September 19, 2025 ā¢ 50 mins
šļø Ā From the Mound to the Directorās Chair ā¾šš
Ryan Callahanās 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 heās 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.
Donāt miss this inspiring conversationāthen come back on Monday, Sept 22 for Part 2, where Ryan offers his unique perspective on the college recruiting process from the ADās chair.
š Listen now and explore more resources at CoachMattRogers.com
Learn more and connect with Matt Rogers here: https://linktr.ee/coachmattrogers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
That are now saying I amstruggling.
(00:01):
This is such a new experiencefor me.
High school was so easy.
I had all my friends and now I'mgoing to a new place.
I have new roommates.
It's a new city, newexperiences, and I'm not doing
well and that's okay.
But now what I tell my studentathletes is that there's never a
time in your life.
For the four years that you'regonna be at college, that every
(00:22):
single person that you comeacross on this university wants
to see you succeed and dobetter.
That's right.
The only way that we're gonnasee you do better and help you
do better is if you tell us ifyou need help.
(00:44):
Welcome back to the SignificantCoaching Podcast.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's guest has worn justabout every hat you can wear in
athletics, student athlete,professional pitcher,
administrator, coach, and nowathletic director.
Ryan Callahan's story begins onthe mound at UW Whitewater,
where he was a three-timeall-conference pitcher and part
(01:06):
of one of the most successfuleras in Warhawk baseball
history.
His journey took him into theSan Francisco Giants
organization and eventually backhome this time to lead the very
department where it all started.
As Director of Athletics at UWWhitewater, Ryan oversees 22
varsity programs and sits on thechancellor's cabinet, shaping
(01:29):
the vision for an entireathletic department.
Along the way, he's had theprivilege of leading and
supervising some of the truegiants of division three
coaching legends who have builtpowerhouse programs and shaped
generations of student athletes.
That experience has taught himnot just how to manage, but how
to lead, balancing respect fortradition with a vision for the
(01:52):
future, and finding ways to helpgreat coaches be even greater.
In this conversation, you'llhear Ryan's perspective on
leadership, the lessons thatcarried over from the diamond to
the boardroom, and how workingalongside coaching legends has
shaped his own philosophy ofwhat it means to build and
sustain a championship culture.
(02:13):
And before we dive in, if you'dlike to schedule me Matt Rogers
to speak at your school ororganization, you can learn more
and connect with medirectly@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.
(02:35):
You guys have built this worldclass 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 theprevious podcasts, I listened to
Coach Gard, one of ourcompetitors to see what he had
to say.
And by the way, he did a greatjob.
So I appreciate you promotingthe division three, the smaller
(02:55):
college, experience, whichobviously 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 Dthree bandstand all the time
because I had such a greatexperience.
And I looked at Notre Dame, Ilooked at Illinois, I looked at
Wisconsin, I looked at Marquetteand I ended up at co college in
(03:16):
Iowa, and I'm so thankful that Idid because I was a small town
kid.
I realized once I got there howimportant it was for me to have
smaller classrooms and, be ableto acclimate.
I think I would've gotten lostif 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
(03:36):
college sports, you dream aboutplaying, division one Power five
huge schools.
And obviously that's a wonderfulexperience, I'm sure for a lot
of those student athletes.
But, you get lost in theanonymity of the larger schools.
And I think when you're at asmaller school you really are
somebody, whether it's the deanof the college or the provost or
the president.
Or the athletic director, theyknow you, and a lot of those
(03:58):
larger schools, they just don'thave that personal interaction,
personal touch, which, I'm verygrateful that I chose Whitewater
and obviously you chose CO andyou can probably name some of
the administrators that you gotto know, or the coaches from
other teams that you got toknow.
It's if you're at some of thosebigger schools you're not
getting that experience.
I've said this way too manytimes on this podcast, but I
(04:18):
walked out of CO where thecollege president, the vp, the
dean of students and the chairof my department, all made phone
calls for me to help me get ajob.
Where else are you gonna, whereelse Outside of D three, you're
gonna get that.
Oh, a hundred percent.
Every year I probably got about20 to 25 letters of rec for
students.
Whether it's student workers tooand student athletes that are
looking to, whether get a careerin athletics or just move on
(04:41):
with their career.
And it's really, it's really ahighlight to have that at that
relationship with a lot ofthose, up and coming
professionals and being able towrite a letter of rec and
selfishly it's nice to be ableto put like athletic director
behind my name to say, Hey, thismight help.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It's not just a random buddythat's writing you a letter of
rec.
So hopefully the title goes along ways as well to help those
(05:02):
kids move on or those youngadults move on.
That's right at college adthat's a huge recommendation.
Let's talk about your studentworkers,'cause I, we haven't
talked enough about that on theshow.
They're so valuable.
To an athletic department,especially at the D three level
where you don't have millions ofdollars in a budget, you don't
have a huge staff.
(05:24):
Those students become such ahuge part of making sure the
athletics runs.
Talk a little bit about how manystudents you have, some of the
roles they play and why they'reso valuable for you.
Yeah, we probably go in and outof about 40 to 50 student
workers over the course of theyear.
Some of that's gonna begraduation in the winter, and
then some of that is going tobe, they just want more hours.
(05:45):
Obviously we have a few contestsper week and then a number on
the weekend.
If they want to get a solid 30hours 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 supportstaff background, so I have a
soft spot in my heart for, theevent management, the athletic
trainers, the sids, the peoplethat are walking, the officials
(06:07):
and the referees at halftime,making sure they got their water
and everything else and doingthat.
And we've been, man, I've beenso fortunate in the.
Six plus years that I've been,in this role.
And then another couple yearsbefore that, we've had these
student workers that are sohandy with technology.
Unlike Matt, you and I,obviously getting this podcast
going.
(06:28):
Our student workers would'vefigured this out in two minutes.
It took us 21 minutes.
They're running the scoreboard.
They're putting stuff on thevideo board, they're running the
stats to the coaches, they'regetting there earlier, making
sure that, I referred, coachGuard when they, when Plattville
men's basketball comes here,that somebody's meeting him.
Yeah.
They look professional.
They act professional, makingsure that the student athletes
(06:48):
that are coming here know wherethey're going.
They have everything they need.
And.
You said it earlier, we've beenvery fortunate we have a
successful program and a lot ofthat means that a lot of people
want to come play us and seewhat facilities we have.
Yeah.
September 6th we have.
I think six volleyball games, asoccer game, and a football game
all in the matter of eighthours.
(07:09):
And we got a fleet of studentsthat, they're gonna kill it,
they're gonna be running,they're gonna be running
scoreboard, they're gonna behelping out with some of our
stats.
They're gonna be doing the livestreaming.
And if we don't, if we didn'thave our student force that we
have, we wouldn't be able toaccommodate, and the flexibility
that our coaches have withscheduling.
I remember when I got the ad jobat Maryville in like 2002.
(07:34):
And we didn't have an SAD, wedidn't have a compliance person.
I didn't have an assistant ad,so I was trying to figure out
stats, all the stat programs, Iwas trying to figure out,
compliance.
And I was writing the four yearstudy, the NCAA four year study.
And if I wouldn't have had thestudent staff I wouldn't have
lasted a month.
'cause they kept me afloat.
They were the ones that could doall the things and knew where
(07:56):
all the buttons needed to bepushed and where everything
needed to be.
So I love that.
What's cool about it and where Iwant to dive in with you about
that is it's a great thing foryour resume because where you,
if you want to be in athletics,there's nothing better than
having a role in, in, in adepartment at any level.
(08:17):
Oh, for sure.
And we talk even with ourstudent 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'sbasketball team at Whitewater.
And then they got to go to thenext school, and the next school
and the next school, and I thinkalmost even more important, it
gives'em a taste of what it'slike.
(08:37):
You really like, do you wannawork this night and do you wanna
work this weekend?
Because if you're having a hardtime coming as a 19-year-old to
this place, once find a partnerand you potentially have a
family, if it's hard at 20, it'sgonna be harder at 40 when you
have.
When you have a family at homesaying, Hey, when are you
getting home?
We gotta do this, and this.
(08:58):
So it's really special.
And I love the relationship thatI have with the event managers.
'cause we're all grinding itout.
Yeah.
I always joke hashtag D threelife like.
I might be taking tickets at thevolleyball game on Saturday and
being a ball boy on Monday forthe women's soccer game.
There's not a job that is toobig or too small for you at
administration and divisionthree.
(09:19):
Yep.
And then that kinda shows thestudent workers man, if he's.
If he's doing that.
Yeah.
I better do something too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then just the relationshipsthat you have, like I said,
'cause you are grinding withthem.
You get to know'em a little bit.
You get to know, who they are aspeople and what their
aspirations are.
And like you said, Matt, like ifyou can just be a reference, if
you can, I've been around southsouthern Wisconsin for 44 years
(09:41):
now.
If I know somebody that is inthis company or in this
business, making a side callsaying, Hey, look out for this
person's resume.
They're pretty talented.
And especially the ones thatwere, 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 wasinvited to a couple weddings in
the last few years of likestudent workers that he's had,
(10:05):
and the coaches get to know himtoo.
So then, then they feel a littlebit, I don't know.
They, hits, helps their ego alittle bit.
Yeah.
Oh, the football coach knows whoI am, or, the basketball coach
knows who I am, or the soccercoach knows who I am.
And our coaches do a great jobof just, giving'em nothing but
respect and, and saying hi to'em.
And I think they understand thatcan make, that can make their
day when they seem'em in thehallway walking to class and,
(10:26):
just saying, hi, how are yourday?
How's your day going?
But yeah they definitely run ourdepartment on a lot of these
weekends when we just have.
A ton of events going on.
It's such a fun experience whenyou're in it.
You just, you're working eightto 78 hour weeks in, in the
heart of the season.
When, like you said, when you'vegot seven, eight games, you get
there, you probably get thereright early in the morning, and
(10:46):
you might not leave till 10, 11o'clock at night.
So it's such a long day.
But when you have thoserelationships and you get to see
the growth of those young peopleand what they're learning and
how much maturity they'regetting out of it.
There's nothing better.
I want to talk about yourbaseball career for just a
little bit because I think yourexperience going from D three,
(11:08):
getting to play, getting thattime in the minor leagues,
getting to play some big timeprofessional baseball.
What has that done to shape yourleadership with your coaches and
with your athletes?
I'll give you a little bit of astory.
So one of my mentors was PaulPlinski.
Yeah.
And Paul Plinski is now atColorado State Pueblo.
Yeah.
And he has a PhD and I always,when I was navigating my career
(11:31):
and I would, bounce some ideasoff of him and he said, I would
encourage you to get a PhDbecause it gets you in the door
and it gets you immediaterespect whether you deserve it
or not.
That's a different story.
But when you walk into adepartment meeting with,
economics or marketing, the factthat you have that PhD is gonna
(11:52):
give you some credibility rightthere.
And I think with a playingcareer 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 myresume 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 thanthe level that we're at right
now.
(12:12):
Yeah.
He's seen some of those playersthat are playing, at Miller or
AM FAM Stadium at Wrigley.
He's been with a lot of thoseplayers.
