July 11, 2025 • 52 mins
Leading Through the Gray: A Candid Conversation with Dr. James Troha
In this powerful and wide-ranging episode, Dr. James Troha—President of Juniata College and Chair of the NCAA Division III Presidents Council—joins the show for a candid conversation about the state of higher education, college athletics, and student well-being. With honesty, humor, and deep empathy, Dr. Troha and Coach Rogers discuss the urgent challenges facing today’s campuses, including mental health, the national pushback on DEI, and the need to stop coddling students in favor of building real resilience.
They explore why failure is essential to growth, how accountability must be taught—not avoided—and why none of these issues are black and white. This episode will make you think, feel, and reflect on how we care for and lead the next generation.
If you’re a coach, educator, parent, or leader—you need to hear this one.
Stay tuned for Part 2 on Monday, where Dr. Troha dives into the realities of recruiting in Division III and what families need to understand when exploring the D3 path.
For more tools, books, blogs, and recruiting & coaching support, visit CoachMattRogers.com.
Learn more and connect with Matt Rogers here: https://linktr.ee/coachmattrogers
Listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio, and all your favorite podcast platforms.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We get to know our students.
(00:01):
I, when I'm shaking hands of ourgraduates out here on the quad,
I know where they came from.
I know who their parents are.
I know their particular journey,and that's what we talked a
little bit about what keeps mehere.
That's special.
I want relationships.
I wanna know.
Our graduates, and I wanna knowthat I'm gonna maintain
relationships beyond the wallsof geneal College in their four
(00:25):
years here.
Welcome back to the SignificantCoaching Podcast, where we dive
deep into the leadership momentsthat matter with the people who
are shaping athletics,education, and the future of our
(00:46):
student athletes.
Today's guest is Dr.
James Troja, president of JutaCollege and Chair of the NCAA
Division three President'sCouncil.
This episode is different.
It's bold, it's honest, and it'sfilled with joy, wisdom, and the
kind of perspective wedesperately need in today's
world.
Dr.
Troja and I talk about therealities we're facing in higher
(01:09):
education change at the nationallevel in college, athletics,
politics, and education.
We talk about failure and howit's not something to be feared,
but a necessary part of becomingresilient.
We unpack why accountabilitymatters and why doing everything
for our students doesn't makethem stronger.
It makes them less prepared forlife after college.
(01:32):
And we get even deeper.
We talk about the growing mentalhealth crisis on our campuses.
The harmful impact of thenational attacks on DEI and the
disproportionate effect this ishaving on L-G-B-T-Q students.
These aren't easy conversations,but they're necessary.
I.
And here's the truth.
None of these issues are blackand white.
There's no one size fits allanswer.
(01:54):
These topics need to bediscussed, studied, debated, and
most of all, they need to behandled with empathy and
honesty.
And from the perspective ofpeople who truly care about the
wellbeing of all our youngpeople, not just those who look
like us, think like us, orbelieve what we believe.
Now, this may sound serious whatI'm saying so far, but this was
(02:17):
a fun, deep, powerfulconversation.
One I enjoyed immensely.
One, I wish we had more time tocontinue, but I promise you
this, it will make you think, itwill make you feel, and it might
even stir up some discomfort.
And that's the point because ifwe're serious about leading with
significance.
We need to sit in that tensionsometimes, and we need to be
(02:40):
thankful that we have leaderslike Dr.
Jim Troja helping us do it.
Here's my conversation with Dr.
Jim Troja.
Dr.
Troja, and I know you said I cancall you Jim, but I need to
Absolutely.
I need to give you the respectyou deserve.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast today.
Yeah.
Happy to do it.
Matt I do anything for RichDunsworth, by the way.
(03:01):
I've gotta make sure I give hima shout out.
One of my.
Favorite colleagues here in thehigher education world.
Kudos to Rich for connecting us.
Yes.
For those that don't know, richand I have been really good
friends for the better part of25 years, and Rich is the one
that recommended I have you on,and I'm so thankfully did we,
you and I have had an earlierconversation and I enjoyed it so
(03:21):
much, so I'm really excited tohave this one.
Yeah, it's remarkable to thinkabout Rich and I starting our
presidencies together 12 yearsago.
Both of us going into year 13,which is.
Dinosaur years in the collegepresidency today It is.
I think you and I might havetalked about when I started back
in the summer of 13, collegepresidents were about eight and
(03:41):
a half years was the length oftheir tenure.
Now it's about five years, maybejust a shade over five years.
So each of us serving as long aswe have, it's it's a rarity.
So we've got a lot of storiesand a lot of experience and I'm
not sure that quite what thatsays about us, but we get asked
to do a lot of things now thatwe're more experienced
presidents.
I feel like I just startedyesterday and it's it's hard to
(04:03):
believe going into year 13, butit's been a blast.
I'm sure we'll talk about someof that as we get go.
Yeah.
Let's do, talk about that.
Because whenever you get achance to stay, and I've I spent
nine years at MaryvilleUniversity and that was my
longest stretch at a college,and I just, I loved it.
I loved every aspect of it.
What is it about Juta that youlove that makes it special,
(04:26):
that's kept you there this long?
Yeah.
I think, let's take the collegeout of it for a second.
You gotta love the work.
The college is certainly part ofthat, but you got to enjoy the
lifestyle that is a collegepresidency.
And fortunately, I had anexperience back in 2008, 2009
when I was interim president fora year.
(04:46):
And at my previous institution,Heidelberg University.
And so I had a I dabbled in it.
My kids were super young.
I was, gosh, how old?
I can't remember even how old Iwas maybe 38 years old at the
time when I was interimpresident.
So I had a chance to taste itbefore I was appointed here.
And you gotta be comfortablewith the visibility.
(05:10):
The, I think the breadth ofportfolio that comes with being
a college president and you justgotta, you've gotta just, agree
that, your life is on displayand you're gonna be dealing
with, a variety ofconstituencies that you know,
when you're a vice president,you've got.
Your particular area that you'redealing, whether it's student
(05:30):
life or financial or academic,when you're president, all those
things are part of yourportfolio, and you just gotta
know that you're gonna be askedto do a whole bunch of things.
But at the end of the day, Matt,it's about, and reading about
your background, I think you getthis, it has to be part of who
you are.
You gotta be authentic with thejob and just know that it's
(05:51):
gonna be.
Somewhat disruptive.
It's gonna be challenging, butit's also extremely rewarding.
And I think if you were to askRich the same thing, I mean it
was, that's what it comes downto for me.
I, there is enough in everyacademic year that is rewarding
enough where I feel I wanna keepdoing this work.
(06:13):
Yeah.
And that goes away is when thetime you need to fold the book
and say, I need to go findsomething else.
It's probably similar to being acoach, if the challenge is not
there anymore or the love ofwhat you do isn't there anymore,
then you've got a choice tomake.
And for me, I continue to lovethe work and part of that is the
environment that I'm in.
I.
(06:33):
I knew of Junior outta college.
I don't, didn't have anyrelationship with it prior to me
coming to be president here.
But the people here, the ethoshere the job that I get asked to
do, the board of trustees that Iwork with I.
Is I couldn't have asked foranything more.
Do I love every minute of it?
Of course not.
There's always moments whereyou're just like, yeah, why?
(06:55):
Why am I doing this?
Maybe I need to bereconsidering.
Then there are moment comesaround where you're like, okay,
that's why, and I.
It happens frequently.
I'm talking, even within an houror even within a day, I have
those extremes.
I think it's time to leaveversus I love what I do and I
can't wait to get my feet on theground tomorrow and come back to
work.
(07:15):
It's, that's just the nature ofthe work.
Yeah.
And you've gotta be ready forit.
And so I've been fortunateenough to been doing it now for
12 years and it's been a trueblessing and at a place that
I've come to to love as as aninstitution.
Yeah.
Yeah, I, I work with so manyfamilies and so many families
want their kids to go to PennState.
(07:36):
They want'em to go to, they want'em to go to Penn.
They want'em to go to Universityof Colorado where I live, and I
just say.
Just, I want you to look at, Iwant you to look at every level
of size of school.
Because I think you're gonna beamazed at what's there.
Everybody's, everybody sees theprice tag, everybody sees the
size of the school and theycan't put the pieces together on
(07:58):
what that experience is gonnalead to.
I had a great experience at cocollege in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
outside of Iowa.
Very few people know about COand when they start listing off
the alumni, they go, what?
They're just they're shocked byhow many.
People have gone on to suchgreat things from such a small
college.
You've been a college coach,you've been a vp, you've been a
(08:20):
director, now you're apresident, you're a dad.
What have all those things donefor you to make you the
president you are?
And how do you, are you usingthose tools today?
Are using those coaching tools,those dad tools, do you find
they're coming out in everythingyou're doing?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I, particularly the coachingpart.
(08:41):
I think more of what I dorelates to coaching than maybe
anything else because I've got ateam here, I've got a team of
vice presidents.
I work, I've got a team offaculty, I've got a team of
staff, I've got a team oftrustees, I've got team of
students here.
And it is, you're building anorganization, you're building a
successful team, and you've gotto, you've gotta know.
(09:06):
How to manage the differentpersonalities that are around
you.
So like a good coach, you can'tyell at.
This particular player andexpect one thing and yell at
this and expect the same thing.
Everybody has to be managed alittle bit differently and good
coaches get that.
Good coaches understand thenature of personalities and what
(09:28):
is going to ultimately lift thatteam to perform.
At the levels that you wouldexpect.
And same thing as a collegepresident, I have to manage each
of my VPs a little bitdifferently.
I have to manage my board alittle bit differently.
I have to manage my faculty alittle bit differently.
And my experiences at a youngage of coaching, also being a
student athlete absolutelyessential to my leadership
(09:49):
style.
No, no question about it.
I think Matt, if I were todiscern a little bit about all
those experiences.
I would say you've just gotta beauthentic in who you are.
Look at some of our best coachesout there and some of the
interesting personalities.
They are authentic people.
Whether you're a Bill Belichickor a Nick Saban or a Gene R ema,
(10:12):
those coaches are real.
They don't pretend to be anybodythat they're different.
And the reason I think my, my,my understanding of it would be
that these jobs, collegepresident, coach of a major
program, coach of a divisionthree program, they're
difficult, demanding positionsand you better.
(10:34):
Be authentic in who you are.
Otherwise your team will seethrough you, your campus
community will see through you.
And so why not just be yourself?
And it is what it is.
And I, that's try I've tried tolive that as long as I've held
this job.
I didn't come up through theacademic ladder.
IEI was not a faculty member.
I did not become a dean.
(10:55):
I was on the administrativeroute.
And I, when I interviewed here.
I talked about that.
Listen, if you're looking for aleader in the administrative
space that believes that canlead a, an organization like
Junior Outta College, I'm yourguy.
If you're looking for anacademic voice, somebody who
understands faculty culture toits core, I'm probably not your
person.
