term in any podcast or webinar done, use this statement: Bloom where you're planted. Like a flower you bloom, but go where you're celebrated and not tolerated.

Understand you're responsible for your own growth and success. However, while you are there, time sometimes you have reached the ceiling. That's okay. You can't hold your employer back, hold them against the wall because you decided you need to be an assistant AD or associate AD and there's just not a spot there. That's okay. Sometimes in order for you to grow, you have to go somewhere.

Do the best job where you are, present yourself, let your intentions be known, understand what your goals are. If you just started a job, you don't know if you like the job or not. I can tell you I worked in Parks and Recreation for about nine months. I knew that's not where I needed to be. It took me some time to understand, to get to that point.

Do the best job where you are, let your intentions be known, don't get discouraged. Sometimes you may apply for seven jobs, you get knocked down seven, but you have to get up eight. Understand that you have to continue to work at it.

Every job isn't a good job. Every position isn't a good position. This job may have been perfect for Omar but may not have worked for me. That's okay. Do the best where you are.

Find a mentor, find an advocate, because they're two different things. Mentor can talk for you. Advocate is someone that is going to sit at the table for you, be able to speak on your behalf.

Be able to grow and do the best job where you are.

TRIP DURHAM: Sara, a comment from the general membership. This person does not see many people moving from a single-gender school into leadership positions within a coed university. Is that a misperception, misconception? Are you seeing that kind of lack of movement?

SARA BRAUN: I've never really looked at it like that, so I'm not really sure. I've done three administrative searches in the last year. That's not something that I really look at whenever we're looking at résumés, what their background was, whether it's a single-gender school or not. That's not something from my time at RSU that we've looked at.

TRIP DURHAM: Omar, anything on your radar screen to that?

OMAR BANKS: You know, I don't have anything on my radar screen. But I will say that, I mean, athletics is athletics. I think it's much easier to move from a single-gender school to a coed school if it's at the same level, like Division I, Division II, Division III, than it would be maybe moving from a junior college to a Division I school.

I do believe that the rules are the same. I mean, we still fall under the same NCAA umbrella. Therefore, I don't know, I haven't experienced that. I don't know anyone that may have experienced that.

I do know that it seems to me that athletics is athletics. Any move based on the qualifications of any individual, that should be the key merit that gets taken into consideration when applying for a job.

TRIP DURHAM: Kristene, an interesting question. Any thoughts?

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: Yes, actually.

I mean, even though I've never -- similar to Omar and Sara, never heard about the single-gender, where it's hard to move from that to a coed institution. To Omar's point, you find a lot of people who understand their why, institutions that fit their core values. For some people it maybe the more commercial kind of thing, a Power 5 school, where it's a commercial enterprise. That's fine. You may have others who feel a historically black college is where they need to be, minority serving institutions.

In my case, some people may find being at a high academic school. You have the private schools, public schools, on and on and on. Sometimes it's easier to say okay, if I'm an administrator looking at a new coach, does that person understand high academic institutions? The recruiting is different. The philosophies are different. That's okay. There's a place for everyone.

But I will say to that person who asks the question, what have you put out there? Have you put yourself, to be labeled, for lack of a better term, as a single-gender institution type of thing? Have you volunteered at CoSIDA? Have you gone to your conference championships and worked there? Have you found other mentors or advocates for you who are at coed institutions? Do people know you? Do they understand your goals?

You can't put limits on yourself. I'm a young person from the U.S. Virgin Island, living in New Hampshire, went to a historically black college, working at an Ivy League school. C'mon.

When you talk about the differences, DI, II and III, I can't say I've been in one area. People understood my goal and I'm up for any challenge. You never want to put yourself in a box where people think she only -- he or she only wants to be at a single-gender institution.

Hopefully that helps that person who wrote that information.

TRIP DURHAM: I appreciate that from all three of you.

Last question, I'm going off script here, I do want to get some feedback from each of the three of you. Sort of in the same line of do you have to be a leader to be an advocate. With so many different people within the CoSIDA membership who are experiencing a different level in their own journey, my question is this: Can you be a leader even if you are a follower? Sara.

SARA BRAUN: Absolutely. I think that every leader looks a little bit different. I think everyone leads differently. Some people lead from the second chair. I recently read a book about leading from the second chair.

The way that I lead looks very different than the way that our athletic director leads. I feel like both people show value and have value.

I think that to be a good leader, you have to be a follower. Our AD is following our president, who is the leader of our university. So I think that you have to be a good follower to also be a good leader. So I think that's very important.

TRIP DURHAM: Omar, I see the head bob from you. Your thoughts?

OMAR BANKS: Yeah, I agree. I don't know anyone that literally graduated from high school or college and directly, immediately became an athletic director. Everyone had to follow someone in some way, and they did it well.

It starts with yourself. You have a goal. You work towards that goal. But at the end of the day or the next day, you at some point in your career will be a follower. What do you do in order to make yourself a leader? You start with yourself, and you lead yourself very well.

TRIP DURHAM: Kristene, you get the last word.

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: Can I say ditto? I mean, Sara and Omar literally just hit on everything that I would have possibly said.

You absolutely can lead whether you're from the middle of the pack or the back of the pack. The way I look at it, leadership is cyclical, right? You're not always going to be at the top or the bottom. You have peaks and valleys.

Find where you are and lead from where you are. Sometimes SIDs say, I need sports oversight, sports supervision. No, you don't. Personnel management is personnel management. You can oversee your work study, your interns. That's resource management right there.

Again, you don't have to be in this athletic director role to lead. If that were the case, most of our Ivy League schools that have over a thousand student-athletes, 250 coaches and staff, there's no way we would get it done if it was only the AD leading.

We all have to lead from different areas. I think that's what makes us successful and a team. There's no 'I' in team.

TRIP DURHAM: We will leave it right there. Sara Braun, Kristene Kelly, Omar Banks, thanks for being with us today.

KRISTENE KELLY, Ed.D.: Thank you so much. Have a great day. Happy New Year.

SARA BRAUN: Thank you.

OMAR BANKS: Thank you.

TRIP DURHAM: We thank our three guests and their insights.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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COSIDA CAPITAL ONE CONTINUING EDUCATION WEBINAR

January 8, 2020

Trip Durham

Sara Braun

Omar Banks

Kristene Kelly, Ed.D.