He has some of those contactswith the managers and some of
those people.
So I think it gives somecredibility.
I don't necessarily think itreally, I hope it doesn't change
too much.
People's perspect, perspectiveof me, perception of me, but it
is one of those things where Inow I can walk in and say, Hey,
(12:33):
this is who I am.
I'm an athletic director at asuccessful Division III school.
And by the way I did play somefairly high level athletics
myself.
You did.
So it gives you a little bitmore credibility, when it's all
said and done now that's, 19, 20years ago.
What I think is really greatabout it is the reality of what
D three really is.
And it is great athletics.
(12:54):
You can't go watch your footballteam and volleyball team and
basketball teams, and baseballteams and not go, wow, the,
these aren't, this isn'tintramurals, this isn't, whoever
wants to play gets to play.
These are some of the best kidsin the country that are coming
to Whitewater to play yoursports.
No, for sure.
And I think that's one of thethings that is there's always
gonna be a stigma with divisionthree, right?
(13:16):
Yeah.
If you think about social mediaand the social media push over
the last 20 plus years it'salways D one.
And I know we're gonna talkabout recruiting in the future,
but when I was recruiting wewere, and I was in obviously
coaching baseball.
We talked to a lot of familiesand I remember talking to these
young men and their parents andsaying, what other schools are
(13:38):
you looking at?
Some D one, some this and that.
And our standard response waslike there's a low level
division one.
Then there's like Texas, like ifyou're looking at Texas, we're
not in the same ballpark.
Yes, literally buddy, you go doyour thing at Texas.
But if you're looking at some ofthe schools that are, some of
the mid-majors that maybe nothave had some of, a lot of
(14:00):
success in baseball, then let'stalk because your experience
here is gonna be as good.
If not better than some of yourexperiences as some of those
mid-major Division one programs.
The likelihood of you playingpast college when you come here
is gonna probably be evengreater than the likelihood of
you playing past college at someof those division one schools.
And what we've had to a constantdialogue for the last 25 years
(14:24):
at Whitewater is how do we breakthat Division one, division
three stigma with our region?
With our community, even to anextent with our state, and we've
been fortunate to have somepeople that have done some
really good things.
Obviously, Lance Pol beat,Fresno State that Fresno State
coach was the coach at NorthDakota State, went to USC and he
breed him pretty good.
(14:44):
Pretty handily.
We had a, an offensive linemansign, an$80 million deal a
couple years ago.
Yep.
Lake Bocker, making heaven savesfor the Florida or Miami
Marlins, so we, we have that.
We have the we have the historyof success with our individual
athletes to say, Hey, if youcome here, you're gonna have a
chance.
(15:05):
And now with the transferportal, it's even more because
we can say, Hey, if you comehere.
We'll give you a shot somewhereelse.
Yeah.
So it's it's easy to sellwhitewater, but it's hard to
sell people when they have thatdivision three stigma.
And I think that's somethingthat I know Coach Guard, a lot
of the really successful coachesare trying to break.
Yeah.
You had the president from JutaYeah.
(15:26):
And what they've been able to dowith volleyball is unbelievable.
Yeah.
How have they been able to keepthose, young women that are so
talented at Juta and thetransfer portal time, or how do
you get people in transferportal time to a junior yada
type school?
Yeah.
But that's, it's, we're alwaystrying to break that stigma.
Yeah.
I think the key is really ifyou're a family and you've got a
(15:47):
young athlete, there's a D threeclose to you, probably within an
hour's drive, a hundred percent.
Just go watch a game, go watch.
And I guarantee you, you'll walkaway going, wow, the talent on
that field, the coaching that'sgoing on.
It's so impressive.
And for us, as former athletes.
I'm just amazed at how that barcontinues to go up every year,
(16:10):
aren't you?
It's Matt.
It, it is wild.
It is absolutely wild.
I'm getting to the age where, somy oldest is going into eighth
grade and a lot of my friendsthat are my age have kids that
are going into high school and Itell'em all the time, come to a
game.
You got a daughter that's goodat basketball, come to a Warhawk
game, have him, come to aWhitewater Oshkosh game to the
(16:32):
better or Whitewater Scout lastyear.
Any of those three, three teams.
If you think your daughter is asgood as you say she is, let's
see what she's got against thesegirls, these women.
Yeah.
If your son is pretty good atfootball and he's 175 pound
lineman I'll get you on thesidelines for a whitewater
lacrosse game.
Unless less then I wanna talk toyou afterwards and be like, all
(16:54):
right, what does my son have todo?
That's what I wanna know.
Yeah.
I wanna hear your reaction tothat.
Yeah.
Or if your son, if yourdaughter's a good softball
player, come watch us playOshkosh or Point, see what you
think then.
'cause you're exactly right.
The number of student athletesthat go play college sports is
very small.
And the number of athletes thatcan play at our level.
(17:16):
Is even smaller.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's tough.
And there's a reality to thistoo, that the, some of the
division one coaches are,they're not just saying when
they're in their office, they'renow saying it to cameras.
We're not recruiting freshmen.
Yeah.
Kalari said it two weeks ago.
Patino said it yesterday.
(17:38):
We're not recruiting freshmen.
We, we can't expect an18-year-old to come in and
compete with a 23-year-old.
But if you had a great year atUW Whitewater and you averaged
20 points per game on thebasketball court, or you ran for
1400 yards of running back, Iguarantee you those D one
coaches are now paying attentionto you.
'cause you're a proven commoditynow, right?
(17:59):
Oh, a hundred percent.
And that's and I think that'sreally tough for our coaches,
it's, yeah.
D three you, we talk aboutfamily, right?
And I know that's a cliche,every high school t-shirt that
has ever been given out hassomething with family on it.
But it's true at our level, itis a close knit group.
And part of it is because youspend so much time with each
other.
Especially with the change in,weeks to days for the ncaa, if
(18:22):
you're maximizing those days,you're spending more time than
you probably even thought youwould spend with your teammates.
And on top of that, you'reprobably living with three or
four of your teammates too.
Yeah.
So over the course of your threeto five to six years, however
long it takes, you get outtayour respective institution,
you're literally spending 24hours a day for up to 10 months
(18:43):
with the same Yeah.
At least three or four peopleand then whatever team you're on
with those other people as well.
Yeah, and it's it buildscommunity, it builds family.
It's built connectedness.
But now with the transferportal, our coaches have thrived
upon development.
Matt, I'm gonna get you in as afreshman and you're, this big,
you're this strong.
I'm gonna develop you into aplayer in three, four years.
(19:05):
So by the time you're a juniormat, you're gonna be a stud.
Yeah.
Now all of a sudden, what if youbecome a stud as a freshman?
And you're gone.
And that's what our coach isabout to deal with.
We've lost Whew.
We've lost a lot of players tothe T support of the last two
years.
And some of'em, I don't blame'em.
They're going to, they're allscholarship kids.
Yeah.
But it's hard for our coaches toadjust to that.
(19:26):
Yeah.
Because they get thatrelationship.
They get to know you, they getto know your family.
Your parents are coming to allthe games or coming to the away
games.
'cause it's not very far.
Yeah.
Then all of a sudden you gottago 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 andyou're getting a full ride.
(19:47):
Yeah.
You're not paying anything forschool.
I think it's a feather in ourcap.
Our baseball team was reallysuccessful this year.
We lost guys to four scholarshipschools.
Not what we want to hear, buthey, we won a national title's,
so what are they gonna prove?
That's right.
And now they're gonna get thelast two years that their school
paid for.
(20:07):
Yeah.
And g not bad deal for thoseguys.
And I guarantee a coach has gotfour kids ready to go that are
ready to take all those innings.
He probably does, but he won'ttell me that.
He is still pretty frustrated.
Yeah.
That's life.
That's the part of this.
Let's talk about coachingcoaches.
'cause I, I.
I was an AD at 27.
(20:29):
Ooh, that's young.
And I think the closest personin age on the staff that was a
head coach underneath me wasprobably 10 years older than me.
But as I got older and older, Irealized it doesn't matter how
old I was, doesn't matter ifthat person's 60-year-old and
(20:50):
got 10 national championships.
I still had to do some coaching.
It was just in a different waythan maybe that 30 5-year-old
coach.
Yeah.
How do you go about that?
What is your perspective as anad who's supervising these
coaches and coaching thesecoaches?
What role is that in your headand how do you put it into
(21:10):
action?
And Matt, you and I had asimilar experience.
I took over when I was about 37and I walk into my first coaches
meeting.
And I have Pat Miller, who's wontwo national titles.
John Denly, she was to won twonational titles.
Stacey Boudreaux, who won one,Brenda Vo, who's got seven.
I got, it's like a hall of famegroup.
(21:32):
And I remember like sittingthere like calling attention
thinking, what am I doing That'sreally what you're saying
yourself.
I know what that feels like.
Yeah.
They're these, this, they'resupposed to listen to me.
This is impossible.
But it kinda goes back to,playing at a high level and
being, a whitewater person.
(21:53):
There's a little bit of respectthat I think was just there
already.
But once I got through thatphase of almost.
I was almost being coached by mycoaches.
I know that sounds really corny,but I was trying to figure out
what, what is what makes PatMiller tick?
Alright.
What can I do to motivate him todo X, Y, and Z?
(22:13):
Football just, ran through sevennational titles.
It's been a couple years.
How do I get.
That program back to where itneeds to be or where we think it
needs to be.
Yeah.
In reality, and I think thefirst year was really learning
from the coaches.
What do you want from me?
What do you need from me?
And then after, taking thatfirst year and just learning,
(22:35):
and not doing anything crazy.
To be honest with you, I don'tthink I made a single change in
probably 18 months.
Part of it was working, theother part was COVID, which,
that was a big part of it, butult ultimately we were really
successful.
It's like the old cliche incoaching 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
(22:57):
really step back and almost havethat, that 30,000 foot view of,
now I gotta figure out what isCoach Garr doing at Platteville
that we can do at Whitewater?
Pat doesn't necessarily knowGreg Guard is doing, whether
it's with fundraising, whetherit's with scheduling.
'cause those are the things thatour coaches, I don't want them
to worry about that, so now I'mtrying to evaluate our programs
(23:18):
against other programs.
The WIC is very strong for justabout every single sport, right?
Let me take a look at what,Oshkosh football's doing.
Let me figure out what lacrosseand Eau Claire wrestling are
doing and really take that backand say, Hey, coach, why this is
what they're doing.
Why aren't we doing that?
There's a couple times where, itwas like, yeah, we tried that.
Okay, then let's not do that.
(23:39):
Stuff like that.
But I think one of the, one ofthe biggest things, and I tell
all of my student staff and Itruly believe this within
leadership, some of it, so muchof it's being present.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't miss a single game, andyou can call my wife and she'll
tell you that I didn't miss asingle game.
For the first probably two and ahalf years of my career as ad.
Yeah.
Like the only games I missedwere ever'cause of the NCAA
(24:01):
convention and that was just'cause we had to.
And I think once you get thatrespect 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 whyare we recruiting this, and
this?
Have you looked at this or stufflike that.
(24:23):
So I think the biggest thing onewas just taking a year and just
taking it all in.