So I led with an authenticityand really understanding what I
(11:19):
can bring to the table.
And Juliana is either gonna takethat or not.
And I think.
That's important for anyposition that you seek is just
to be who you are.
And if it's not the right fit,then it's not the right fit.
But if you can't be who you are,it's not gonna be successful at
the end of the day.
Matt.
That's probably one of thebiggest learnings I had as a
(11:40):
young professional and seeingand learning from great mentors.
And I think if you ask anycoach, every successful coach
has had both.
Extraordinary mentors that theywanted to learn from, but they
also learned from the bad onesthat they've served under too.
As did there are people andsupervisors that I've had that
(12:01):
weren't great and you'll learnas much from them, but you gotta
lean into that and understandwhat you take from each of those
experiences so you can developyour own authentic leadership
style.
I love it.
And for me, when I'm talking toa 16 or 17-year-old, one of the
first questions I always askthem when we're talking about
that college experience theywant, I go, do you want to go
(12:23):
someplace that already has aproven legacy?
Or do you want to go somewhereand create that legacy?
And it's always love it.
The light bulb goes off and Igo, yeah, I never thought about
that.
I've never thought about, I onlycan look at who just won a
national championship on TV orwho just did this and go, I
wanna be a part of that.
And I love getting a 16,7-year-old to go, oh, I could go
(12:45):
somewhere and create that.
I could be the first to do that.
And well, Koch College Junioroutta college, a lot of the
institutions like ours.
You are not a spectator at ourinstitutions, right?
You are on the court, on, on thefield doing that work.
You are in the game as I talkall the time about to our
prospective students.
(13:05):
If you don't wanna be aparticipant, we are probably not
the place for you, right?
Go to a Penn State, a pit, someof these larger institutions and
listen, those are wonderfulinstitutions.
That's not a knock on it, it'sjust a different type of
institution.
Bigger institutions, you'regonna be in classrooms with six,
700 kids.
And some people learn betterthan that.
(13:26):
That's not who we are.
Yeah.
And if that's the experiencethat you want that's where you
should go.
But here, excuse me, we.
We expect our students to beparticipants.
We expect everybody to be on thecourt and on the field playing
the game.
That is a giata collegeeducation and we don't shy from
that.
That's just part of our DNA.
(13:47):
Yeah, there's not a lot ofplaces to hide at places like
Code and Giata or the those oursrichest.
And that's part of the whatmakes I think us unique and
special and different is thatthe relationships that you
develop, the, that's part of ouridentity and ethos and culture
are those.
Relational aspects of ourinstitution because we have 13,
(14:10):
1400 students.
We get to know our students.
I, when I'm shaking hands of ourgraduates out here on the quad,
I know where they came from.
I know who their parents are.
I know their particular journey,and that's what we talked a
little bit about what keeps mehere.
That's special.
I want relationships.
I wanna know.
Our graduates, and I wanna knowthat I'm gonna maintain
(14:33):
relationships beyond the wallsof geneal College in their four
years here.
So I'm going to an eventtomorrow in Pittsburgh.
We're doing these little,they're called Troja Tap House
events.
We're going to breweries andwe're just getting together and
socializing and having abeverage with one another.
And I'm getting to connect withour alumni, a lot of our younger
alumni in these areas.
(14:53):
We did one in Hershey and Phillyand Pittsburgh and go DC.
That's great.
These are opportunities toconnect and continue to build
the relationships that are soimportant for our type of
institutions.
Yeah, and I want every collegeI.
To pursue someone like you orrich Dunsworth, because you guys
get it.
You understand It's about therelationships.
It's about how we treat people.
(15:15):
It's about, for sure.
It's about more than what welearned in the math classroom
in, in the biology c thosethings are essential to go to
college.
Yes.
I tell kids this all the time.
I go, when I graduated fromcollege, I played college
basketball.
I was an ra.
I was a student assistant.
I was student body president,and.
This my spring semester of mysenior year, I had the president
(15:38):
of the college, the vicepresident of enrollment, the
Dean of students and theDirector of Residence Life were
all making calls for me to helpme get a job.
Yeah.
I go where else could I havedone that?
Where else would tho would Ihave even have met those people
to have a relationship withthem?
Yeah.
I just had a, to that point, Ihad a Zoom call yesterday with
one of our student athletes.
Who's applying for an NCAAinternship.
(16:01):
And he wanted to talk with meabout my NCAA experience and how
it might work and what heshould, think about relative to
interviewing for that.
And to your point, I just didthat yesterday.
Sean just emailed me and said,Hey, president Trump, would you
mind chatting with me aboutthis?
Of course.
This is the nature of what wedo.
And if you're a collegepresident and that doesn't
(16:21):
excite you, then you're in thewrong, you're in the wrong
business.
By the way, I mean your pointaround skills and what you
learned in the classroom andoutside.
I was just talking about this tosome students at the end of the
last semester, do you know thatthe top 10 skills that employers
want today out of graduates.
(16:42):
Nine out of the 10 that theylisted have nothing to do with
the knowledge attainment.
What took place in theclassroom?
Why not?
It's crazy.
It was about teamwork,leadership, good judgment,
attitude, respect.
Communication skills, all ofthose, what I would call
essential skills, what we usedto call soft skills, these
(17:03):
intangibles, Matt, theintangibles is what is developed
at places like Giata that Ithink separates our graduates
from other graduates.
That we spend time on thoseskills because it's grounded in
the relationships that we havewith our students, our faculty,
our staff.
(17:24):
Peer to peer.
We take seriously the attainmentof those intangibles and making
sure that.
They're challenged if they don'thave'em, that by the time they
graduate, we gotta make surethat they're tested on some of
these skills, because that'swhat corporations are seeking.
They want good humans.
(17:45):
They want humans who can look ateach other in the eye, shake
their hands, talk about beingpositive, talk about, their
colleagues with the rightattitude.
They'll train them in some ofthe specific skill sets that
they want.
And so these intangibles, Ibelieve, is what separates
small, private residential,small liberal arts schools like
(18:08):
the ones you and I are familiarwith.
I, I've got a, I've got athousand.
Sorry about the commercial I'vegot.
No it's fantastic.
It's the right message for anyfamily or teacher or guidance
counselor that's listening tothis to understand.
They have to be open-minded.
They have to understand thatthere's that perfect fit for
(18:28):
them, that home for them may notbe what they expect, and it's so
worth the time to look.
I've got a thousand differentquestions I can go based on what
we just talked about, but I wantto talk about Yeah.
Athletics itself within thatcapacity, because I talked to so
many presidents that came upthat academic route to be
president.
Yeah.
That, and I hate to say it theway I'm gonna say it, but I
(18:51):
don't have a better way to sayit.
They don't quite understand howathletics affects their college.
They don't understand.
What an a really strong athleticdepartment does for the big
picture, the long term, theendowment, the retention, all
those things that we all want.
How campus vibrancy, spirit.
Yes.
Alumni engagement, all of that.
(19:12):
All those things, right?
Yeah.
How do you see your athleticdepartment?
In terms of how you use it, howyou market it, what it means to
the big picture of what you'reable to do as the president.
Talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, so a couple things on thisman, and it's a great, it's a
great point.
(19:34):
I wanna be careful.
What I say here,'cause I don'tmean it.
I what you're saying, I haveseen in spades in terms of my
colleagues at my level who don'tunderstand it.
And quite frankly, many of'emdon't wanna understand it and
which is just a miss on theirpart.
There's a lot of schools likeours that, you're talking.
(19:56):
35, 40, 40 5% of theirundergraduates at schools.
If you're under 1500 students,you might be having your student
athlete base being close to halfof your population.
And so how do you not understandwhat's taking place in that
space?
That's number one.
Number two and this is thedownside of somebody like myself
(20:18):
who came from.
As being a student athlete, butalso came from a little bit of
athletics where I've supervisedathletics as a former dean of
students and VP for studentlife.
And it is this, that my faculty,not all my faculty, and I'm
gonna, I'm gonna generalizehere, thinks I spend too much
time with athletics.
They think it, it's.
It distracts me.
(20:38):
They think that I spend too muchmoney on athletics.
They think I don't care aboutthe academics because I love
sports and I love athletics.
They think that my prioritiesare a little outta whack.
Now, I'm not saying thateverybody does, but the feedback
that I sometimes get mad as acollege president is that my
priorities are miss if I careabout athletics.
(21:01):
That's probably why some collegepresidents maybe don't lean as
heavily in it as I do.
But we, if we go back to wherewe started this conversation
around authenticity, I can'thide the fact that I grew up as
a student athlete.
I was a coach at some point.
I supervise athletics.
I tend to believe that whattakes place in the.
(21:22):
Athletic space is great trainingfor real life.
Whether it's a discipline,taking care of your body, taking
care of your mind, being part ofa team, being collaborative,
partnering with your peers,learning from coaches.
We know, you and I know peoplewho are listening to this often
know the power of being part ofa team and how it relates to
(21:44):
real life.
And so I don't apologize forthat part of who I am as an
academic.
As, or as a college president,it's just, I have a passion for
it.
And if they think my prioritiesare misaligned, then so be it.
I know that academics is thecore of what we do.
(22:04):
It's why we exist is to makesure our students graduate,
prepare to lead in a particularcareer.
I know in my heart of hearts, Iknow that, and athletics is
secondary to that.
It doesn't mean that it can't bean important part of who we are
as an institution, and I feellike I have an obligation to
(22:26):
make sure that it has therightful place in our
environment and that I supportour student athletes.
I support our coaches, and oh,by the way, I.
It contributes a huge amount toour enrollment.
It contributes a huge amount tothe campus spirit that we have
here, to the alumni donationsthat we have here.
And if I look around my campus,I've got tennis courts, I've got
(22:47):
gymnasiums, I've got lacrossefields, I've got other we spend
a tremendous amount of resourcesin this space.
So how is it not an importantpart of who we are and what we
do?
I'll just say that.
It's amazing in my work at, partof Division three presidents
Council of how many collegepresidents just don't wanna lean
(23:09):
into the work that we do withstudent athletics or athletics
as a, as an entity.
I, let me just end on this.
I think you can be an excellentacademic institution and also
be.
Hyper competitive and be a greatathletic institution at the same
time.
Those things are not mutuallyexclusive in my judgment.
(23:31):
And you only need to look atschools like Stanford and Notre
Dame or Williams and Amherst.
These are, the NECA as aconference.
You're talking about the, thetop, echelon of academic
institutions and yet they care agreat deal about how they
perform.
From an athletic perspective, itdoesn't mean they don't care
about their academics.
(23:52):
And so I say all the time, Iwant both.
I wanna be known academically,but there's no reason why we
can't have a great academicreputation and care a great deal
about the competitiveness of allof our sports.
Those, to me, it's not like youhave to sacrifice one for
another.
I think you can do'em both.
I did my early coaching in theSLI in St.
(24:12):
Louis.
