Ask Jason Corley what he does for a living, and he won't lead with "athletic director." He'll tell you he's a life coach who happens to run an athletics department. I couldn't agree more, and that reframe set the tone for our entire "Inside the AD Playbook" conversation.
We got into purpose, problem-solving, leading through change, innovation. Listen to our session and you can tell Jason doesn't do anything halfway. Here are just a few parts of that conversation worth passing along here.
Part life coach, part "front porch" of the district
When I asked Jason what he believes the real job of an AD is, underneath the schedules and the logistics everyone assumes make up the role, he didn't describe himself as an administrator. He called himself a life coach.
"We're teaching lessons that aren't being taught in the classroom," he said. Athletics, in his opinion, set the tone for an entire building. Athletic directors are "the front porch of every school district," according to Jason. Their presence can change the dynamic of a school's hallways before a single class period even starts.
"We're teaching lessons that aren't being taught in the classroom."
He was pointed about what that responsibility actually means day to day. "We give kids hope," he said.
Youth sports is an industry he described as worth a trillion dollars and only getting harder to access affordably for families. That's why, in his view, ADs end up teaching parents right alongside their kids.
Three things he refuses to compromise on
When I asked Jason to name what separates a high-performing AD from an average one, he didn't hesitate. He gave me three specific commitments.
The first is a mindset about hours. "You got to work outside the school for your job hours," he told me. Trying to do this job on a nine-to-five clock is "fooling yourself."
The second is that every decision runs through the kids, not the adults. He put it to his own coaches directly: "I love you, but you get paid to be here now." That means a hot gym gets air conditioning for the athletes' comfort, not the coach's, and a practice schedule bends to what's right for players, not what's convenient for staff.
The third is intentionality, especially with parents. Jason calls every parent on a new roster before the season starts, just to introduce himself. When a hard conversation eventually happens, the parent already has a relationship to fall back on rather than, as he described it, a readiness to go on the offensive.
Don't dwell on problems — solve them and keep moving
Jason's approach to adversity starts with language. "Things are only a problem when you put it in the universe," he told me, and he means that almost literally. Talking a setback into a bigger deal than it needs to be is, in his experience, what turns it into one.
He tries to instill the same instinct in his athletes: officials are always going to get blamed first when something goes wrong. He takes that excuse off the table before the season even starts. "Get up and let's make the next play," is how he put it to his teams — and it's the same posture he takes with coaches, parents, and staff.
That proactive streak shows up everywhere in how he runs his department, right down to a weekly video message he now records for the community, walking parents through district policy before they ever have a reason to call him confused or upset. "I try to beat them to the punch," he said, rather than clean up a misunderstanding after the fact.
Where systems come in
Jason was refreshingly candid about how he ended up using Bound in the first place. His New Jersey conference of 48 athletic directors had all switched away from Arbiter together, landing on a different platform that most of the group stuck with. Jason didn't.
"I'm the lone fish," he said. He made the jump to Bound instead, mostly because he'd heard me talk about it long before his conference's software problems ever came up.
He didn't hold back on what's actually changed for him day to day. And he's still discovering new tools all the time, including Bound's ability to generate a printable calendar.
Bound's ticketing scanners are another thing that stood out to him. "It makes it thinkless for my event workers to scan people in," he said. He also appreciates Bound's school website, comparing it to a college athletics site.
When his conference colleagues have pressed him on how he feels about Bound, his answer hasn't changed: "I love it. I love it. I truly do love it."
What to take from this
Jason's version of the job isn't defined by how much he personally gets done. It's the hope he gives kids, the standards he refuses to bend on, and the discipline to solve a problem instead of sitting in it.
Pick whichever of those speaks to where your own program is right now, and take it back to your building this week.
This conversation also got into the academic accountability program Jason built from scratch — a checkpoint system tied directly to grades that's helped all but eliminate the one-sport athlete at his school, backed by data he's used to bring skeptical parents around.
Want the full conversation? Watch the on-demand webinar: Inside the AD Playbook — 5 Things High-Performing New Jersey Athletic Directors Do Differently, with Jason Corley.