Nobody's gonna teach you exactlyhow to be an ad.
They're just not Right.
There's the compliance issuethat, like you said, you had to
figure all that out.
Yeah, there's a lot of thosethings.
We work in a state system, sothere's a state system that I
gotta follow as far asprocurement and everything else,
and HR and whatever else.
(24:44):
And there's ever, there's, andthere's other things that you
just have to have kind of a bigpicture 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 Iwas there.
(25:05):
And now let's talk about whatare some future plans.
Let's talk about rosterdevelopment.
Let's talk about facilities.
And facilities aren'tnecessarily, you can't do those
overnight.
From co.
Yeah, if you wanna get a newsoftball field or a new baseball
field, you're talking 20 yearsdown the road, maybe not 20, but
close to it.
Yeah.
So then it got into the, to theplanning phase of what are some
of the small projects, some are,what are some of the medium
(25:28):
projects and what are some ofthe big projects?
And one of the obstacles that Ihad is that I went through.
Man, I think I had six or sevenchancellors to report to in my
first five and a half years,yeah.
So all of a sudden I have theseshort-term plans, and now I'm
telling three differentchancellors within eight months.
And having to convince them thatwas, that's compliant.
Exactly.
(25:48):
Yeah.
And now I think what, whatever,six plus years in I was reading
a book on leadership and one ofthe things was like, my role as
a CEO is to remove barriers frommy upper management.
And I feel like that's the roleof an ad and specifically at a
division three is whateverbarriers my coaches have, let me
try to remove those.
(26:09):
Within reason, right?
If somebody is teaching classMonday, Tuesday, Thursday,
Friday, let me see if I can talkto the College of Ed to say,
Hey, they're traveling onWednesdays.
They're not getting home untiltwo in the morning from
Menominee, Wisconsin.
Do you really want this personteaching at eight o'clock in the
morning on a Wednesday or aThursday?
No kidding.
Yeah.
So just trying to remove some ofthose barriers and really just
(26:30):
advocate for what we do.
And we're no different than thethan most schools, right?
Our athletes have a higher GPA,they have a higher retention
rate.
They have a higher graduationrate.
We are more diverse, we havemore out-of-state kids, so I
think once you have that dataand once you understand your
plan.
And you feel comfortableremoving some of those barriers
(26:51):
in front of your coaches forthem to succeed.
It's really just working acrosscampus and within the community
to really highlight and advocatefor those programs that are
doing really well that, I'm notsaying we're at like the flute
effect level in Boston College,but tell you Matt, when our
football team was winning, wehad the highest enrollment we've
ever had.
And I'm not saying it's a directcorrelation or some people say
(27:14):
it's just a coincidence, but ifyou look at the national average
of enrollment, it was going downby a small percentage and we
were going up.
So it's really highlighting someof those things to say, if you
invest money in us, we willprovide a better enrollment
numbers and retention andeverything else for the school.
And as from a D threebackground, the more enrollment.
(27:35):
The more money your budget has,not just for you, but for
everybody, right?
Everybody wins and it's, everytime you win a national
championship, millions ofdollars that would have to be
spent just to get your name atthat level nationally is free a
hundred percent.
And all of a sudden, kids in NewYork and California and Texas,
and Mississippi, and Minnesotathat maybe had never heard of
(27:57):
you.
Now knows, where is this place?
They won a nationalchampionship.
They're the best.
They're the best in the country.
Yeah, no, I look at our baseballteam.
We got a couple kids from Texas,a couple from Florida, and
people are like, how did you getthose?
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?
(28:18):
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 anational championship.
Everybody wants that.
Heck, all of sudden, all of asudden you're a lot more
attractive.
Yep.
Yeah.
And it's not just the baseballteam or it's not just the
volleyball team.
That must be a pretty goodschool if they're doing this
with that, there must be somestrength there in other places.
(28:39):
So I love that.
I want to get into mental healtha little bit with you'cause.
Again, you are a professionalathlete, you've been a coach.
You were, you've been an ad along time, assistant ad for a
long time.
What are you doing as the ad tothink about the mental health of
your coaches and your athletes?
(29:00):
Are there things that you guysare trying to implement every
year from the ad?
Space to make sure there's thatbalance of life.
These kids and your coaches havethat place where they know they
can go when they're starting tohit some of those low points.
Yeah it's funny you say thisbecause I really think it's
interesting.
(29:20):
Division three talks about thestudent athlete experience.
That's what it's all about.
But there's less restrictions onpractice time and everything at
our level than there aredivision ones, which is.
Funny, like division one, youhave, you have the hours per
week and That's right.
Division three, like Matt, ifI'm your basketball coach, I
could have you practice fivehours a week for six days a
(29:41):
week.
Yeah.
And that's legal.
Yeah.
So anyway, it wasn't when I wascoaching, but it is now.
Yeah.
So that's, that's a separateconversation that I think is
interesting.
But no, I, I.
Mental health is it's one ofthose things that's really hard
because you never see it.
You know it's there but youdon't see it.
So one of the things that, thatwe focused on, and this is kudos
(30:03):
to the WIC, we've really done agood job, I think as a whole.
We do screeners at the beginningof the year for every certified
roster that's done by ouruniversity health and counseling
center by a counseling trainedprofessional.
They evaluate those screeners tosee if there's any kind of red
flags.
One of our counselors comes overto the Williams Center where our
athletic is athletics arelocated once a week every, for
(30:27):
the entire semester.
So you know that this person'sgonna be there for four hours,
if not five hours or longer.
That's fantastic.
I love that idea.
Just to meet and it's allanonymous.
You don't need an appointment.
You just walk in and you talkthrough some things and you go,
sorry, and you just, talk tothem about, whatever you would
(30:47):
like to talk about.
I think the other piece is that,because it's becoming much more
prevalent and there's peoplelike, Kevin Love that come out
and others, professionalathletes that are just saying
I've been struggling.
I think the coaches are nowstarting to look for it.
I think they're trying to see,if like it's a sign to
communicate with somebody.
That's right.
(31:07):
We had a, a situation last yearwhere somebody said something to
somebody else and it just keptgoing and it finally got to me
and it's like everybody handledit perfect'cause somebody told
somebody else.
And that person told the coach.
The coach told me, I told, thesupport group and we handled it,
we managed it.
And I think it's getting muchmore comfortable for people to
(31:29):
talk about.
Probably back in, in our age, inour era.
You didn't really talk aboutmental health.
No.
I think mental health wasconfused with Just grind it out,
Matt.
That's right.
Just grind it out, rub some dirton it and get back out there.
Yeah.
And it's yeah.
There are certain things thatyou do have to grind it out.
Yeah.
If you were, if you have a 10page paper and you
procrastinated and it's due in12 hours.
(31:52):
Dude, you better grind it out.
That's right.
You gotta grind that out.
That's right.
But if you're having thatanxiety and you tried to write
this paper three weeks ago andyou just shut down and you just,
become overly consumed, then youneed some help.
Yeah.
Let's talk to somebody.
So I think the beauty of wherewe're at now is mental health is
(32:13):
much more open.
People are talking, more freeabout it.
Obviously the NCAA is havingsome waivers with mental health
and, and being a little bit moreflexible with some of that.
I think that's positive.
From our end, that's the studentathlete piece, we do the
screener.
We have the mental healthprofessional once a week for the
entire year.
We partner with our kinesiologydepartment, who the department
(32:35):
chair did a, her PhD is in likesports psych, so she meets with
a lot of our teams, morefocusing on performance, anxiety
and performance, stuff less on.
The other kind of side of mentalhealth with, just social
anxiety, depression and stufflike that.
But don't you think that they gohand in hand?
(32:56):
If you've got anxiety on thefield, it's probably rolling
over to other parts in your lifethat you're struggling with.
'cause you're probably notsleeping, you're not
communicating what's going on inyour 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 apaper, you're probably gonna
struggle shooting a free throw.
(33:17):
That's right.
Or you're struggling, doingwhatever it is.
And the other thing too, andthis is a tale as all the time,
these people are moving awayfrom home for the first time.
Yep.
Like I, this is no joke, man.
I was, went for a walk at lunchand I called my mom and I'm
like, man, it was so cool to seeall these freshmen, just coming
in, moving around.
And I called my mom and I'mlike, I had the worst first week
(33:38):
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 Ijust remember that those.
That was hard.
Yeah.
And you get all of these peopleexperiencing something new.
You don't know your roommate inyour little, cubicle dorm.
Yeah.
Move going to the dining hallsby yourself for the first time,
(34:01):
whatever it is.
So it's something that I thinkpeople used to just deal with.
Not great.
Yeah.
That are now saying I amstruggling.
This is such a new experiencefor me.
High school was so easy.
I had all my friends and now I'mgoing to a new place.
I have new roommates.
It's a new city, newexperiences, and I'm not doing
well and that's okay.
(34:23):
Yeah.
But now what I tell my studentathletes is that there's never a
time in your life.
For the four years that you'regonna be at college, that every
single person that you comeacross on this university wants
to see you succeed and dobetter.
That's right.
The only way that we're gonnasee you do better and help you
do better is if you tell us ifyou need help.
That's right.
That's it.
(34:43):
Yeah.
That was my failure in college.
I didn't ask for help.
My, my ego was too big orwhatever it was.
I couldn't go to a professor sayI didn't understand that class.
I didn't understand what youwere teaching.
I, it was like Greek to me.
Yeah.
I just tried to figure it out.
When you use professionals, whenyou use those people that are a
little bit smarter than you orhave that specialty that you
don't have, it's amazing whatthey can do.
(35:06):
I had a, the first golf lessonI've had in years this morning,
and'cause I've just such a badgolfer and I was like, I need to
talk to somebody that can lookat my swing and say, this is
what you're doing wrong.
Yeah.
And it was four swings and shehad me hit the ball further than
I've ever hit it, straighterthan I've ever hit it.
And it was such easy things thatshe was telling me and the way
(35:27):
she approached it.
So I love that idea that you'regiving your student athletes and
your coaches that, thatopportunity to say, Hey, it's
okay.
When you're struggling, cometalk to us.
Let's at least have theconversation and let's see if we
can help you.
So I love that.
I think the other part of thatis coaching though, too, right?
(35:47):
Yeah.
Like one of the things that Itell 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 grindingit out in your office until one
o'clock and coming back at eighto'clock in the morning or seven
o'clock in the next morning.
If you want to do that, goodluck.
(36:08):
Yeah.
You're gonna burn out prettyquick.
And now that we have, we havelaptops that we can take home.
We have cell phones that we canwatch recruiting videos on.
Yep.
Don't do stuff in the officethat you can do at home.
'cause you do need that break.
You need that break from yourjob.
You need that break from, theuniversity setting of just
people constantly, working,calling you and stopping in.
(36:30):
Our coaches just need to take abreak too, so when they're, when
their practice is over.
They're gone.
I had a, our tennis coach, Iwhen I was walking back into our
complex, he was walking out.
I said, I hope you're goinghome.
And he goes, I am.
I said, good.
Yeah, sorry.
Because he's been here for twoweeks, run, running a lot of
practices since they got backand he's Nope, I'm going home
(36:51):
and I'm gonna, grab a nicedinner and hang out and then
grind it back tomorrow.