And I got to coach against FBA UCollege and it, and then it
became FBA University.
They just closed their doors.
Yeah.
We're seeing more and more ofthese colleges close their doors
and the more I dig, the more Italk to the administration
that's leaving that's having toclose those doors and find new
jobs, the more it was about theycouldn't fill their beds.
(24:35):
And as somebody that'stransitioned from a college
athletic director and a collegecoach to now a consultant for
small colleges.
I want to pull my hair out whenI hear that.
Because you have the beautifulfields like you have the
gymnasium.
A small D three can have 300kids that are just athletes in
(24:56):
your dorms.
400 kids.
Yeah.
If you've got a football team.
I don't like using this as anargument.
When we're talking to faculty,they're arguing about how much
time we put into athletics, butat the end of the day, the
average small school is making,what?
12,000 in revenue from astudent?
(25:18):
14, 15,000.
Somewhere in that world you'renot too far off.
Yeah.
If a coach is bringing in 2030kids for their roster every
year, let's just start there.
Yeah.
Multiply that times 12,000.
Is your history professor, yourcalculus professor doing any
recruiting to bring kids intothe classroom?
Some of'em are.
(25:39):
Some of them are, yeah.
But not as the due diligence asyour coaches have to go find
those kids in Arizona,California.
Now that's part one.
Tell me how much fun yourmarketing and publicity team
have when your volleyball teamkicks everybody's butt in the
country year after year, and isin every paper on ESPN.
(26:00):
Yeah.
How much would you have to payto get that type of publicity?
Yeah.
We our our own Olivia Foley wasjust in New York City.
'Cause she was the Honda.
Sports Division three athlete ofthe year of all sports.
And so Junior outta college wason a national stage with CBS
sports next to Paige Becker's.
So the answer is, we can't wewouldn't be able to afford that
(26:22):
kind of publicity.
Yes.
To your point and when I amintroduced often in the NCAA
world.
And they see, oh, trau Junioroutta college, your volleyball
team.
That's how people know about me.
It's not necessarily my successas a college president or as D
three, chair or on the Board ofGovernors.
It's our volleyball team thatbrings me notoriety.
(26:43):
I love it.
I wish it would happen moreoften in some other sports.
But volleyball has beenincredibly important for us.
Yeah.
And guess what?
Our student athletes going backto the importance of that,
they're some of our beststudents.
Yes.
There, these are our grade pointaverage for our athletes is
higher than our non-athletegrade point average.
(27:05):
So it's not like they're comingin and poorly performing and
having a negative and downwardpull on our academic profile.
It's just the opposite.
Yeah.
So what's funny, I just talkedto Paul Dill, who's the
volleyball coach at MIT and hetells me the same thing.
He goes, Matt, our volleyballkids outperform our regular
students.
Yes.
At MIT.
Yes.
(27:25):
They, it's same as here.
Yeah.
They're great kids.
It goes to what we talked about,Matt, is, which is they learn at
that level of performance.
They learn the importance oftime management.
Yes.
And discipline and what it takesto be.
Successful not just on thevolleyball court, but in life,
in the classroom.
(27:45):
And those skills are taught bycoaches.
Yes.
And so it goes back to those 10skills you were talking about,
the corporate Americas, right?
That's right.
That's right.
Alright, I'd be remiss if Ididn't jump into the D three
President's Council with you.
Yep.
You're the chair.
Tell me what's.
What are two or three of thethings that you're talking about
(28:07):
in the President's Council?
With all the craziness that'sgoing on at the division one
level, that we're gonna feel thetrickle down through all
colleges and universities.
Yeah, the lawsuits andeverything.
Even though as a D threepresident, as a D three coach,
we still may not have to dealwith the NIL issue.
We still may not have to dealwith the portal a whole lot.
What are you discussing that momand dad and?
(28:32):
In the middle of the countryhave to be thinking about when
they're thinking about sendingtheir kid to college.
Yeah.
Couple things immediately cometo mind and I think about the
mental health challenges I.
It's happening at all levels.
It's not D three specific, butwhat we have seen in the last,
five plus years, I think itpreceded COVID.
I think COVID exacerbated someof the challenges that our
(28:55):
students have about theiremotional health and wellbeing.
We are seeing it on at thestudent athlete level that it's,
it, students have to sometimes.
Get a pause from their sport todeal with mental health
challenges.
So how does the NCAA supportthat?
How do we as institutions,athletic departments, support
(29:16):
our students?
And, I'll tell you that theinteresting thing and it's
happening with our faculty aswell.
And that is that our coaches.
Or being asked to not just becoaches.
They're asked to be therapists.
They're asked to be friends withour students because the
students don't know where elseto go.
So they go to familiar places.
(29:38):
And those tend to be theircoaches.
It tends to be their trainers,tends to be the faculty.
And boy, I'm not saying it neverexisted before, but it seems to
be a role that our coaches arehaving to play today.
At levels that exceed probablywhat we want our coaches to be
doing.
They're not trained to betherapists, but they're being
(30:00):
asked to manage mental healthconcerns at levels that, that
are probably just notcomfortable anymore for our
coaches.
I hear a lot.
We see it a lot.
So the ncaa we're trying toprovide resources in ways that,
weren't available years ago.
I.
And so we, there, there arenumerous solutions that we're
(30:21):
talking about at the NCAA levelright now.
There's online solutions.
There's training that ishappening right now for our
coaches to manage this, makingsure that students know where to
go if they've got issues relatedto mental health.
So that's, that would be a bigone for us.
Something that I knew washappening, but at the broader
(30:42):
national level, I had no idea.
How pervasive the challengesthat our student athletes were
faced today.
So that's number one.
Number two would be sportsbetting.
Major issue on our agenda of howwe manage this.
I think everybody can agree thatthe the nature of sports
betting, what's happening withour student athletes at all
(31:03):
levels is getting a bit unwieldyand at times very, uncomfortable
for our athletes, particularlywhen there's sports prop betting
that's happening.
I'm sure you're familiar withprop betting free throws, number
of free throws, somebody willmake or miss and this and that.
And President Baker has beenvery clear about NCAA stance on
(31:24):
that in trying to eliminate thatbecause.
The pressure that it puts ondivision one players on their
campuses when it comes to someof this prop, beding, you can
imagine where this goes.
Yeah.
And it, it just it's just anugly part of some of the
business that we're in withsports gambling right now.
So a lot of conversationhappening around sports betting
(31:48):
that's not too dissimilar to,the use of marijuana and some of
the drugs that used to be offlimits.
So right now we're trying tosocialize concepts around sports
betting so we can better educateour students on sports betting.
And, so those two issues rightnow are top of mind.
(32:09):
The other one to probably alesser extent, but something you
mentioned earlier, which wasaround colleges closing and
conference alignment.
Is becoming more and morechallenging as you.
Yes.
You probably have seen schoolsopt outta one conference, join
another conference, and, oh, youhave this school closing now you
got a conference of fiveschools.
(32:30):
Now their EQ is gone.
What do we do?
I.
How does the rural nature ofthese closures impacting
conferences and studentathletes' ability to compete at
the highest levels?
So it's just something thatwe're trying to get an
understanding of.
I think the NIL conversation andthe expense that is now
associated with that, St.
(32:52):
Francis in our backyard movedfrom D one to D three.
I would, venture to guess, thereare a lot of other institutions
that are.
Considering what a differentmodel might look like for
athletics at the D one levelbecause of NIL, because of some
of the changes that arehappening there, can they afford
to be playing in that spaceversus maybe playing at D 2D
(33:13):
three?
So I think, I don't have to tellyou.
It's a really critical time.
Across the NCAA and collegeathletics.
Right now I think the housesettlement is gonna provide some
stability for the.
The number of schools that areplaying in that space.
But I think at Division threeand to some extent, division
(33:34):
two, the rest of us are reallytrying to understand how do we
continue to provide theexperience that our students and
parents expect today, wheretheir students are having a
positive experience, that theyultimately will get their degree
in the timeframe that they wantand they expect.
I totally agree.
Those are some of the thingsthat I would say are high on the
(33:57):
list and they're also important.
The they're all, none of it canbe brushed under the rug or say,
we can deal with this tomorrow,ev everything.
And I, and you tell me if I'mwrong, it seems like the biggest
issue the NCAA had, has had forso many years.
It's not, do we have good ideasand the right mission and a
(34:17):
great vision?
It's.
How do we enforce it?
How do we get, sports betting?
How do we enforce it?
How, how, what kind of body dowe need?
Do we need an ncaa FBI do weneed our own?
There's so many things that Idon't think the average person
understands the challengesyou're facing as a president.
(34:39):
It's not that you don't have a,a path.
It's how do we enforce thatpath?
Am I wrong?
No, you're not wrong.
The NCAA has some things inplace to monitor some sports
betting.
And it, that, that will be everincreasing because of the the
proliferation of gambling andthe number of states that offer
(35:01):
the ability to gamble on collegesports.
Yes.
So looking at sports betting andwhat you can and cannot do, and
the enforcement of that isproblematic.
There there's no question aboutit.
Yeah, there, there's, andthere's so many things that we
have to enforce.
It's, coaches trying to stealkids from other schools.
And once you sign your nationalletter of intent, how do we keep
coaches from talking to thosekids or throwing, money now that
(35:23):
seems available around thecorner.
So there, there's so many thingsthat I don't even wanna get into
today that we can have a wholenother podcast on.
Just for that, I do, before weclose this down.
This part of our conversation.
And again, I'm so thankful thatyou did this where I'm, I could
go on and on.
I want to talk back to yourmental health challenges we were
(35:44):
talking about for these kids.
And without getting intopolitics, and I'm akay, if you
want to be as vague as you wantto be with this, and I
understand the pressure thatyou're under, I want to talk
about how we protect these kidsthat are.
In that DEI world that's beingattacked.
(36:04):
Yeah.
How do we protect these transkids?
How do we protect theseL-G-B-T-Q kids?
Because that's gotta be a majorconcern for any president when
it comes to mental healthchallenges for their students
and their student athletes.
How do we do that?
How does Matt Rogers sitting inhis house.
(36:24):
How does the president of juniorcollege, how do we do this
together to make sure these kidsknow they're loved and know
they're accepted and thatthere's a place for them?
Boy that's a great, it's a greatquestion and something that we
manage every, almost everysingle day, and it's becoming
more complicated and troublesomebecause of what's happening at
(36:46):
the federal level.
My very first, so I was.
Appointed to the Board ofGovernors in the fall.
My very first meeting wasshortly thereafter shortly after
President Trump declared thatthere were, primarily two
genders.
And.
The ncaa, as shortly after thataligned its practices with what
(37:10):
was coming out of the federalgovernment, that there was male
sports and female sports.
Which was a really interestingconversation, my very first
board of Governors.
I can imagine, yeah.
Conversation in action.
And I just wanted, I wanted, Ididn't say much during that
meeting, of course.
I was just listening to how wewere managing that.
Some of it obviously was around.
(37:33):
A legal perspective of what wewere permitted to do.
Now that the federal governmentcame down to say that, there's
male and female sports with theconflict that we knew, the
different campuses that we allsit at, knowing that's a
different model than what maybeis being asked of us from our
(37:55):
students.
But here's the thing.
So I, I think the ncaa, my ownopinion was that it was doing
the right thing in aligningitself what was happening with
the federal government becauseit was protecting its core work
as an NCAA body.
I think if we hadn't done that,there would've been lawsuits and
there would've been a lot ofother legal challenges and it
(38:16):
wouldn't have just been healthy.
So how do we take.
The model that we have and dowhat you are suggesting, which
is to support and make sure weunderstand the needs of all of
our student athletes howeverthey are defining themselves.
And I would say that you do thatI, on your individual campuses
(38:36):
to know that those students areembraced.
Included in ways that makes themfeel whole at your particular
campus, even though thecompetition may look a little
bit differently.
Now, we also have to understand,Matt, that it's a very small,
those who have chosen to lettheir campuses know that they
(38:57):
are trans.
It's a very small number, and I,it's, I don't even wanna suggest
what that number is, but it'sless than half of 1%, right?
Something along those lines.
And the number of athletes thatit, it's a very small number.
It doesn't mean that there's nota lot of other athletes who just
haven't come out and said whothey are and what they're about.
(39:18):
Some would argue that, we'retalking about something that
affects a very small minority ofstudents I know at my campus
that it's much larger and morepervasive than anybody wants to
quite admit.
So you have to have coaches, youhave to have policies on your
campus that make sure thatsupports those students in any
way possible.
(39:38):
And we've tried to do that hereand I know a lot of other
college presidents are wrestlingwith this sort of incongruence
that we have of what we, I.
No is right from a humanperspective, but trying to abide
by the letter of the law of whatthe NCAA requires and what the
federal government has said thatwe need to do.
All that said, Matt, I do thinkit's a really interesting
(40:00):
dialogue around the health andsafety of athletes when we talk
about trans participation,particularly when you talk about
biological men performing inwomen's sports and whether or
not that's.
There's some safety issues thatwe need to be concerned about.
And I think it's not in everysport, but I do think there are
(40:22):
moments where it's it's probablya absolutely right conversation
to have about the safety of theparticipants.
When you talk about biologicalmen participating in women's
athletics.
Yeah.
Volleyball being one of them.
Yeah.
It's, we saw last, I think itwas last year, right out in the
(40:43):
west in I dunno if it was SanDiego State, somebody had a
trans player and there wereteams that refused to play that
team.
And in that conference becausethey had a biological male
playing women's volleyball andthis person was towering over
players and hitting balls atrates that were not safe.
(41:05):
That's my understanding of it.
That's my understanding too.
I know you're talking aboutYeah.
I think that's a fairconversation.
Yeah.
And so how do you have bothwhere you're trying to be
inclusive, but you're alsotrying to look out what's in the
best interest of your studentathletes?
It's why you and I want every18-year-old to go to college for
four years.
(41:25):
Yes.
We want you to go get a degreeand learn something, but we also
want you to learn the worldisn't black and white.
Complicated.
There isn't complic, there isn'ta wrong and a right for every
answer no matter what.
Yes, we have politicians thatwant to tell us that there's a
black and white, there's not.
There's a whole lot of gray.
I, and you need that empathy.
You need to learn that empathy.
You need to learn that there'speople that are different than
(41:48):
us and we have to understand whythey're different than us and
give them the respect of whatthey're trying to do.
Yeah.
We've gotta listen to ourstudent athletes.
We want to be fair.
From a competitivenessstandpoint, yeah.
We, at the same time wanna beinclusive and accepting for
wherever you are coming from interms of your sexual
orientation.
And all, I, all I can say as acollege president is that it's
(42:11):
extremely complicated.
Yeah.
And I.
There's not a lot.
I love your the black andwhiteness of it that people want
doesn't exist.
That's right.
And so it's just reallychallenging space and I feel,
blessed and honored that I havean opportunity to have these
(42:33):
kinds of dialogue conversationsat the highest level with the
ncaa because I feel like.
I, I wanna learn myself of thebest things to do, but I also
want to help as many studentathletes, as many
administrators, as many collegepresence as I can in trying to
bring information that could behelpful to managing this at the
(42:55):
level of individualinstitutions.
And so we're not gonna get itright all the time.
Matt, that's, yeah, that's justthe reality.
I think we just need more peoplein your chair.
To continue to say, we welcomeeveryone, we want everyone to be
safe and healthy.
We want everybody to have anopportunity.
And it all goes back to thatrights.
(43:16):
We want everybody to be able topursue that happiness and that
health and a happy life.
And I think the more people inyour chair are doing what you're
doing and saying that out loudwe're gonna respect everybody.
We're gonna care for everybody.
Are there gonna be rules we haveto follow?
Are there gonna be conversationswe're gonna have?
Absolutely.
Yeah, we want everybody to havethat opportunity to go to
college and have a greatexperience.
You bet.
(43:36):
And it's not gonna be perfect,but, it's we want to, we wanna
try to do what's right.
All right.
I promise you that was the lastquestion for this segment, but
I'm gonna ask you one more'causeI, this is important to me.
A how do we and this could beanother full podcast and you can
be as brief with this as youwant.
(43:56):
How do we as colleges anduniversities, how do we do a
better job of teaching an18-year-old how to be an adult,
how to be a learner, and whenthey walk off your campus better
prepared to get a job, get anapartment, save some money and
(44:20):
be able to walk out of thereknowing.
I know what I'm doing.
I've been taught how to do this.
How do we do that at the collegelevel?
And I know I just asked you aquestion.
We can talk for an hour, but howdo we do that?
Boy, I.
You may not like my answer onthis, Matt.
(44:41):
I might be a little bit of acontrarian in this case, and I'm
okay with it.
I, and I'm not even sure wherethis comes from.
Maybe it's, I'd have to do somesoul searching, but I, and I a
little reflective on maybe how Iwas brought up and the, maybe
the discipline that I have formy parents.
I don't.
(45:02):
So I don't think it flies in theface of what I talked about
before that.
I feel like I have an obligationto help in this space.
Without question.
I believe our faculty have anobligation to help in the space.
I believe our coaches shouldhelp in this space, but I also
think the accountability shouldrest with the individuals that
are choosing our environments.
(45:24):
I think.
I think we have left.
I think we had, we have leftthem off the hook.
Let the students off the hook interms of accepting and embracing
some personal accountabilityabout that journey.
Yeah.
And about the developing ofthose skills that I've got three
(45:46):
kids, 26, 24, 22, and I, ofcourse.
Want to parent them and helpthem in any ways that I can.
But I also believe in that it isnow their journey.
And when they were in college,my wife and I, large part, we
(46:08):
were hands off.
We, they, they had if they hadstruggles, they couldn't get
into classes, they had, hardtimes getting rooms selected.
Figure it out.
If you fall and you skin yourknee, so be it.
You're gonna learn next time tolook while you're walking, and
Matt, I, to answer yourquestion, I think already too
(46:33):
much is asked of those of us whoare in this space.
Yeah.
And I do think there needs to besome.
More accountability ondeveloping those skills on your
own.
Read more.
Learn more.
Get off your phone.
(46:54):
Join clubs.
Learn to fail experiment.
Get uncomfortable by going to adifferent country.
We shouldn't have to say ourstudents get on a plane and go
and get uncomfortable and studyabroad.
We do.
But.
They should understand that'spart and parcel of their
development.
Now, can we facilitate that?
(47:15):
Of course, but I guess my, myyou asked me about how do we do
it, boy I think we, we haveprobably coddled more than we
should, and now's the time to.
Expect more.
(47:36):
Yeah.
I think we need to expect more.
It's not black and white and notonly do I like your answer, I
just had this conversation withmy wife and my 16-year-old
daughter yesterday, so it's myjob to make sure she can be an
adult when she leaves my houseand she knows when she leaves my
house, she's gonna be an adult.
(47:57):
Yeah, which right now she has acar, she has a license.
When you leave this house,you're responsible for you.
Will we help you?
Will we advise you?
Yes.
So I'm with you.
I think it starts with theparents.
I think it starts at home.
I think, right?
We can, this is why we can talkforever, because I think, yes,
the conversation moves beforethey come to our campuses of
what is happening or what is nothappening.
(48:20):
Yes.
In K through 12 education,what's happening in the home,
what's happening in our owncommunities, our churches?
That's, we can talk about that.
We are in receipt of what ishappening or not happening
before they join our campuscommunities.
And so we can have thatconversation and quite frankly,
(48:41):
it's a little bit too late.
It's a little bit too late whenwe get'em.
That's right.
That's right.
All I.
I think we probably aren'thelping ourselves.
I'm talking at the college levelwhen we try to do a lot of
things for'em.
I agree.
I agree.
I think we've gotta do a betterjob of giving them the
(49:03):
expectations and then holdingthem accountable for their
outcomes and their behavior andthe socialization that they
have.
We need to facilitate it.
I'm not suggesting you just let'em go, but boy.
I'm, I don't hear a lot ofpeople talking about this.
Matt and I think it's incumbentupon us.
(49:23):
We've got an obligation to helpthese students grow more and
deeper than maybe and we don'tgive them probably enough credit
that they can do it.
We just do a lot of things for'em.
If you're up for it, I'm gonnainvite you back here in the next
couple months and I'd like tocontinue this conversation, but
(49:44):
I promise you an hour and we'regonna have the shortest
recruiting podcast ever here ina low for Monday.
But thank you for your timetoday, and thank you for giving
me five more minutes to talkabout recruiting on Monday.
You bet.
What a conversation Dr.
James Troja reminded us todaythat leadership in higher
education and in life isn'tabout comfort.
(50:04):
It's about courage.
It's about standing in the messymiddle of complex issues and
choosing empathy over ego.
Whether we're talking aboutaccountability, mental health,
DEI, or the role of athletics ineducation, Dr.
Jim brought the kind of honestyand conviction we need more of
in this world.
These issues don't come witheasy answers.
(50:25):
But that's exactly why we mustkeep talking about them with
humility, with perspective, anda heart for all young people,
not just the ones who look,think, or believe like we do.
If today's episode challenged orencouraged, you, do me a favor,
follow the show, hit subscribeand forward this episode to
someone who might need to hearit, a coach, a parent, a
(50:48):
teammate, a leader.
Let's keep this conversationgoing, and if you haven't
already, head over to coach mattrogers.com.
That's where you'll find thetools and guidance to help you
build a healthier, smarter, andmore significant path.
Whether you're a familynavigating the recruiting
process, a coach buildingculture, or a school looking for
leadership development, checkout my books, like Significant
(51:10):
Recruiting, the Recruits Journaland my online recruiting
classes, all built to simplifythe journey and support student
athletes at every level.