Yeah, but you gotta take some ofthat time for yourself.
I'm not so sure that's not yourmost important role as ad.
Is making sure people arefinding 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'emto recruit, you want'em to win.
(37:12):
That's right.
But also like you want them tobe happy too.
That's right.
I know that sounds so corny, butI really No, it's real.
I wanna come into a workplacewhere people are, respectful,
they're polite, they're nice.
And if you're in the office, 20outta 24 hours a day.
Whew.
(37:32):
That's rough.
I don't know.
You're gonna be nice to anybody.
Yeah.
I want, I wanna talk about justwhat you've, what you have at
Whitewater and what you builtand what you continue to build.
'cause it's so special.
It really is what you're doing.
And I'm building an athleticdepartment for a college out
west that it's a college that'sbeen around for a while and they
wanna start athletics and I'mhelping them build it.
(37:54):
And one of the things I've beenteaching them and talking about
is.
Doesn't matter what policies andprocedure we put in place, we've
gotta have the people that aregonna care about the kids gonna
work hard.
Sure.
Gonna be good people, goodcitizens, good ambassadors.
So I know you have that and alot of schools do.
A lot of schools have reallygreat coaches and they have,
(38:15):
they're surrounded by greatpeople.
What is it that white water'sdoing that's different?
What is it that makes thisplace?
Have so many nationalchampionships and you have so
many kids that are going on anddoing great things are there
some things that you've beenable to pinpoint from being a
student there and now being aleader there after all these
(38:37):
years?
Yeah and I'll go in a coupledifferent phases.
I think when I was a studenthere, I remember walking into,
the Williams Center and meetingthese new people.
And we have a lot of people fromNorthern Illinois.
It's and there's some, that'swhere I grew up.
Yeah.
And man, there's some reallygood athletes in Northern
Illinois and there, some ofthose suburbs and yeah.
(38:57):
And then you have some reallygood athletes over in Milwaukee
and you have some really goodathletes in Madison.
And we're like in the heart ofthat, millions and millions of
people in were, my, my wife isfrom Illinois.
She's an hour and a half away.
Yeah, she came to Whitewaterbecause it was close and it was
affordable.
Yeah.
My best friend is fromWauwatosa, Wisconsin, which was
(39:18):
55 minutes away.
Yeah.
And then my other buddy was fromMadison.
We're in a great location.
You are, and we're never gonnalose that.
We're never gonna change.
Madison is not gonna goanywhere.
Milwaukee and Chicago's notgonna go anywhere.
So I think that was one of myfirst tastes of we're not just
competing against people inWisconsin now we have, 9 million
people two hours away from usthat we can recruit from.
(39:42):
Yeah.
And we're still affordable, andfor a long time the regional
comprehensives at in Illinois,it, they weren't great.
We were a better, we were abetter value for a lot of those
students that were looking tohave a athletic experience up
here.
So I think that's one of thethings that, that really set us
apart for the last, a hundredplus years.
(40:03):
But a lot of it is gonna becoaching.
If you look at the coaches thatwe've had and just going back 25
years, Lance is now at Kansasdoing his thing over at Kansas.
We have, John Vo Lynch, ourbaseball coach, who's just won
his third title, Brenda Volk,who you know, she's gonna, oh,
eclipse a thousand wins like abad year for her.
(40:24):
Is 30 wins.
That's crazy.
Stacey Boudreaux, who took overfor Chris Russell, who won a
national title and three runnersup, this list of coaches that
we've had at Whitewater for thelast 25 to 40 years is really
special.
It is.
They knew how to, they knew howto recruit, they knew how to
(40:45):
win, and they knew how to raisemoney.
And if you have those threethings, you're gonna win.
Whether you're at CO or Simpsonor Whitewater or Benedictine, it
doesn't matter.
You're gonna find a way.
And the last part of that, andnow this is something I've
really learned in the last eightyears of being in
administration, isadministration supported
(41:06):
athletics.
They were saying, all right,we're gonna give you this coach,
but guess what?
They better recruit all outtastate kids.
I'm not gonna give you a, a$10,000 stipend for a football
coach if they're gonna recruitJanesville, Milton, and
Whitewater.
That's right.
They better be in, the northernsuburbs of Illinois and
potentially Michigan to get somekids out of there.
(41:29):
That's right.
So I think it's location, it'scoaching coaches, and then
overall administrative supportover the last 30 years.
That's really what makes thisplace special and their ability
to say yes.
Like I said before, what is myjob?
My job is to remove barriersfrom these coaches that have
been there for 25, 30 years.
(41:49):
They're winning.
They're great people.
What can I do to help?
That's right.
Let's try to get a turf field atthis sport.
Let's try to get lights.
We just put in lights withsoftball.
All right.
That's gonna help us.
'cause when we host regionalsnow, we don't gotta call a game
in the third inning'cause it'stoo dark.
That's right.
Yeah.
It changes your environment, itchanges your culture when you
can have night games too, andyeah, it can come out outside of
(42:11):
class and have a night and watchthe games.
That's so great.
It's really great.
Yeah those are really, those arethe three things that, that what
I think separates this place.
From our competition, otherareas in the, in, in the state
of Wisconsin.
Yeah.
I love it.
And it, I just want to scream itat the mountaintops to all the
(42:32):
executives at small colleges,you have to put the time and the
money into athletics'cause it'sgonna come back to you.
Athletics is a boomerang whenyou do it right you want more
beds, want more kids in beds.
Build your athletics, they'regonna grow that, they're gonna
fill those beds for you.
But you have to supportathletics.
You do.
You can't just, and that's whereI just I could scream this from
(42:54):
the mountaintops.
Like I, I know there's collegesin Wisconsin that I've buddies
that are working and they'relike 60% incoming freshman class
is athletics.
But they got one basketballcoach and a$2,000 stipend
assistant coach.
Oh, that's not fair.
That's not fair.
No.
That if you're getting 60% ofyour freshman class as recruited
(43:19):
student athletes, every singleone of your programs should have
a full-time ahead and afull-time assistant.
'cause they're bringing in thedollars for that campus.
From your mouth to God's ears.
I mean that I can't, we, wecan't say it enough.
We can't say it enough becausethe more full-time staff you
have, your athletes arehealthier.
(43:39):
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 personthat's getting burned out on
discipline and order andleadership.
You get to spread the wealth andeverybody's healthier.
And when your coaches arehealthy, your kids are typically
healthy.
I just, and you're probably onthe D three ticker, get the
(44:00):
emails every day and everythingelse.
And I looked at a job or it wasa promotion and it was like the
basketball coach is now theassociate ad for compliance
event management and strengthand conditioning like.
Oh that's 28 hours a day.
(44:23):
That's right.
How does that person survive?
Yeah.
How do they have a life?
Yeah.
Yeah, they probably got paiddouble what they were making as
a head coach.
But I'm gonna give that twomonths and that person's gonna
be like, you can have the money.
That's right.
It's not about titles and it'snot about always, a lot of it's
about salaries.
I get that.
But yeah, you can't, at thesesmaller schools, you can't have
(44:46):
a coach wearing 15 differenthats.
It's not fair To the university.
Yeah.
To the students or to them andtheir families.
It's not.
It's not.
And I'm so glad that we're ableto say that out loud'cause
parents need to hear it just asmuch as the presidents and the
board members need to hear it.
The coaches need to know thatthere's people fighting for
them.
So I'm so glad you're out theredoing it.
(45:07):
Ryan, I wanna do a little rapidfire for you to wrap up the
segment and just so people canget to know you a little bit.
You down with that?
Yep.
All right.
Best ballpark you ever playedat?
I got a tryout at the time itwas Miller Park.
So that was pretty cool.
I'll say number two is I was inSpring, we in the Florida State
(45:29):
League.
We played at all the springtraining grounds and the Yankee
Stadium where now the Tampa BayRazor playing.
Yeah.
Played there about 15, 20 games.
That was pretty Sweet SteinBroder Field.
Is that what it's called now?
Yeah, it used to be called likeMemorial.
That's right.
Park.
Something like that.
Yeah.
But yeah, it was, those wereprobably the two that were
pretty special.
That's cool.
Favorite UW Whitewater sportsmoment since you've been in ad?
(45:53):
Oh, man.
I'll tell you, I, I tell my kidsthis all the time.
My top five moments in sportsused to revolve around the
Packers and the Badgers, and nowthey're 100% whitewater.
That's right.
I would say the one that I thinkabout the most is Matt Anderson
intercepted the St.
John's quarterback on the lastdrive to go to the Stag Bowl in
(46:14):
2019.
It was night game ESPN.
I got down to the sideline justin 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 describesyour leadership style.
(46:39):
Oh man.
Respectful.
I could see that that, thatcomes 100% out.
I'm gonna give you the dreamdinner guest question.
If you could pick three peoplein sports alive, past, who'd you
like to have dinner with?
Ooh, that's tough.
I'll tell you what I watched theeuchre celebration of life, so
(47:00):
it'll be tough not to have kerthere and just hear and just let
him talk.
Oh, just let him talk.
You'd laugh all night.
Just let him talk, I playedhockey growing up, so I gotta go
Gretzky in there just to hearsome of his stories about what
went through.
And then man, Billie, Jean King,I gotta go.
Her just what all, everythingthat she went through is just
(47:20):
amazing.
And the impact that she's hadover the last, 50, 60 years is
pretty special.
You talked about the leadershipbook you're reading.
Is there a book that yourecommend to coaches?
That are in athletics.
Quint Studer.
Quint Studer is a gentleman thathe's a Whitewater grad and he
got into hospital surveys andquality control and he sold, his
(47:45):
company got out and he startedwriting a bunch of leadership
books.
And now I'm gonna blank.
I think there's the leader inme, there's the Busy Leader's
Handbook.
That's another good one.
And it's really quick.
They're, very easy reads, buthe's close with our baseball
coach and our old footballcoach, and he would all, send me
a couple copies and there's justsome things in there about
different scenarios and just.
(48:07):
Having difficult conversations.
But yeah, Quinn Studer's gotsome really good leadership
books.
That's great.
I'll check those out.
And we get to promote aWhitewater 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'regonna continue to do at
Whitewater with all your greatcoaches, the student athletes.
But I'm excited to come back andtalk a little recruiting with
(48:28):
you.
Yeah, for sure, Matt.
Thank you.
What an incredible conversationwith Ryan Callahan.
His journey reminds us thatleadership isn't about titles.
It's about influence and trustand the ability to elevate those
around you.
From his days on the mound as awarhawk pitcher to overseeing
now 22 varsity programs andworking alongside some of the
(48:50):
greatest coaches in Divisionthree Sports Ryan has lived what
it means to lead with loyaltyand humility and vision.
If you want to keep growing as aleader, or if your school or
organization is looking forsomeone to challenge, inspire
and prepare your athletes,coaches, or staff, I'd love to
come speak with your community.
You can learn more and connectwith me
(49:11):
directly@coachmattrogers.com.
Don't miss part two of ourconversation.
Come back Monday, September 22ndfor Ryan's significant
recruiting episode where we diveinto the college athletic
director's perspective onrecruiting.
Until next time, stay focused,stay humble, and keep leading
(49:32):
with significance.
That are now saying I amstruggling.
(00:01):
This is such a new experiencefor me.
High school was so easy.
I had all my friends and now I'mgoing to a new place.
I have new roommates.
It's a new city, newexperiences, and I'm not doing
well and that's okay.
But now what I tell my studentathletes is that there's never a
time in your life.
For the four years that you'regonna be at college, that every
(00:22):
single person that you comeacross on this university wants
to see you succeed and dobetter.
That's right.
The only way that we're gonnasee you do better and help you
do better is if you tell us ifyou need help.
(00:44):
Welcome back to the SignificantCoaching Podcast.
I'm your host, Matt Rogers.
Today's guest has worn justabout every hat you can wear in
athletics, student athlete,professional pitcher,
administrator, coach, and nowathletic director.
Ryan Callahan's story begins onthe mound at UW Whitewater,
where he was a three-timeall-conference pitcher and part
(01:06):
of one of the most successfuleras in Warhawk baseball
history.
His journey took him into theSan Francisco Giants
organization and eventually backhome this time to lead the very
department where it all started.
As Director of Athletics at UWWhitewater, Ryan oversees 22
varsity programs and sits on thechancellor's cabinet, shaping
(01:29):
the vision for an entireathletic department.
Along the way, he's had theprivilege of leading and
supervising some of the truegiants of division three
coaching legends who have builtpowerhouse programs and shaped
generations of student athletes.
That experience has taught himnot just how to manage, but how
to lead, balancing respect fortradition with a vision for the
(01:52):
future, and finding ways to helpgreat coaches be even greater.
In this conversation, you'llhear Ryan's perspective on
leadership, the lessons thatcarried over from the diamond to
the boardroom, and how workingalongside coaching legends has
shaped his own philosophy ofwhat it means to build and
sustain a championship culture.
(02:13):
And before we dive in, if you'dlike to schedule me Matt Rogers
to speak at your school ororganization, you can learn more
and connect with medirectly@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.
(02:35):
You guys have built this worldclass 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 theprevious podcasts, I listened to
Coach Gard, one of ourcompetitors to see what he had
to say.
And by the way, he did a greatjob.
So I appreciate you promotingthe division three, the smaller
(02:55):
college, experience, whichobviously 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 Dthree bandstand all the time
because I had such a greatexperience.
And I looked at Notre Dame, Ilooked at Illinois, I looked at
Wisconsin, I looked at Marquetteand I ended up at co college in
(03:16):
Iowa, and I'm so thankful that Idid because I was a small town
kid.
I realized once I got there howimportant it was for me to have
smaller classrooms and, be ableto acclimate.
I think I would've gotten lostif 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
(03:36):
college sports, you dream aboutplaying, division one Power five
huge schools.
And obviously that's a wonderfulexperience, I'm sure for a lot
of those student athletes.
But, you get lost in theanonymity of the larger schools.
And I think when you're at asmaller school you really are
somebody, whether it's the deanof the college or the provost or
the president.
Or the athletic director, theyknow you, and a lot of those
(03:58):
larger schools, they just don'thave that personal interaction,
personal touch, which, I'm verygrateful that I chose Whitewater
and obviously you chose CO andyou can probably name some of
the administrators that you gotto know, or the coaches from
other teams that you got toknow.
It's if you're at some of thosebigger schools you're not
getting that experience.
I've said this way too manytimes on this podcast, but I
(04:18):
walked out of CO where thecollege president, the vp, the
dean of students and the chairof my department, all made phone
calls for me to help me get ajob.
Where else are you gonna, whereelse Outside of D three, you're
gonna get that.
Oh, a hundred percent.
Every year I probably got about20 to 25 letters of rec for
students.
Whether it's student workers tooand student athletes that are
looking to, whether get a careerin athletics or just move on
(04:41):
with their career.
And it's really, it's really ahighlight to have that at that
relationship with a lot ofthose, up and coming
professionals and being able towrite a letter of rec and
selfishly it's nice to be ableto put like athletic director
behind my name to say, Hey, thismight help.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It's not just a random buddythat's writing you a letter of
rec.
So hopefully the title goes along ways as well to help those
(05:02):
kids move on or those youngadults move on.
That's right at college adthat's a huge recommendation.
Let's talk about your studentworkers,'cause I, we haven't
talked enough about that on theshow.
They're so valuable.
To an athletic department,especially at the D three level
where you don't have millions ofdollars in a budget, you don't
have a huge staff.
(05:24):
Those students become such ahuge part of making sure the
athletics runs.
Talk a little bit about how manystudents you have, some of the
roles they play and why they'reso valuable for you.
Yeah, we probably go in and outof about 40 to 50 student
workers over the course of theyear.
Some of that's gonna begraduation in the winter, and
then some of that is going tobe, they just want more hours.
(05:45):
Obviously we have a few contestsper week and then a number on
the weekend.
If they want to get a solid 30hours 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 supportstaff background, so I have a
soft spot in my heart for, theevent management, the athletic
trainers, the sids, the peoplethat are walking, the officials
(06:07):
and the referees at halftime,making sure they got their water
and everything else and doingthat.
And we've been, man, I've beenso fortunate in the.
Six plus years that I've been,in this role.
And then another couple yearsbefore that, we've had these
student workers that are sohandy with technology.
Unlike Matt, you and I,obviously getting this podcast
going.
(06:28):
Our student workers would'vefigured this out in two minutes.
It took us 21 minutes.
They're running the scoreboard.
They're putting stuff on thevideo board, they're running the
stats to the coaches, they'regetting there earlier, making
sure that, I referred, coachGuard when they, when Plattville
men's basketball comes here,that somebody's meeting him.
Yeah.
They look professional.
They act professional, makingsure that the student athletes
(06:48):
that are coming here know wherethey're going.
They have everything they need.
And.
You said it earlier, we've beenvery fortunate we have a
successful program and a lot ofthat means that a lot of people
want to come play us and seewhat facilities we have.
Yeah.
September 6th we have.
I think six volleyball games, asoccer game, and a football game
all in the matter of eighthours.
(07:09):
And we got a fleet of studentsthat, they're gonna kill it,
they're gonna be running,they're gonna be running
scoreboard, they're gonna behelping out with some of our
stats.
They're gonna be doing the livestreaming.
And if we don't, if we didn'thave our student force that we
have, we wouldn't be able toaccommodate, and the flexibility
that our coaches have withscheduling.
I remember when I got the ad jobat Maryville in like 2002.
(07:34):
And we didn't have an SAD, wedidn't have a compliance person.
I didn't have an assistant ad,so I was trying to figure out
stats, all the stat programs, Iwas trying to figure out,
compliance.
And I was writing the four yearstudy, the NCAA four year study.
And if I wouldn't have had thestudent staff I wouldn't have
lasted a month.
'cause they kept me afloat.
They were the ones that could doall the things and knew where
(07:56):
all the buttons needed to bepushed and where everything
needed to be.
So I love that.
What's cool about it and where Iwant to dive in with you about
that is it's a great thing foryour resume because where you,
if you want to be in athletics,there's nothing better than
having a role in, in, in adepartment at any level.
(08:17):
Oh, for sure.
And we talk even with ourstudent 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'sbasketball team at Whitewater.
And then they got to go to thenext school, and the next school
and the next school, and I thinkalmost even more important, it
gives'em a taste of what it'slike.
(08:37):
You really like, do you wannawork this night and do you wanna
work this weekend?
Because if you're having a hardtime coming as a 19-year-old to
this place, once find a partnerand you potentially have a
family, if it's hard at 20, it'sgonna be harder at 40 when you
have.
When you have a family at homesaying, Hey, when are you
getting home?
We gotta do this, and this.
(08:58):
So it's really special.
And I love the relationship thatI have with the event managers.
'cause we're all grinding itout.
Yeah.
I always joke hashtag D threelife like.
I might be taking tickets at thevolleyball game on Saturday and
being a ball boy on Monday forthe women's soccer game.
There's not a job that is toobig or too small for you at
administration and divisionthree.
(09:19):
Yep.
And then that kinda shows thestudent workers man, if he's.
If he's doing that.
Yeah.
I better do something too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then just the relationshipsthat you have, like I said,
'cause you are grinding withthem.
You get to know'em a little bit.
You get to know, who they are aspeople and what their
aspirations are.
And like you said, Matt, like ifyou can just be a reference, if
you can, I've been around southsouthern Wisconsin for 44 years
(09:41):
now.
If I know somebody that is inthis company or in this
business, making a side callsaying, Hey, look out for this
person's resume.
They're pretty talented.
And especially the ones thatwere, 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 wasinvited to a couple weddings in
the last few years of likestudent workers that he's had,
(10:05):
and the coaches get to know himtoo.
So then, then they feel a littlebit, I don't know.
They, hits, helps their ego alittle bit.
Yeah.
Oh, the football coach knows whoI am, or, the basketball coach
knows who I am, or the soccercoach knows who I am.
And our coaches do a great jobof just, giving'em nothing but
respect and, and saying hi to'em.
And I think they understand thatcan make, that can make their
day when they seem'em in thehallway walking to class and,
(10:26):
just saying, hi, how are yourday?
How's your day going?
But yeah they definitely run ourdepartment on a lot of these
weekends when we just have.
A ton of events going on.
It's such a fun experience whenyou're in it.
You just, you're working eightto 78 hour weeks in, in the
heart of the season.
When, like you said, when you'vegot seven, eight games, you get
there, you probably get thereright early in the morning, and
(10:46):
you might not leave till 10, 11o'clock at night.
So it's such a long day.
But when you have thoserelationships and you get to see
the growth of those young peopleand what they're learning and
how much maturity they'regetting out of it.
There's nothing better.
I want to talk about yourbaseball career for just a
little bit because I think yourexperience going from D three,
(11:08):
getting to play, getting thattime in the minor leagues,
getting to play some big timeprofessional baseball.
What has that done to shape yourleadership with your coaches and
with your athletes?
I'll give you a little bit of astory.
So one of my mentors was PaulPlinski.
Yeah.
And Paul Plinski is now atColorado State Pueblo.
Yeah.
And he has a PhD and I always,when I was navigating my career
(11:31):
and I would, bounce some ideasoff of him and he said, I would
encourage you to get a PhDbecause it gets you in the door
and it gets you immediaterespect whether you deserve it
or not.
That's a different story.
But when you walk into adepartment meeting with,
economics or marketing, the factthat you have that PhD is gonna
(11:52):
give you some credibility rightthere.
And I think with a playingcareer 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 myresume 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 thanthe level that we're at right
now.
(12:12):
Yeah.
He's seen some of those playersthat are playing, at Miller or
AM FAM Stadium at Wrigley.
He's been with a lot of thoseplayers.
He has some of those contactswith the managers and some of
those people.
So I think it gives somecredibility.
I don't necessarily think itreally, I hope it doesn't change
too much.
People's perspect, perspectiveof me, perception of me, but it
is one of those things where Inow I can walk in and say, Hey,
(12:33):
this is who I am.