You can also sign up for my freenewsletter, where I share weekly
recruiting insights.
College athletics updates, newresources, and behind the scenes
news about future book launchesand free tools.
(51:30):
And don't forget to come backMonday for part two of this
conversation with PresidentTroja.
We'll shift into the recruitingspace.
Yes, with a college president.
Talking about it, talking aboutDivision three, what families
often miss, and how to thinkdifferently about building a
college opportunity.
That fits for you.
Hey, thanks for listening.
(51:50):
Keep leading with purpose and asalways lead with significance.
We get to know our students.
(00:01):
I, when I'm shaking hands of ourgraduates out here on the quad,
I know where they came from.
I know who their parents are.
I know their particular journey,and that's what we talked a
little bit about what keeps mehere.
That's special.
I want relationships.
I wanna know.
Our graduates, and I wanna knowthat I'm gonna maintain
relationships beyond the wallsof geneal College in their four
(00:25):
years here.
Welcome back to the SignificantCoaching Podcast, where we dive
deep into the leadership momentsthat matter with the people who
are shaping athletics,education, and the future of our
(00:46):
student athletes.
Today's guest is Dr.
James Troja, president of JutaCollege and Chair of the NCAA
Division three President'sCouncil.
This episode is different.
It's bold, it's honest, and it'sfilled with joy, wisdom, and the
kind of perspective wedesperately need in today's
world.
Dr.
Troja and I talk about therealities we're facing in higher
(01:09):
education change at the nationallevel in college, athletics,
politics, and education.
We talk about failure and howit's not something to be feared,
but a necessary part of becomingresilient.
We unpack why accountabilitymatters and why doing everything
for our students doesn't makethem stronger.
It makes them less prepared forlife after college.
(01:32):
And we get even deeper.
We talk about the growing mentalhealth crisis on our campuses.
The harmful impact of thenational attacks on DEI and the
disproportionate effect this ishaving on L-G-B-T-Q students.
These aren't easy conversations,but they're necessary.
I.
And here's the truth.
None of these issues are blackand white.
There's no one size fits allanswer.
(01:54):
These topics need to bediscussed, studied, debated, and
most of all, they need to behandled with empathy and
honesty.
And from the perspective ofpeople who truly care about the
wellbeing of all our youngpeople, not just those who look
like us, think like us, orbelieve what we believe.
Now, this may sound serious whatI'm saying so far, but this was
(02:17):
a fun, deep, powerfulconversation.
One I enjoyed immensely.
One, I wish we had more time tocontinue, but I promise you
this, it will make you think, itwill make you feel, and it might
even stir up some discomfort.
And that's the point because ifwe're serious about leading with
significance.
We need to sit in that tensionsometimes, and we need to be
(02:40):
thankful that we have leaderslike Dr.
Jim Troja helping us do it.
Here's my conversation with Dr.
Jim Troja.
Dr.
Troja, and I know you said I cancall you Jim, but I need to
Absolutely.
I need to give you the respectyou deserve.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast today.
Yeah.
Happy to do it.
Matt I do anything for RichDunsworth, by the way.
(03:01):
I've gotta make sure I give hima shout out.
One of my.
Favorite colleagues here in thehigher education world.
Kudos to Rich for connecting us.
Yes.
For those that don't know, richand I have been really good
friends for the better part of25 years, and Rich is the one
that recommended I have you on,and I'm so thankfully did we,
you and I have had an earlierconversation and I enjoyed it so
(03:21):
much, so I'm really excited tohave this one.
Yeah, it's remarkable to thinkabout Rich and I starting our
presidencies together 12 yearsago.
Both of us going into year 13,which is.
Dinosaur years in the collegepresidency today It is.
I think you and I might havetalked about when I started back
in the summer of 13, collegepresidents were about eight and
(03:41):
a half years was the length oftheir tenure.
Now it's about five years, maybejust a shade over five years.
So each of us serving as long aswe have, it's it's a rarity.
So we've got a lot of storiesand a lot of experience and I'm
not sure that quite what thatsays about us, but we get asked
to do a lot of things now thatwe're more experienced
presidents.
I feel like I just startedyesterday and it's it's hard to
(04:03):
believe going into year 13, butit's been a blast.
I'm sure we'll talk about someof that as we get go.
Yeah.
Let's do, talk about that.
Because whenever you get achance to stay, and I've I spent
nine years at MaryvilleUniversity and that was my
longest stretch at a college,and I just, I loved it.
I loved every aspect of it.
What is it about Juta that youlove that makes it special,
(04:26):
that's kept you there this long?
Yeah.
I think, let's take the collegeout of it for a second.
You gotta love the work.
The college is certainly part ofthat, but you got to enjoy the
lifestyle that is a collegepresidency.
And fortunately, I had anexperience back in 2008, 2009
when I was interim president fora year.
(04:46):
And at my previous institution,Heidelberg University.
And so I had a I dabbled in it.
My kids were super young.
I was, gosh, how old?
I can't remember even how old Iwas maybe 38 years old at the
time when I was interimpresident.
So I had a chance to taste itbefore I was appointed here.
And you gotta be comfortablewith the visibility.
(05:10):
The, I think the breadth ofportfolio that comes with being
a college president and you justgotta, you've gotta just, agree
that, your life is on displayand you're gonna be dealing
with, a variety ofconstituencies that you know,
when you're a vice president,you've got.
Your particular area that you'redealing, whether it's student
(05:30):
life or financial or academic,when you're president, all those
things are part of yourportfolio, and you just gotta
know that you're gonna be askedto do a whole bunch of things.
But at the end of the day, Matt,it's about, and reading about
your background, I think you getthis, it has to be part of who
you are.
You gotta be authentic with thejob and just know that it's
(05:51):
gonna be.
Somewhat disruptive.
It's gonna be challenging, butit's also extremely rewarding.
And I think if you were to askRich the same thing, I mean it
was, that's what it comes downto for me.
I, there is enough in everyacademic year that is rewarding
enough where I feel I wanna keepdoing this work.
(06:13):
Yeah.
And that goes away is when thetime you need to fold the book
and say, I need to go findsomething else.
It's probably similar to being acoach, if the challenge is not
there anymore or the love ofwhat you do isn't there anymore,
then you've got a choice tomake.
And for me, I continue to lovethe work and part of that is the
environment that I'm in.
I.
(06:33):
I knew of Junior outta college.
I don't, didn't have anyrelationship with it prior to me
coming to be president here.
But the people here, the ethoshere the job that I get asked to
do, the board of trustees that Iwork with I.
Is I couldn't have asked foranything more.
Do I love every minute of it?
Of course not.
There's always moments whereyou're just like, yeah, why?
(06:55):
Why am I doing this?
Maybe I need to bereconsidering.
Then there are moment comesaround where you're like, okay,
that's why, and I.
It happens frequently.
I'm talking, even within an houror even within a day, I have
those extremes.
I think it's time to leaveversus I love what I do and I
can't wait to get my feet on theground tomorrow and come back to
work.
(07:15):
It's, that's just the nature ofthe work.
Yeah.
And you've gotta be ready forit.
And so I've been fortunateenough to been doing it now for
12 years and it's been a trueblessing and at a place that
I've come to to love as as aninstitution.
Yeah.
Yeah, I, I work with so manyfamilies and so many families
want their kids to go to PennState.
(07:36):
They want'em to go to, they want'em to go to Penn.
They want'em to go to Universityof Colorado where I live, and I
just say.
Just, I want you to look at, Iwant you to look at every level
of size of school.
Because I think you're gonna beamazed at what's there.
Everybody's, everybody sees theprice tag, everybody sees the
size of the school and theycan't put the pieces together on
(07:58):
what that experience is gonnalead to.
I had a great experience at cocollege in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
outside of Iowa.
Very few people know about COand when they start listing off
the alumni, they go, what?
They're just they're shocked byhow many.
People have gone on to suchgreat things from such a small
college.
You've been a college coach,you've been a vp, you've been a
(08:20):
director, now you're apresident, you're a dad.
What have all those things donefor you to make you the
president you are?
And how do you, are you usingthose tools today?
Are using those coaching tools,those dad tools, do you find
they're coming out in everythingyou're doing?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I, particularly the coachingpart.
(08:41):
I think more of what I dorelates to coaching than maybe
anything else because I've got ateam here, I've got a team of
vice presidents.
I work, I've got a team offaculty, I've got a team of
staff, I've got a team oftrustees, I've got team of
students here.
And it is, you're building anorganization, you're building a
successful team, and you've gotto, you've gotta know.
(09:06):
How to manage the differentpersonalities that are around
you.
So like a good coach, you can'tyell at.
This particular player andexpect one thing and yell at
this and expect the same thing.
Everybody has to be managed alittle bit differently and good
coaches get that.
Good coaches understand thenature of personalities and what
(09:28):
is going to ultimately lift thatteam to perform.
At the levels that you wouldexpect.
And same thing as a collegepresident, I have to manage each
of my VPs a little bitdifferently.
I have to manage my board alittle bit differently.
I have to manage my faculty alittle bit differently.
And my experiences at a youngage of coaching, also being a
student athlete absolutelyessential to my leadership
(09:49):
style.
No, no question about it.
I think Matt, if I were todiscern a little bit about all
those experiences.
I would say you've just gotta beauthentic in who you are.
Look at some of our best coachesout there and some of the
interesting personalities.
They are authentic people.
Whether you're a Bill Belichickor a Nick Saban or a Gene R ema,
(10:12):
those coaches are real.
They don't pretend to be anybodythat they're different.
And the reason I think my, my,my understanding of it would be
that these jobs, collegepresident, coach of a major
program, coach of a divisionthree program, they're
difficult, demanding positionsand you better.
(10:34):
Be authentic in who you are.
Otherwise your team will seethrough you, your campus
community will see through you.
And so why not just be yourself?
And it is what it is.
And I, that's try I've tried tolive that as long as I've held
this job.
I didn't come up through theacademic ladder.
IEI was not a faculty member.
I did not become a dean.
(10:55):
I was on the administrativeroute.
And I, when I interviewed here.
I talked about that.
Listen, if you're looking for aleader in the administrative
space that believes that canlead a, an organization like
Junior Outta College, I'm yourguy.
If you're looking for anacademic voice, somebody who
understands faculty culture toits core, I'm probably not your
person.
So I led with an authenticityand really understanding what I
(11:19):
can bring to the table.
And Juliana is either gonna takethat or not.
And I think.
That's important for anyposition that you seek is just
to be who you are.
And if it's not the right fit,then it's not the right fit.
But if you can't be who you are,it's not gonna be successful at
the end of the day.
Matt.
That's probably one of thebiggest learnings I had as a
(11:40):
young professional and seeingand learning from great mentors.
And I think if you ask anycoach, every successful coach
has had both.
Extraordinary mentors that theywanted to learn from, but they
also learned from the bad onesthat they've served under too.