I'm an athletic director at asuccessful Division III school.
And by the way I did play somefairly high level athletics
myself.
You did.
So it gives you a little bitmore credibility, when it's all
said and done now that's, 19, 20years ago.
What I think is really greatabout it is the reality of what
D three really is.
And it is great athletics.
(12:54):
You can't go watch your footballteam and volleyball team and
basketball teams, and baseballteams and not go, wow, the,
these aren't, this isn'tintramurals, this isn't, whoever
wants to play gets to play.
These are some of the best kidsin the country that are coming
to Whitewater to play yoursports.
No, for sure.
And I think that's one of thethings that is there's always
gonna be a stigma with divisionthree, right?
(13:16):
Yeah.
If you think about social mediaand the social media push over
the last 20 plus years it'salways D one.
And I know we're gonna talkabout recruiting in the future,
but when I was recruiting wewere, and I was in obviously
coaching baseball.
We talked to a lot of familiesand I remember talking to these
young men and their parents andsaying, what other schools are
(13:38):
you looking at?
Some D one, some this and that.
And our standard response waslike there's a low level
division one.
Then there's like Texas, like ifyou're looking at Texas, we're
not in the same ballpark.
Yes, literally buddy, you go doyour thing at Texas.
But if you're looking at some ofthe schools that are, some of
the mid-majors that maybe nothave had some of, a lot of
(14:00):
success in baseball, then let'stalk because your experience
here is gonna be as good.
If not better than some of yourexperiences as some of those
mid-major Division one programs.
The likelihood of you playingpast college when you come here
is gonna probably be evengreater than the likelihood of
you playing past college at someof those division one schools.
And what we've had to a constantdialogue for the last 25 years
(14:24):
at Whitewater is how do we breakthat Division one, division
three stigma with our region?
With our community, even to anextent with our state, and we've
been fortunate to have somepeople that have done some
really good things.
Obviously, Lance Pol beat,Fresno State that Fresno State
coach was the coach at NorthDakota State, went to USC and he
breed him pretty good.
(14:44):
Pretty handily.
We had a, an offensive linemansign, an$80 million deal a
couple years ago.
Yep.
Lake Bocker, making heaven savesfor the Florida or Miami
Marlins, so we, we have that.
We have the we have the historyof success with our individual
athletes to say, Hey, if youcome here, you're gonna have a
chance.
(15:05):
And now with the transferportal, it's even more because
we can say, Hey, if you comehere.
We'll give you a shot somewhereelse.
Yeah.
So it's it's easy to sellwhitewater, but it's hard to
sell people when they have thatdivision three stigma.
And I think that's somethingthat I know Coach Guard, a lot
of the really successful coachesare trying to break.
Yeah.
You had the president from JutaYeah.
(15:26):
And what they've been able to dowith volleyball is unbelievable.
Yeah.
How have they been able to keepthose, young women that are so
talented at Juta and thetransfer portal time, or how do
you get people in transferportal time to a junior yada
type school?
Yeah.
But that's, it's, we're alwaystrying to break that stigma.
Yeah.
I think the key is really ifyou're a family and you've got a
(15:47):
young athlete, there's a D threeclose to you, probably within an
hour's drive, a hundred percent.
Just go watch a game, go watch.
And I guarantee you, you'll walkaway going, wow, the talent on
that field, the coaching that'sgoing on.
It's so impressive.
And for us, as former athletes.
I'm just amazed at how that barcontinues to go up every year,
(16:10):
aren't you?
It's Matt.
It, it is wild.
It is absolutely wild.
I'm getting to the age where, somy oldest is going into eighth
grade and a lot of my friendsthat are my age have kids that
are going into high school and Itell'em all the time, come to a
game.
You got a daughter that's goodat basketball, come to a Warhawk
game, have him, come to aWhitewater Oshkosh game to the
(16:32):
better or Whitewater Scout lastyear.
Any of those three, three teams.
If you think your daughter is asgood as you say she is, let's
see what she's got against thesegirls, these women.
Yeah.
If your son is pretty good atfootball and he's 175 pound
lineman I'll get you on thesidelines for a whitewater
lacrosse game.
Unless less then I wanna talk toyou afterwards and be like, all
(16:54):
right, what does my son have todo?
That's what I wanna know.
Yeah.
I wanna hear your reaction tothat.
Yeah.
Or if your son, if yourdaughter's a good softball
player, come watch us playOshkosh or Point, see what you
think then.
'cause you're exactly right.
The number of student athletesthat go play college sports is
very small.
And the number of athletes thatcan play at our level.
(17:16):
Is even smaller.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's tough.
And there's a reality to thistoo, that the, some of the
division one coaches are,they're not just saying when
they're in their office, they'renow saying it to cameras.
We're not recruiting freshmen.
Yeah.
Kalari said it two weeks ago.
Patino said it yesterday.
(17:38):
We're not recruiting freshmen.
We, we can't expect an18-year-old to come in and
compete with a 23-year-old.
But if you had a great year atUW Whitewater and you averaged
20 points per game on thebasketball court, or you ran for
1400 yards of running back, Iguarantee you those D one
coaches are now paying attentionto you.
'cause you're a proven commoditynow, right?
(17:59):
Oh, a hundred percent.
And that's and I think that'sreally tough for our coaches,
it's, yeah.
D three you, we talk aboutfamily, right?
And I know that's a cliche,every high school t-shirt that
has ever been given out hassomething with family on it.
But it's true at our level, itis a close knit group.
And part of it is because youspend so much time with each
other.
Especially with the change in,weeks to days for the ncaa, if
(18:22):
you're maximizing those days,you're spending more time than
you probably even thought youwould spend with your teammates.
And on top of that, you'reprobably living with three or
four of your teammates too.
Yeah.
So over the course of your threeto five to six years, however
long it takes, you get outtayour respective institution,
you're literally spending 24hours a day for up to 10 months
(18:43):
with the same Yeah.
At least three or four peopleand then whatever team you're on
with those other people as well.
Yeah, and it's it buildscommunity, it builds family.
It's built connectedness.
But now with the transferportal, our coaches have thrived
upon development.
Matt, I'm gonna get you in as afreshman and you're, this big,
you're this strong.
I'm gonna develop you into aplayer in three, four years.
(19:05):
So by the time you're a juniormat, you're gonna be a stud.
Yeah.
Now all of a sudden, what if youbecome a stud as a freshman?
And you're gone.
And that's what our coach isabout to deal with.
We've lost Whew.
We've lost a lot of players tothe T support of the last two
years.
And some of'em, I don't blame'em.
They're going to, they're allscholarship kids.
Yeah.
But it's hard for our coaches toadjust to that.
(19:26):
Yeah.
Because they get thatrelationship.
They get to know you, they getto know your family.
Your parents are coming to allthe games or coming to the away
games.
'cause it's not very far.
Yeah.
Then all of a sudden you gottago 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 andyou're getting a full ride.
(19:47):
Yeah.
You're not paying anything forschool.
I think it's a feather in ourcap.
Our baseball team was reallysuccessful this year.
We lost guys to four scholarshipschools.
Not what we want to hear, buthey, we won a national title's,
so what are they gonna prove?
That's right.
And now they're gonna get thelast two years that their school
paid for.
(20:07):
Yeah.
And g not bad deal for thoseguys.
And I guarantee a coach has gotfour kids ready to go that are
ready to take all those innings.
He probably does, but he won'ttell me that.
He is still pretty frustrated.
Yeah.
That's life.
That's the part of this.
Let's talk about coachingcoaches.
'cause I, I.
I was an AD at 27.
(20:29):
Ooh, that's young.
And I think the closest personin age on the staff that was a
head coach underneath me wasprobably 10 years older than me.
But as I got older and older, Irealized it doesn't matter how
old I was, doesn't matter ifthat person's 60-year-old and
(20:50):
got 10 national championships.
I still had to do some coaching.
It was just in a different waythan maybe that 30 5-year-old
coach.
Yeah.
How do you go about that?
What is your perspective as anad who's supervising these
coaches and coaching thesecoaches?
What role is that in your headand how do you put it into
(21:10):
action?
And Matt, you and I had asimilar experience.
I took over when I was about 37and I walk into my first coaches
meeting.
And I have Pat Miller, who's wontwo national titles.
John Denly, she was to won twonational titles.
Stacey Boudreaux, who won one,Brenda Vo, who's got seven.
I got, it's like a hall of famegroup.
(21:32):
And I remember like sittingthere like calling attention
thinking, what am I doing That'sreally what you're saying
yourself.
I know what that feels like.
Yeah.
They're these, this, they'resupposed to listen to me.
This is impossible.
But it kinda goes back to,playing at a high level and
being, a whitewater person.
(21:53):
There's a little bit of respectthat I think was just there
already.
But once I got through thatphase of almost.
I was almost being coached by mycoaches.
I know that sounds really corny,but I was trying to figure out
what, what is what makes PatMiller tick?
Alright.
What can I do to motivate him todo X, Y, and Z?
(22:13):
Football just, ran through sevennational titles.
It's been a couple years.
How do I get.
That program back to where itneeds to be or where we think it
needs to be.
Yeah.
In reality, and I think thefirst year was really learning
from the coaches.
What do you want from me?
What do you need from me?
And then after, taking thatfirst year and just learning,
(22:35):
and not doing anything crazy.
To be honest with you, I don'tthink I made a single change in
probably 18 months.
Part of it was working, theother part was COVID, which,
that was a big part of it, butult ultimately we were really
successful.
It's like the old cliche incoaching 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
(22:57):
really step back and almost havethat, that 30,000 foot view of,
now I gotta figure out what isCoach Garr doing at Platteville
that we can do at Whitewater?
Pat doesn't necessarily knowGreg Guard is doing, whether
it's with fundraising, whetherit's with scheduling.
'cause those are the things thatour coaches, I don't want them
to worry about that, so now I'mtrying to evaluate our programs
(23:18):
against other programs.
The WIC is very strong for justabout every single sport, right?
Let me take a look at what,Oshkosh football's doing.
Let me figure out what lacrosseand Eau Claire wrestling are
doing and really take that backand say, Hey, coach, why this is
what they're doing.
Why aren't we doing that?
There's a couple times where, itwas like, yeah, we tried that.
Okay, then let's not do that.
(23:39):
Stuff like that.
But I think one of the, one ofthe biggest things, and I tell
all of my student staff and Itruly believe this within
leadership, some of it, so muchof it's being present.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't miss a single game, andyou can call my wife and she'll
tell you that I didn't miss asingle game.
For the first probably two and ahalf years of my career as ad.
Yeah.
Like the only games I missedwere ever'cause of the NCAA
(24:01):
convention and that was just'cause we had to.
And I think once you get thatrespect 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 whyare we recruiting this, and
this?
Have you looked at this or stufflike that.
(24:23):
So I think the biggest thing onewas just taking a year and just
taking it all in.
Nobody's gonna teach you exactlyhow to be an ad.
They're just not Right.
There's the compliance issuethat, like you said, you had to
figure all that out.
Yeah, there's a lot of thosethings.
We work in a state system, sothere's a state system that I
gotta follow as far asprocurement and everything else,
and HR and whatever else.
(24:44):
And there's ever, there's, andthere's other things that you
just have to have kind of a bigpicture 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 Iwas there.
(25:05):
And now let's talk about whatare some future plans.
Let's talk about rosterdevelopment.
Let's talk about facilities.
And facilities aren'tnecessarily, you can't do those
overnight.
From co.
Yeah, if you wanna get a newsoftball field or a new baseball
field, you're talking 20 yearsdown the road, maybe not 20, but
close to it.
Yeah.
So then it got into the, to theplanning phase of what are some
of the small projects, some are,what are some of the medium
(25:28):
projects and what are some ofthe big projects?
And one of the obstacles that Ihad is that I went through.
Man, I think I had six or sevenchancellors to report to in my
first five and a half years,yeah.
So all of a sudden I have theseshort-term plans, and now I'm
telling three differentchancellors within eight months.
And having to convince them thatwas, that's compliant.
Exactly.
(25:48):
Yeah.
And now I think what, whatever,six plus years in I was reading
a book on leadership and one ofthe things was like, my role as
a CEO is to remove barriers frommy upper management.
And I feel like that's the roleof an ad and specifically at a
division three is whateverbarriers my coaches have, let me
try to remove those.
(26:09):
Within reason, right?
If somebody is teaching classMonday, Tuesday, Thursday,
Friday, let me see if I can talkto the College of Ed to say,
Hey, they're traveling onWednesdays.
They're not getting home untiltwo in the morning from
Menominee, Wisconsin.
Do you really want this personteaching at eight o'clock in the
morning on a Wednesday or aThursday?
No kidding.
Yeah.
So just trying to remove some ofthose barriers and really just
(26:30):
advocate for what we do.
And we're no different than thethan most schools, right?
Our athletes have a higher GPA,they have a higher retention
rate.
They have a higher graduationrate.
We are more diverse, we havemore out-of-state kids, so I
think once you have that dataand once you understand your
plan.
And you feel comfortableremoving some of those barriers
(26:51):
in front of your coaches forthem to succeed.
It's really just working acrosscampus and within the community
to really highlight and advocatefor those programs that are
doing really well that, I'm notsaying we're at like the flute
effect level in Boston College,but tell you Matt, when our
football team was winning, wehad the highest enrollment we've
ever had.
And I'm not saying it's a directcorrelation or some people say
(27:14):
it's just a coincidence, but ifyou look at the national average
of enrollment, it was going downby a small percentage and we
were going up.
So it's really highlighting someof those things to say, if you
invest money in us, we willprovide a better enrollment
numbers and retention andeverything else for the school.
And as from a D threebackground, the more enrollment.
(27:35):
The more money your budget has,not just for you, but for
everybody, right?
Everybody wins and it's, everytime you win a national
championship, millions ofdollars that would have to be
spent just to get your name atthat level nationally is free a
hundred percent.
And all of a sudden, kids in NewYork and California and Texas,
and Mississippi, and Minnesotathat maybe had never heard of
(27:57):
you.
Now knows, where is this place?
They won a nationalchampionship.
They're the best.
They're the best in the country.
Yeah, no, I look at our baseballteam.
We got a couple kids from Texas,a couple from Florida, and
people are like, how did you getthose?
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?
(28:18):
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 anational championship.
Everybody wants that.
Heck, all of sudden, all of asudden you're a lot more
attractive.
Yep.
Yeah.
And it's not just the baseballteam or it's not just the
volleyball team.
That must be a pretty goodschool if they're doing this
with that, there must be somestrength there in other places.
(28:39):
So I love that.
I want to get into mental healtha little bit with you'cause.
Again, you are a professionalathlete, you've been a coach.
You were, you've been an ad along time, assistant ad for a
long time.
What are you doing as the ad tothink about the mental health of
your coaches and your athletes?
(29:00):
Are there things that you guysare trying to implement every
year from the ad?
Space to make sure there's thatbalance of life.
These kids and your coaches havethat place where they know they
can go when they're starting tohit some of those low points.
Yeah it's funny you say thisbecause I really think it's
interesting.
(29:20):
Division three talks about thestudent athlete experience.
That's what it's all about.
But there's less restrictions onpractice time and everything at
our level than there aredivision ones, which is.
Funny, like division one, youhave, you have the hours per
week and That's right.
Division three, like Matt, ifI'm your basketball coach, I
could have you practice fivehours a week for six days a
(29:41):
week.
Yeah.
And that's legal.
Yeah.
So anyway, it wasn't when I wascoaching, but it is now.
Yeah.
So that's, that's a separateconversation that I think is
interesting.
But no, I, I.
Mental health is it's one ofthose things that's really hard
because you never see it.
You know it's there but youdon't see it.
So one of the things that, thatwe focused on, and this is kudos
(30:03):
to the WIC, we've really done agood job, I think as a whole.
We do screeners at the beginningof the year for every certified
roster that's done by ouruniversity health and counseling
center by a counseling trainedprofessional.
They evaluate those screeners tosee if there's any kind of red
flags.
One of our counselors comes overto the Williams Center where our
athletic is athletics arelocated once a week every, for
(30:27):
the entire semester.
So you know that this person'sgonna be there for four hours,
if not five hours or longer.
That's fantastic.
I love that idea.
Just to meet and it's allanonymous.
You don't need an appointment.
You just walk in and you talkthrough some things and you go,
sorry, and you just, talk tothem about, whatever you would
(30:47):
like to talk about.
I think the other piece is that,because it's becoming much more
prevalent and there's peoplelike, Kevin Love that come out
and others, professionalathletes that are just saying
I've been struggling.
I think the coaches are nowstarting to look for it.
I think they're trying to see,if like it's a sign to
communicate with somebody.
That's right.
(31:07):
We had a, a situation last yearwhere somebody said something to
somebody else and it just keptgoing and it finally got to me
and it's like everybody handledit perfect'cause somebody told
somebody else.
And that person told the coach.
The coach told me, I told, thesupport group and we handled it,
we managed it.
And I think it's getting muchmore comfortable for people to
(31:29):
talk about.
Probably back in, in our age, inour era.
You didn't really talk aboutmental health.
No.
I think mental health wasconfused with Just grind it out,
Matt.
That's right.
Just grind it out, rub some dirton it and get back out there.
Yeah.
And it's yeah.
There are certain things thatyou do have to grind it out.
Yeah.
If you were, if you have a 10page paper and you
procrastinated and it's due in12 hours.
(31:52):
Dude, you better grind it out.
That's right.
You gotta grind that out.
That's right.
But if you're having thatanxiety and you tried to write
this paper three weeks ago andyou just shut down and you just,
become overly consumed, then youneed some help.
Yeah.
Let's talk to somebody.
So I think the beauty of wherewe're at now is mental health is
(32:13):
much more open.
People are talking, more freeabout it.
Obviously the NCAA is havingsome waivers with mental health
and, and being a little bit moreflexible with some of that.
I think that's positive.
From our end, that's the studentathlete piece, we do the
screener.
We have the mental healthprofessional once a week for the
entire year.
We partner with our kinesiologydepartment, who the department
(32:35):
chair did a, her PhD is in likesports psych, so she meets with
a lot of our teams, morefocusing on performance, anxiety
and performance, stuff less on.
The other kind of side of mentalhealth with, just social
anxiety, depression and stufflike that.
But don't you think that they gohand in hand?
(32:56):
If you've got anxiety on thefield, it's probably rolling
over to other parts in your lifethat you're struggling with.
'cause you're probably notsleeping, you're not
communicating what's going on inyour 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 apaper, you're probably gonna
struggle shooting a free throw.
(33:17):
That's right.
Or you're struggling, doingwhatever it is.
And the other thing too, andthis is a tale as all the time,
these people are moving awayfrom home for the first time.
Yep.
Like I, this is no joke, man.
I was, went for a walk at lunchand I called my mom and I'm
like, man, it was so cool to seeall these freshmen, just coming
in, moving around.
And I called my mom and I'mlike, I had the worst first week
(33:38):
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 Ijust remember that those.
That was hard.
Yeah.
And you get all of these peopleexperiencing something new.
You don't know your roommate inyour little, cubicle dorm.
Yeah.
Move going to the dining hallsby yourself for the first time,
(34:01):
whatever it is.
So it's something that I thinkpeople used to just deal with.
Not great.
Yeah.
That are now saying I amstruggling.
This is such a new experiencefor me.
High school was so easy.
I had all my friends and now I'mgoing to a new place.
I have new roommates.
It's a new city, newexperiences, and I'm not doing
well and that's okay.
(34:23):
Yeah.
But now what I tell my studentathletes is that there's never a
time in your life.
For the four years that you'regonna be at college, that every
single person that you comeacross on this university wants
to see you succeed and dobetter.
That's right.
The only way that we're gonnasee you do better and help you
do better is if you tell us ifyou need help.
That's right.
That's it.
(34:43):
Yeah.
That was my failure in college.
I didn't ask for help.
My, my ego was too big orwhatever it was.
I couldn't go to a professor sayI didn't understand that class.
I didn't understand what youwere teaching.
I, it was like Greek to me.
Yeah.
I just tried to figure it out.
When you use professionals, whenyou use those people that are a
little bit smarter than you orhave that specialty that you
don't have, it's amazing whatthey can do.
(35:06):
I had a, the first golf lessonI've had in years this morning,
and'cause I've just such a badgolfer and I was like, I need to
talk to somebody that can lookat my swing and say, this is
what you're doing wrong.
Yeah.
And it was four swings and shehad me hit the ball further than
I've ever hit it, straighterthan I've ever hit it.
And it was such easy things thatshe was telling me and the way
(35:27):
she approached it.
So I love that idea that you'regiving your student athletes and
your coaches that, thatopportunity to say, Hey, it's
okay.
When you're struggling, cometalk to us.
Let's at least have theconversation and let's see if we
can help you.
So I love that.
I think the other part of thatis coaching though, too, right?
(35:47):
Yeah.
Like one of the things that Itell 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 grindingit out in your office until one
o'clock and coming back at eighto'clock in the morning or seven
o'clock in the next morning.
If you want to do that, goodluck.
(36:08):
Yeah.
You're gonna burn out prettyquick.
And now that we have, we havelaptops that we can take home.
We have cell phones that we canwatch recruiting videos on.
Yep.
Don't do stuff in the officethat you can do at home.
'cause you do need that break.
You need that break from yourjob.
You need that break from, theuniversity setting of just
people constantly, working,calling you and stopping in.
(36:30):
Our coaches just need to take abreak too, so when they're, when
their practice is over.
They're gone.
I had a, our tennis coach, Iwhen I was walking back into our
complex, he was walking out.
I said, I hope you're goinghome.
And he goes, I am.
I said, good.
Yeah, sorry.
Because he's been here for twoweeks, run, running a lot of
practices since they got backand he's Nope, I'm going home
(36:51):
and I'm gonna, grab a nicedinner and hang out and then
grind it back tomorrow.
Yeah, but you gotta take some ofthat time for yourself.
I'm not so sure that's not yourmost important role as ad.
Is making sure people arefinding 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'emto recruit, you want'em to win.