As did there are people andsupervisors that I've had that
(12:01):
weren't great and you'll learnas much from them, but you gotta
lean into that and understandwhat you take from each of those
experiences so you can developyour own authentic leadership
style.
I love it.
And for me, when I'm talking toa 16 or 17-year-old, one of the
first questions I always askthem when we're talking about
that college experience theywant, I go, do you want to go
(12:23):
someplace that already has aproven legacy?
Or do you want to go somewhereand create that legacy?
And it's always love it.
The light bulb goes off and Igo, yeah, I never thought about
that.
I've never thought about, I onlycan look at who just won a
national championship on TV orwho just did this and go, I
wanna be a part of that.
And I love getting a 16,7-year-old to go, oh, I could go
(12:45):
somewhere and create that.
I could be the first to do that.
And well, Koch College Junioroutta college, a lot of the
institutions like ours.
You are not a spectator at ourinstitutions, right?
You are on the court, on, on thefield doing that work.
You are in the game as I talkall the time about to our
prospective students.
(13:05):
If you don't wanna be aparticipant, we are probably not
the place for you, right?
Go to a Penn State, a pit, someof these larger institutions and
listen, those are wonderfulinstitutions.
That's not a knock on it, it'sjust a different type of
institution.
Bigger institutions, you'regonna be in classrooms with six,
700 kids.
And some people learn betterthan that.
(13:26):
That's not who we are.
Yeah.
And if that's the experiencethat you want that's where you
should go.
But here, excuse me, we.
We expect our students to beparticipants.
We expect everybody to be on thecourt and on the field playing
the game.
That is a giata collegeeducation and we don't shy from
that.
That's just part of our DNA.
(13:47):
Yeah, there's not a lot ofplaces to hide at places like
Code and Giata or the those oursrichest.
And that's part of the whatmakes I think us unique and
special and different is thatthe relationships that you
develop, the, that's part of ouridentity and ethos and culture
are those.
Relational aspects of ourinstitution because we have 13,
(14:10):
1400 students.
We get to know our students.
I, when I'm shaking hands of ourgraduates out here on the quad,
I know where they came from.
I know who their parents are.
I know their particular journey,and that's what we talked a
little bit about what keeps mehere.
That's special.
I want relationships.
I wanna know.
Our graduates, and I wanna knowthat I'm gonna maintain
(14:33):
relationships beyond the wallsof geneal College in their four
years here.
So I'm going to an eventtomorrow in Pittsburgh.
We're doing these little,they're called Troja Tap House
events.
We're going to breweries andwe're just getting together and
socializing and having abeverage with one another.
And I'm getting to connect withour alumni, a lot of our younger
alumni in these areas.
(14:53):
We did one in Hershey and Phillyand Pittsburgh and go DC.
That's great.
These are opportunities toconnect and continue to build
the relationships that are soimportant for our type of
institutions.
Yeah, and I want every collegeI.
To pursue someone like you orrich Dunsworth, because you guys
get it.
You understand It's about therelationships.
It's about how we treat people.
(15:15):
It's about, for sure.
It's about more than what welearned in the math classroom
in, in the biology c thosethings are essential to go to
college.
Yes.
I tell kids this all the time.
I go, when I graduated fromcollege, I played college
basketball.
I was an ra.
I was a student assistant.
I was student body president,and.
This my spring semester of mysenior year, I had the president
(15:38):
of the college, the vicepresident of enrollment, the
Dean of students and theDirector of Residence Life were
all making calls for me to helpme get a job.
Yeah.
I go where else could I havedone that?
Where else would tho would Ihave even have met those people
to have a relationship withthem?
Yeah.
I just had a, to that point, Ihad a Zoom call yesterday with
one of our student athletes.
Who's applying for an NCAAinternship.
(16:01):
And he wanted to talk with meabout my NCAA experience and how
it might work and what heshould, think about relative to
interviewing for that.
And to your point, I just didthat yesterday.
Sean just emailed me and said,Hey, president Trump, would you
mind chatting with me aboutthis?
Of course.
This is the nature of what wedo.
And if you're a collegepresident and that doesn't
(16:21):
excite you, then you're in thewrong, you're in the wrong
business.
By the way, I mean your pointaround skills and what you
learned in the classroom andoutside.
I was just talking about this tosome students at the end of the
last semester, do you know thatthe top 10 skills that employers
want today out of graduates.
(16:42):
Nine out of the 10 that theylisted have nothing to do with
the knowledge attainment.
What took place in theclassroom?
Why not?
It's crazy.
It was about teamwork,leadership, good judgment,
attitude, respect.
Communication skills, all ofthose, what I would call
essential skills, what we usedto call soft skills, these
(17:03):
intangibles, Matt, theintangibles is what is developed
at places like Giata that Ithink separates our graduates
from other graduates.
That we spend time on thoseskills because it's grounded in
the relationships that we havewith our students, our faculty,
our staff.
(17:24):
Peer to peer.
We take seriously the attainmentof those intangibles and making
sure that.
They're challenged if they don'thave'em, that by the time they
graduate, we gotta make surethat they're tested on some of
these skills, because that'swhat corporations are seeking.
They want good humans.
(17:45):
They want humans who can look ateach other in the eye, shake
their hands, talk about beingpositive, talk about, their
colleagues with the rightattitude.
They'll train them in some ofthe specific skill sets that
they want.
And so these intangibles, Ibelieve, is what separates
small, private residential,small liberal arts schools like
(18:08):
the ones you and I are familiarwith.
I, I've got a, I've got athousand.
Sorry about the commercial I'vegot.
No it's fantastic.
It's the right message for anyfamily or teacher or guidance
counselor that's listening tothis to understand.
They have to be open-minded.
They have to understand thatthere's that perfect fit for
(18:28):
them, that home for them may notbe what they expect, and it's so
worth the time to look.
I've got a thousand differentquestions I can go based on what
we just talked about, but I wantto talk about Yeah.
Athletics itself within thatcapacity, because I talked to so
many presidents that came upthat academic route to be
president.
Yeah.
That, and I hate to say it theway I'm gonna say it, but I
(18:51):
don't have a better way to sayit.
They don't quite understand howathletics affects their college.
They don't understand.
What an a really strong athleticdepartment does for the big
picture, the long term, theendowment, the retention, all
those things that we all want.
How campus vibrancy, spirit.
Yes.
Alumni engagement, all of that.
(19:12):
All those things, right?
Yeah.
How do you see your athleticdepartment?
In terms of how you use it, howyou market it, what it means to
the big picture of what you'reable to do as the president.
Talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, so a couple things on thisman, and it's a great, it's a
great point.
(19:34):
I wanna be careful.
What I say here,'cause I don'tmean it.
I what you're saying, I haveseen in spades in terms of my
colleagues at my level who don'tunderstand it.
And quite frankly, many of'emdon't wanna understand it and
which is just a miss on theirpart.
There's a lot of schools likeours that, you're talking.
(19:56):
35, 40, 40 5% of theirundergraduates at schools.
If you're under 1500 students,you might be having your student
athlete base being close to halfof your population.
And so how do you not understandwhat's taking place in that
space?
That's number one.
Number two and this is thedownside of somebody like myself
(20:18):
who came from.
As being a student athlete, butalso came from a little bit of
athletics where I've supervisedathletics as a former dean of
students and VP for studentlife.
And it is this, that my faculty,not all my faculty, and I'm
gonna, I'm gonna generalizehere, thinks I spend too much
time with athletics.
They think it, it's.
It distracts me.
(20:38):
They think that I spend too muchmoney on athletics.
They think I don't care aboutthe academics because I love
sports and I love athletics.
They think that my prioritiesare a little outta whack.
Now, I'm not saying thateverybody does, but the feedback
that I sometimes get mad as acollege president is that my
priorities are miss if I careabout athletics.
(21:01):
That's probably why some collegepresidents maybe don't lean as
heavily in it as I do.
But we, if we go back to wherewe started this conversation
around authenticity, I can'thide the fact that I grew up as
a student athlete.
I was a coach at some point.
I supervise athletics.
I tend to believe that whattakes place in the.
(21:22):
Athletic space is great trainingfor real life.
Whether it's a discipline,taking care of your body, taking
care of your mind, being part ofa team, being collaborative,
partnering with your peers,learning from coaches.
We know, you and I know peoplewho are listening to this often
know the power of being part ofa team and how it relates to
(21:44):
real life.
And so I don't apologize forthat part of who I am as an
academic.
As, or as a college president,it's just, I have a passion for
it.
And if they think my prioritiesare misaligned, then so be it.
I know that academics is thecore of what we do.
(22:04):
It's why we exist is to makesure our students graduate,
prepare to lead in a particularcareer.
I know in my heart of hearts, Iknow that, and athletics is
secondary to that.
It doesn't mean that it can't bean important part of who we are
as an institution, and I feellike I have an obligation to
(22:26):
make sure that it has therightful place in our
environment and that I supportour student athletes.
I support our coaches, and oh,by the way, I.
It contributes a huge amount toour enrollment.
It contributes a huge amount tothe campus spirit that we have
here, to the alumni donationsthat we have here.
And if I look around my campus,I've got tennis courts, I've got
(22:47):
gymnasiums, I've got lacrossefields, I've got other we spend
a tremendous amount of resourcesin this space.
So how is it not an importantpart of who we are and what we
do?
I'll just say that.
It's amazing in my work at, partof Division three presidents
Council of how many collegepresidents just don't wanna lean
(23:09):
into the work that we do withstudent athletics or athletics
as a, as an entity.
I, let me just end on this.
I think you can be an excellentacademic institution and also
be.
Hyper competitive and be a greatathletic institution at the same
time.
Those things are not mutuallyexclusive in my judgment.
(23:31):
And you only need to look atschools like Stanford and Notre
Dame or Williams and Amherst.
These are, the NECA as aconference.
You're talking about the, thetop, echelon of academic
institutions and yet they care agreat deal about how they
perform.
From an athletic perspective, itdoesn't mean they don't care
about their academics.
(23:52):
And so I say all the time, Iwant both.
I wanna be known academically,but there's no reason why we
can't have a great academicreputation and care a great deal
about the competitiveness of allof our sports.
Those, to me, it's not like youhave to sacrifice one for
another.
I think you can do'em both.
I did my early coaching in theSLI in St.
(24:12):
Louis.
And I got to coach against FBA UCollege and it, and then it
became FBA University.
They just closed their doors.
Yeah.
We're seeing more and more ofthese colleges close their doors
and the more I dig, the more Italk to the administration
that's leaving that's having toclose those doors and find new
jobs, the more it was about theycouldn't fill their beds.
(24:35):
And as somebody that'stransitioned from a college
athletic director and a collegecoach to now a consultant for
small colleges.
I want to pull my hair out whenI hear that.
Because you have the beautifulfields like you have the
gymnasium.
A small D three can have 300kids that are just athletes in
(24:56):
your dorms.