(37:12):
That's right.
But also like you want them tobe happy too.
That's right.
I know that sounds so corny, butI really No, it's real.
I wanna come into a workplacewhere people are, respectful,
they're polite, they're nice.
And if you're in the office, 20outta 24 hours a day.
Whew.
(37:32):
That's rough.
I don't know.
You're gonna be nice to anybody.
Yeah.
I want, I wanna talk about justwhat you've, what you have at
Whitewater and what you builtand what you continue to build.
'cause it's so special.
It really is what you're doing.
And I'm building an athleticdepartment for a college out
west that it's a college that'sbeen around for a while and they
wanna start athletics and I'mhelping them build it.
(37:54):
And one of the things I've beenteaching them and talking about
is.
Doesn't matter what policies andprocedure we put in place, we've
gotta have the people that aregonna care about the kids gonna
work hard.
Sure.
Gonna be good people, goodcitizens, good ambassadors.
So I know you have that and alot of schools do.
A lot of schools have reallygreat coaches and they have,
(38:15):
they're surrounded by greatpeople.
What is it that white water'sdoing that's different?
What is it that makes thisplace?
Have so many nationalchampionships and you have so
many kids that are going on anddoing great things are there
some things that you've beenable to pinpoint from being a
student there and now being aleader there after all these
(38:37):
years?
Yeah and I'll go in a coupledifferent phases.
I think when I was a studenthere, I remember walking into,
the Williams Center and meetingthese new people.
And we have a lot of people fromNorthern Illinois.
It's and there's some, that'swhere I grew up.
Yeah.
And man, there's some reallygood athletes in Northern
Illinois and there, some ofthose suburbs and yeah.
(38:57):
And then you have some reallygood athletes over in Milwaukee
and you have some really goodathletes in Madison.
And we're like in the heart ofthat, millions and millions of
people in were, my, my wife isfrom Illinois.
She's an hour and a half away.
Yeah, she came to Whitewaterbecause it was close and it was
affordable.
Yeah.
My best friend is fromWauwatosa, Wisconsin, which was
(39:18):
55 minutes away.
Yeah.
And then my other buddy was fromMadison.
We're in a great location.
You are, and we're never gonnalose that.
We're never gonna change.
Madison is not gonna goanywhere.
Milwaukee and Chicago's notgonna go anywhere.
So I think that was one of myfirst tastes of we're not just
competing against people inWisconsin now we have, 9 million
people two hours away from usthat we can recruit from.
(39:42):
Yeah.
And we're still affordable, andfor a long time the regional
comprehensives at in Illinois,it, they weren't great.
We were a better, we were abetter value for a lot of those
students that were looking tohave a athletic experience up
here.
So I think that's one of thethings that, that really set us
apart for the last, a hundredplus years.
(40:03):
But a lot of it is gonna becoaching.
If you look at the coaches thatwe've had and just going back 25
years, Lance is now at Kansasdoing his thing over at Kansas.
We have, John Vo Lynch, ourbaseball coach, who's just won
his third title, Brenda Volk,who you know, she's gonna, oh,
eclipse a thousand wins like abad year for her.
(40:24):
Is 30 wins.
That's crazy.
Stacey Boudreaux, who took overfor Chris Russell, who won a
national title and three runnersup, this list of coaches that
we've had at Whitewater for thelast 25 to 40 years is really
special.
It is.
They knew how to, they knew howto recruit, they knew how to
(40:45):
win, and they knew how to raisemoney.
And if you have those threethings, you're gonna win.
Whether you're at CO or Simpsonor Whitewater or Benedictine, it
doesn't matter.
You're gonna find a way.
And the last part of that, andnow this is something I've
really learned in the last eightyears of being in
administration, isadministration supported
(41:06):
athletics.
They were saying, all right,we're gonna give you this coach,
but guess what?
They better recruit all outtastate kids.
I'm not gonna give you a, a$10,000 stipend for a football
coach if they're gonna recruitJanesville, Milton, and
Whitewater.
That's right.
They better be in, the northernsuburbs of Illinois and
potentially Michigan to get somekids out of there.
(41:29):
That's right.
So I think it's location, it'scoaching coaches, and then
overall administrative supportover the last 30 years.
That's really what makes thisplace special and their ability
to say yes.
Like I said before, what is myjob?
My job is to remove barriersfrom these coaches that have
been there for 25, 30 years.
(41:49):
They're winning.
They're great people.
What can I do to help?
That's right.
Let's try to get a turf field atthis sport.
Let's try to get lights.
We just put in lights withsoftball.
All right.
That's gonna help us.
'cause when we host regionalsnow, we don't gotta call a game
in the third inning'cause it'stoo dark.
That's right.
Yeah.
It changes your environment, itchanges your culture when you
can have night games too, andyeah, it can come out outside of
(42:11):
class and have a night and watchthe games.
That's so great.
It's really great.
Yeah those are really, those arethe three things that, that what
I think separates this place.
From our competition, otherareas in the, in, in the state
of Wisconsin.
Yeah.
I love it.
And it, I just want to scream itat the mountaintops to all the
(42:32):
executives at small colleges,you have to put the time and the
money into athletics'cause it'sgonna come back to you.
Athletics is a boomerang whenyou do it right you want more
beds, want more kids in beds.
Build your athletics, they'regonna grow that, they're gonna
fill those beds for you.
But you have to supportathletics.
You do.
You can't just, and that's whereI just I could scream this from
(42:54):
the mountaintops.
Like I, I know there's collegesin Wisconsin that I've buddies
that are working and they'relike 60% incoming freshman class
is athletics.
But they got one basketballcoach and a$2,000 stipend
assistant coach.
Oh, that's not fair.
That's not fair.
No.
That if you're getting 60% ofyour freshman class as recruited
(43:19):
student athletes, every singleone of your programs should have
a full-time ahead and afull-time assistant.
'cause they're bringing in thedollars for that campus.
From your mouth to God's ears.
I mean that I can't, we, wecan't say it enough.
We can't say it enough becausethe more full-time staff you
have, your athletes arehealthier.
(43:39):
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 personthat's getting burned out on
discipline and order andleadership.
You get to spread the wealth andeverybody's healthier.
And when your coaches arehealthy, your kids are typically
healthy.
I just, and you're probably onthe D three ticker, get the
(44:00):
emails every day and everythingelse.
And I looked at a job or it wasa promotion and it was like the
basketball coach is now theassociate ad for compliance
event management and strengthand conditioning like.
Oh that's 28 hours a day.
(44:23):
That's right.
How does that person survive?
Yeah.
How do they have a life?
Yeah.
Yeah, they probably got paiddouble what they were making as
a head coach.
But I'm gonna give that twomonths and that person's gonna
be like, you can have the money.
That's right.
It's not about titles and it'snot about always, a lot of it's
about salaries.
I get that.
But yeah, you can't, at thesesmaller schools, you can't have
(44:46):
a coach wearing 15 differenthats.
It's not fair To the university.
Yeah.
To the students or to them andtheir families.
It's not.
It's not.
And I'm so glad that we're ableto say that out loud'cause
parents need to hear it just asmuch as the presidents and the
board members need to hear it.
The coaches need to know thatthere's people fighting for
them.
So I'm so glad you're out theredoing it.
(45:07):
Ryan, I wanna do a little rapidfire for you to wrap up the
segment and just so people canget to know you a little bit.
You down with that?
Yep.
All right.
Best ballpark you ever playedat?
I got a tryout at the time itwas Miller Park.
So that was pretty cool.
I'll say number two is I was inSpring, we in the Florida State
(45:29):
League.
We played at all the springtraining grounds and the Yankee
Stadium where now the Tampa BayRazor playing.
Yeah.
Played there about 15, 20 games.
That was pretty Sweet SteinBroder Field.
Is that what it's called now?
Yeah, it used to be called likeMemorial.
That's right.
Park.
Something like that.
Yeah.
But yeah, it was, those wereprobably the two that were
pretty special.
That's cool.
Favorite UW Whitewater sportsmoment since you've been in ad?
(45:53):
Oh, man.
I'll tell you, I, I tell my kidsthis all the time.
My top five moments in sportsused to revolve around the
Packers and the Badgers, and nowthey're 100% whitewater.
That's right.
I would say the one that I thinkabout the most is Matt Anderson
intercepted the St.
John's quarterback on the lastdrive to go to the Stag Bowl in
(46:14):
2019.
It was night game ESPN.
I got down to the sideline justin 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 describesyour leadership style.
(46:39):
Oh man.
Respectful.
I could see that that, thatcomes 100% out.
I'm gonna give you the dreamdinner guest question.
If you could pick three peoplein sports alive, past, who'd you
like to have dinner with?
Ooh, that's tough.
I'll tell you what I watched theeuchre celebration of life, so
(47:00):
it'll be tough not to have kerthere and just hear and just let
him talk.
Oh, just let him talk.
You'd laugh all night.
Just let him talk, I playedhockey growing up, so I gotta go
Gretzky in there just to hearsome of his stories about what
went through.
And then man, Billie, Jean King,I gotta go.
Her just what all, everythingthat she went through is just
(47:20):
amazing.
And the impact that she's hadover the last, 50, 60 years is
pretty special.
You talked about the leadershipbook you're reading.
Is there a book that yourecommend to coaches?
That are in athletics.
Quint Studer.
Quint Studer is a gentleman thathe's a Whitewater grad and he
got into hospital surveys andquality control and he sold, his
(47:45):
company got out and he startedwriting a bunch of leadership
books.
And now I'm gonna blank.
I think there's the leader inme, there's the Busy Leader's
Handbook.
That's another good one.
And it's really quick.
They're, very easy reads, buthe's close with our baseball
coach and our old footballcoach, and he would all, send me
a couple copies and there's justsome things in there about
different scenarios and just.
(48:07):
Having difficult conversations.
But yeah, Quinn Studer's gotsome really good leadership
books.
That's great.
I'll check those out.
And we get to promote aWhitewater 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'regonna continue to do at
Whitewater with all your greatcoaches, the student athletes.
But I'm excited to come back andtalk a little recruiting with
(48:28):
you.
Yeah, for sure, Matt.
Thank you.
What an incredible conversationwith Ryan Callahan.
His journey reminds us thatleadership isn't about titles.
It's about influence and trustand the ability to elevate those
around you.
From his days on the mound as awarhawk pitcher to overseeing
now 22 varsity programs andworking alongside some of the
(48:50):
greatest coaches in Divisionthree Sports Ryan has lived what
it means to lead with loyaltyand humility and vision.
If you want to keep growing as aleader, or if your school or
organization is looking forsomeone to challenge, inspire
and prepare your athletes,coaches, or staff, I'd love to
come speak with your community.
You can learn more and connectwith me
(49:11):
directly@coachmattrogers.com.
Don't miss part two of ourconversation.
Come back Monday, September 22ndfor Ryan's significant
recruiting episode where we diveinto the college athletic
director's perspective onrecruiting.
Until next time, stay focused,stay humble, and keep leading
(49:32):
with significance.
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Iām Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and Iām so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood youāre able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and lifeās ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them weāve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I donāt take it for granted ā click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I canāt wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.