400 kids.
Yeah.
If you've got a football team.
I don't like using this as anargument.
When we're talking to faculty,they're arguing about how much
time we put into athletics, butat the end of the day, the
average small school is making,what?
12,000 in revenue from astudent?
(25:18):
14, 15,000.
Somewhere in that world you'renot too far off.
Yeah.
If a coach is bringing in 2030kids for their roster every
year, let's just start there.
Yeah.
Multiply that times 12,000.
Is your history professor, yourcalculus professor doing any
recruiting to bring kids intothe classroom?
Some of'em are.
(25:39):
Some of them are, yeah.
But not as the due diligence asyour coaches have to go find
those kids in Arizona,California.
Now that's part one.
Tell me how much fun yourmarketing and publicity team
have when your volleyball teamkicks everybody's butt in the
country year after year, and isin every paper on ESPN.
(26:00):
Yeah.
How much would you have to payto get that type of publicity?
Yeah.
We our our own Olivia Foley wasjust in New York City.
'Cause she was the Honda.
Sports Division three athlete ofthe year of all sports.
And so Junior outta college wason a national stage with CBS
sports next to Paige Becker's.
So the answer is, we can't wewouldn't be able to afford that
(26:22):
kind of publicity.
Yes.
To your point and when I amintroduced often in the NCAA
world.
And they see, oh, trau Junioroutta college, your volleyball
team.
That's how people know about me.
It's not necessarily my successas a college president or as D
three, chair or on the Board ofGovernors.
It's our volleyball team thatbrings me notoriety.
(26:43):
I love it.
I wish it would happen moreoften in some other sports.
But volleyball has beenincredibly important for us.
Yeah.
And guess what?
Our student athletes going backto the importance of that,
they're some of our beststudents.
Yes.
There, these are our grade pointaverage for our athletes is
higher than our non-athletegrade point average.
(27:05):
So it's not like they're comingin and poorly performing and
having a negative and downwardpull on our academic profile.
It's just the opposite.
Yeah.
So what's funny, I just talkedto Paul Dill, who's the
volleyball coach at MIT and hetells me the same thing.
He goes, Matt, our volleyballkids outperform our regular
students.
Yes.
At MIT.
Yes.
(27:25):
They, it's same as here.
Yeah.
They're great kids.
It goes to what we talked about,Matt, is, which is they learn at
that level of performance.
They learn the importance oftime management.
Yes.
And discipline and what it takesto be.
Successful not just on thevolleyball court, but in life,
in the classroom.
(27:45):
And those skills are taught bycoaches.
Yes.
And so it goes back to those 10skills you were talking about,
the corporate Americas, right?
That's right.
That's right.
Alright, I'd be remiss if Ididn't jump into the D three
President's Council with you.
Yep.
You're the chair.
Tell me what's.
What are two or three of thethings that you're talking about
(28:07):
in the President's Council?
With all the craziness that'sgoing on at the division one
level, that we're gonna feel thetrickle down through all
colleges and universities.
Yeah, the lawsuits andeverything.
Even though as a D threepresident, as a D three coach,
we still may not have to dealwith the NIL issue.
We still may not have to dealwith the portal a whole lot.
What are you discussing that momand dad and?
(28:32):
In the middle of the countryhave to be thinking about when
they're thinking about sendingtheir kid to college.
Yeah.
Couple things immediately cometo mind and I think about the
mental health challenges I.
It's happening at all levels.
It's not D three specific, butwhat we have seen in the last,
five plus years, I think itpreceded COVID.
I think COVID exacerbated someof the challenges that our
(28:55):
students have about theiremotional health and wellbeing.
We are seeing it on at thestudent athlete level that it's,
it, students have to sometimes.
Get a pause from their sport todeal with mental health
challenges.
So how does the NCAA supportthat?
How do we as institutions,athletic departments, support
(29:16):
our students?
And, I'll tell you that theinteresting thing and it's
happening with our faculty aswell.
And that is that our coaches.
Or being asked to not just becoaches.
They're asked to be therapists.
They're asked to be friends withour students because the
students don't know where elseto go.
So they go to familiar places.
(29:38):
And those tend to be theircoaches.
It tends to be their trainers,tends to be the faculty.
And boy, I'm not saying it neverexisted before, but it seems to
be a role that our coaches arehaving to play today.
At levels that exceed probablywhat we want our coaches to be
doing.
They're not trained to betherapists, but they're being
(30:00):
asked to manage mental healthconcerns at levels that, that
are probably just notcomfortable anymore for our
coaches.
I hear a lot.
We see it a lot.
So the ncaa we're trying toprovide resources in ways that,
weren't available years ago.
I.
And so we, there, there arenumerous solutions that we're
(30:21):
talking about at the NCAA levelright now.
There's online solutions.
There's training that ishappening right now for our
coaches to manage this, makingsure that students know where to
go if they've got issues relatedto mental health.
So that's, that would be a bigone for us.
Something that I knew washappening, but at the broader
(30:42):
national level, I had no idea.
How pervasive the challengesthat our student athletes were
faced today.
So that's number one.
Number two would be sportsbetting.
Major issue on our agenda of howwe manage this.
I think everybody can agree thatthe the nature of sports
betting, what's happening withour student athletes at all
(31:03):
levels is getting a bit unwieldyand at times very, uncomfortable
for our athletes, particularlywhen there's sports prop betting
that's happening.
I'm sure you're familiar withprop betting free throws, number
of free throws, somebody willmake or miss and this and that.
And President Baker has beenvery clear about NCAA stance on
(31:24):
that in trying to eliminate thatbecause.
The pressure that it puts ondivision one players on their
campuses when it comes to someof this prop, beding, you can
imagine where this goes.
Yeah.
And it, it just it's just anugly part of some of the
business that we're in withsports gambling right now.
So a lot of conversationhappening around sports betting
(31:48):
that's not too dissimilar to,the use of marijuana and some of
the drugs that used to be offlimits.
So right now we're trying tosocialize concepts around sports
betting so we can better educateour students on sports betting.
And, so those two issues rightnow are top of mind.
(32:09):
The other one to probably alesser extent, but something you
mentioned earlier, which wasaround colleges closing and
conference alignment.
Is becoming more and morechallenging as you.
Yes.
You probably have seen schoolsopt outta one conference, join
another conference, and, oh, youhave this school closing now you
got a conference of fiveschools.
(32:30):
Now their EQ is gone.
What do we do?
I.
How does the rural nature ofthese closures impacting
conferences and studentathletes' ability to compete at
the highest levels?
So it's just something thatwe're trying to get an
understanding of.
I think the NIL conversation andthe expense that is now
associated with that, St.
(32:52):
Francis in our backyard movedfrom D one to D three.
I would, venture to guess, thereare a lot of other institutions
that are.
Considering what a differentmodel might look like for
athletics at the D one levelbecause of NIL, because of some
of the changes that arehappening there, can they afford
to be playing in that spaceversus maybe playing at D 2D
(33:13):
three?
So I think, I don't have to tellyou.
It's a really critical time.
Across the NCAA and collegeathletics.
Right now I think the housesettlement is gonna provide some
stability for the.
The number of schools that areplaying in that space.
But I think at Division threeand to some extent, division
(33:34):
two, the rest of us are reallytrying to understand how do we
continue to provide theexperience that our students and
parents expect today, wheretheir students are having a
positive experience, that theyultimately will get their degree
in the timeframe that they wantand they expect.
I totally agree.
Those are some of the thingsthat I would say are high on the
(33:57):
list and they're also important.
The they're all, none of it canbe brushed under the rug or say,
we can deal with this tomorrow,ev everything.
And I, and you tell me if I'mwrong, it seems like the biggest
issue the NCAA had, has had forso many years.
It's not, do we have good ideasand the right mission and a
(34:17):
great vision?
It's.
How do we enforce it?
How do we get, sports betting?
How do we enforce it?
How, how, what kind of body dowe need?
Do we need an ncaa FBI do weneed our own?
There's so many things that Idon't think the average person
understands the challengesyou're facing as a president.
(34:39):
It's not that you don't have a,a path.
It's how do we enforce thatpath?
Am I wrong?
No, you're not wrong.
The NCAA has some things inplace to monitor some sports
betting.
And it, that, that will be everincreasing because of the the
proliferation of gambling andthe number of states that offer
(35:01):
the ability to gamble on collegesports.
Yes.
So looking at sports betting andwhat you can and cannot do, and
the enforcement of that isproblematic.
There there's no question aboutit.
Yeah, there, there's, andthere's so many things that we
have to enforce.
It's, coaches trying to stealkids from other schools.
And once you sign your nationalletter of intent, how do we keep
coaches from talking to thosekids or throwing, money now that
(35:23):
seems available around thecorner.
So there, there's so many thingsthat I don't even wanna get into
today that we can have a wholenother podcast on.
Just for that, I do, before weclose this down.
This part of our conversation.
And again, I'm so thankful thatyou did this where I'm, I could
go on and on.
I want to talk back to yourmental health challenges we were
(35:44):
talking about for these kids.
And without getting intopolitics, and I'm akay, if you
want to be as vague as you wantto be with this, and I
understand the pressure thatyou're under, I want to talk
about how we protect these kidsthat are.
In that DEI world that's beingattacked.
(36:04):
Yeah.
How do we protect these transkids?
How do we protect theseL-G-B-T-Q kids?
Because that's gotta be a majorconcern for any president when
it comes to mental healthchallenges for their students
and their student athletes.
How do we do that?
How does Matt Rogers sitting inhis house.
(36:24):
How does the president of juniorcollege, how do we do this
together to make sure these kidsknow they're loved and know
they're accepted and thatthere's a place for them?
Boy that's a great, it's a greatquestion and something that we
manage every, almost everysingle day, and it's becoming
more complicated and troublesomebecause of what's happening at
(36:46):
the federal level.
My very first, so I was.
Appointed to the Board ofGovernors in the fall.
My very first meeting wasshortly thereafter shortly after
President Trump declared thatthere were, primarily two
genders.
And.
The ncaa, as shortly after thataligned its practices with what
(37:10):
was coming out of the federalgovernment, that there was male
sports and female sports.
Which was a really interestingconversation, my very first
board of Governors.
I can imagine, yeah.
Conversation in action.
And I just wanted, I wanted, Ididn't say much during that
meeting, of course.
I was just listening to how wewere managing that.
Some of it obviously was around.
(37:33):
A legal perspective of what wewere permitted to do.
Now that the federal governmentcame down to say that, there's
male and female sports with theconflict that we knew, the
different campuses that we allsit at, knowing that's a
different model than what maybeis being asked of us from our
(37:55):
students.
But here's the thing.
So I, I think the ncaa, my ownopinion was that it was doing
the right thing in aligningitself what was happening with
the federal government becauseit was protecting its core work
as an NCAA body.
I think if we hadn't done that,there would've been lawsuits and
there would've been a lot ofother legal challenges and it
(38:16):
wouldn't have just been healthy.
So how do we take.
The model that we have and dowhat you are suggesting, which
is to support and make sure weunderstand the needs of all of
our student athletes howeverthey are defining themselves.
And I would say that you do thatI, on your individual campuses
(38:36):
to know that those students areembraced.
Included in ways that makes themfeel whole at your particular
campus, even though thecompetition may look a little
bit differently.
Now, we also have to understand,Matt, that it's a very small,
those who have chosen to lettheir campuses know that they
(38:57):
are trans.
It's a very small number, and I,it's, I don't even wanna suggest
what that number is, but it'sless than half of 1%, right?
Something along those lines.
And the number of athletes thatit, it's a very small number.
It doesn't mean that there's nota lot of other athletes who just
haven't come out and said whothey are and what they're about.
(39:18):
Some would argue that, we'retalking about something that
affects a very small minority ofstudents I know at my campus
that it's much larger and morepervasive than anybody wants to
quite admit.
So you have to have coaches, youhave to have policies on your
campus that make sure thatsupports those students in any
way possible.
(39:38):
And we've tried to do that hereand I know a lot of other
college presidents are wrestlingwith this sort of incongruence
that we have of what we, I.
No is right from a humanperspective, but trying to abide
by the letter of the law of whatthe NCAA requires and what the
federal government has said thatwe need to do.
All that said, Matt, I do thinkit's a really interesting
(40:00):
dialogue around the health andsafety of athletes when we talk
about trans participation,particularly when you talk about
biological men performing inwomen's sports and whether or
not that's.
There's some safety issues thatwe need to be concerned about.
And I think it's not in everysport, but I do think there are
(40:22):
moments where it's it's probablya absolutely right conversation
to have about the safety of theparticipants.
When you talk about biologicalmen participating in women's
athletics.
Yeah.
Volleyball being one of them.
Yeah.
It's, we saw last, I think itwas last year, right out in the
(40:43):
west in I dunno if it was SanDiego State, somebody had a
trans player and there wereteams that refused to play that
team.
And in that conference becausethey had a biological male
playing women's volleyball andthis person was towering over
players and hitting balls atrates that were not safe.
(41:05):
That's my understanding of it.
That's my understanding too.
I know you're talking aboutYeah.
I think that's a fairconversation.
Yeah.
And so how do you have bothwhere you're trying to be
inclusive, but you're alsotrying to look out what's in the
best interest of your studentathletes?
It's why you and I want every18-year-old to go to college for
four years.
(41:25):
Yes.
We want you to go get a degreeand learn something, but we also
want you to learn the worldisn't black and white.
Complicated.
There isn't complic, there isn'ta wrong and a right for every
answer no matter what.
Yes, we have politicians thatwant to tell us that there's a
black and white, there's not.
There's a whole lot of gray.
I, and you need that empathy.
You need to learn that empathy.
You need to learn that there'speople that are different than
(41:48):
us and we have to understand whythey're different than us and
give them the respect of whatthey're trying to do.
Yeah.
We've gotta listen to ourstudent athletes.
We want to be fair.
From a competitivenessstandpoint, yeah.
We, at the same time wanna beinclusive and accepting for
wherever you are coming from interms of your sexual
orientation.
And all, I, all I can say as acollege president is that it's
(42:11):
extremely complicated.
Yeah.
And I.
There's not a lot.
I love your the black andwhiteness of it that people want
doesn't exist.
That's right.
And so it's just reallychallenging space and I feel,
blessed and honored that I havean opportunity to have these
(42:33):
kinds of dialogue conversationsat the highest level with the
ncaa because I feel like.
I, I wanna learn myself of thebest things to do, but I also
want to help as many studentathletes, as many
administrators, as many collegepresence as I can in trying to
bring information that could behelpful to managing this at the
(42:55):
level of individualinstitutions.
And so we're not gonna get itright all the time.
Matt, that's, yeah, that's justthe reality.
I think we just need more peoplein your chair.
To continue to say, we welcomeeveryone, we want everyone to be
safe and healthy.
We want everybody to have anopportunity.
And it all goes back to thatrights.
(43:16):
We want everybody to be able topursue that happiness and that
health and a happy life.
And I think the more people inyour chair are doing what you're
doing and saying that out loudwe're gonna respect everybody.
We're gonna care for everybody.
Are there gonna be rules we haveto follow?
Are there gonna be conversationswe're gonna have?
Absolutely.
Yeah, we want everybody to havethat opportunity to go to
college and have a greatexperience.
You bet.
(43:36):
And it's not gonna be perfect,but, it's we want to, we wanna
try to do what's right.
All right.
I promise you that was the lastquestion for this segment, but
I'm gonna ask you one more'causeI, this is important to me.
A how do we and this could beanother full podcast and you can
be as brief with this as youwant.
(43:56):
How do we as colleges anduniversities, how do we do a
better job of teaching an18-year-old how to be an adult,
how to be a learner, and whenthey walk off your campus better
prepared to get a job, get anapartment, save some money and
(44:20):
be able to walk out of thereknowing.
I know what I'm doing.
I've been taught how to do this.
How do we do that at the collegelevel?
And I know I just asked you aquestion.
We can talk for an hour, but howdo we do that?
Boy, I.
You may not like my answer onthis, Matt.
(44:41):
I might be a little bit of acontrarian in this case, and I'm
okay with it.
I, and I'm not even sure wherethis comes from.
Maybe it's, I'd have to do somesoul searching, but I, and I a
little reflective on maybe how Iwas brought up and the, maybe
the discipline that I have formy parents.
I don't.
(45:02):
So I don't think it flies in theface of what I talked about
before that.
I feel like I have an obligationto help in this space.
Without question.
I believe our faculty have anobligation to help in the space.
I believe our coaches shouldhelp in this space, but I also
think the accountability shouldrest with the individuals that
are choosing our environments.
(45:24):
I think.
I think we have left.
I think we had, we have leftthem off the hook.
Let the students off the hook interms of accepting and embracing
some personal accountabilityabout that journey.
Yeah.
And about the developing ofthose skills that I've got three
(45:46):
kids, 26, 24, 22, and I, ofcourse.
Want to parent them and helpthem in any ways that I can.
But I also believe in that it isnow their journey.
And when they were in college,my wife and I, large part, we
(46:08):
were hands off.
We, they, they had if they hadstruggles, they couldn't get
into classes, they had, hardtimes getting rooms selected.
Figure it out.
If you fall and you skin yourknee, so be it.
You're gonna learn next time tolook while you're walking, and
Matt, I, to answer yourquestion, I think already too
(46:33):
much is asked of those of us whoare in this space.
Yeah.
And I do think there needs to besome.
More accountability ondeveloping those skills on your
own.
Read more.
Learn more.
Get off your phone.
(46:54):
Join clubs.
Learn to fail experiment.
Get uncomfortable by going to adifferent country.
We shouldn't have to say ourstudents get on a plane and go
and get uncomfortable and studyabroad.
We do.
But.
They should understand that'spart and parcel of their
development.
Now, can we facilitate that?
(47:15):
Of course, but I guess my, myyou asked me about how do we do
it, boy I think we, we haveprobably coddled more than we
should, and now's the time to.
Expect more.
(47:36):
Yeah.
I think we need to expect more.
It's not black and white and notonly do I like your answer, I
just had this conversation withmy wife and my 16-year-old
daughter yesterday, so it's myjob to make sure she can be an
adult when she leaves my houseand she knows when she leaves my
house, she's gonna be an adult.
(47:57):
Yeah, which right now she has acar, she has a license.
When you leave this house,you're responsible for you.
Will we help you?
Will we advise you?
Yes.
So I'm with you.
I think it starts with theparents.
I think it starts at home.
I think, right?
We can, this is why we can talkforever, because I think, yes,
the conversation moves beforethey come to our campuses of
what is happening or what is nothappening.
(48:20):
Yes.
In K through 12 education,what's happening in the home,
what's happening in our owncommunities, our churches?
That's, we can talk about that.
We are in receipt of what ishappening or not happening
before they join our campuscommunities.
And so we can have thatconversation and quite frankly,
(48:41):
it's a little bit too late.
It's a little bit too late whenwe get'em.
That's right.
That's right.
All I.
I think we probably aren'thelping ourselves.
I'm talking at the college levelwhen we try to do a lot of
things for'em.
I agree.
I agree.
I think we've gotta do a betterjob of giving them the
(49:03):
expectations and then holdingthem accountable for their
outcomes and their behavior andthe socialization that they
have.
We need to facilitate it.
I'm not suggesting you just let'em go, but boy.
I'm, I don't hear a lot ofpeople talking about this.
Matt and I think it's incumbentupon us.
(49:23):
We've got an obligation to helpthese students grow more and
deeper than maybe and we don'tgive them probably enough credit
that they can do it.
We just do a lot of things for'em.
If you're up for it, I'm gonnainvite you back here in the next
couple months and I'd like tocontinue this conversation, but
(49:44):
I promise you an hour and we'regonna have the shortest
recruiting podcast ever here ina low for Monday.
But thank you for your timetoday, and thank you for giving
me five more minutes to talkabout recruiting on Monday.
You bet.
What a conversation Dr.
James Troja reminded us todaythat leadership in higher
education and in life isn'tabout comfort.
(50:04):
It's about courage.
It's about standing in the messymiddle of complex issues and
choosing empathy over ego.
Whether we're talking aboutaccountability, mental health,
DEI, or the role of athletics ineducation, Dr.
Jim brought the kind of honestyand conviction we need more of
in this world.
These issues don't come witheasy answers.
(50:25):
But that's exactly why we mustkeep talking about them with
humility, with perspective, anda heart for all young people,
not just the ones who look,think, or believe like we do.
If today's episode challenged orencouraged, you, do me a favor,
follow the show, hit subscribeand forward this episode to
someone who might need to hearit, a coach, a parent, a
(50:48):
teammate, a leader.
Let's keep this conversationgoing, and if you haven't
already, head over to coach mattrogers.com.
That's where you'll find thetools and guidance to help you
build a healthier, smarter, andmore significant path.
Whether you're a familynavigating the recruiting
process, a coach buildingculture, or a school looking for
leadership development, checkout my books, like Significant
(51:10):
Recruiting, the Recruits Journaland my online recruiting
classes, all built to simplifythe journey and support student
athletes at every level.
You can also sign up for my freenewsletter, where I share weekly
recruiting insights.
College athletics updates, newresources, and behind the scenes
news about future book launchesand free tools.
(51:30):
And don't forget to come backMonday for part two of this
conversation with PresidentTroja.
We'll shift into the recruitingspace.
Yes, with a college president.
Talking about it, talking aboutDivision three, what families
often miss, and how to thinkdifferently about building a
college opportunity.
That fits for you.
Hey, thanks for listening.
(51:50):
Keep leading with purpose and asalways lead with significance.
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