By the time you've been an athletic director for a while, you've usually figured out — through plenty of trial and error — what you wish someone had told you on day one.
During our panel conversation on how to build a sustainable AD career, I asked our group a question: knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your first- or second-year AD self?
I gave them about 30 seconds each. Here's what they said.
"Never forget the privilege"
Kevin Fitzgerald went first, and he didn't hesitate: "Never forget the impact that you're blessed to have in this role."
He believes an athletic director might be the most influential person in an entire school building — think about how many lives you touch on a given day: students, staff, coaches, the whole community.
For some kids, their connection to school isn't a class. It's their sport, their club, their fine arts program. And you're the one making that possible.
His second piece of advice was just as direct: take care of yourself. "Take care of your health, your mental health, your family, your friends, your social life," he said. "Everyone on this call knows what this job entails, from 7 a.m. or earlier to 9 p.m. or later."
The people who love you deserve the best version of you — which means finding someone you trust to cover a game night once in a while isn't a weakness. It's what makes you sustainable.
Find your people
Keith Badger's advice was about preparation, but not the kind you'd expect. "Build relationships before you need them," he told the group.
"You don't need to have all the answers — but there's a tremendous amount of knowledge in this profession, and somebody knows the answer." His advice: build a list, long or short, of people you know will pick up the phone when you call.
"Build relationships before you need them."
He also talked about something I think a lot of us struggle with: giving ourselves permission to fail.
"I feel most fortunate about having the ability to make mistakes," Keith said. He'd try something, watch it not work, and instead of spiraling, he'd say: that didn't work, I'm not doing it again — and invite his staff to help him find a better way next time.
That point led somewhere I wasn't expecting, but it's stuck with me since. We spend our entire careers as coaches and educators telling kids: make mistakes, learn from them, be better next time. But we rarely give ourselves that same grace as leaders. We think because we're the ones out front, we have to be perfect — and when we're not, we get frustrated and sometimes leave the profession before we ever figure out how to lead through it.
Give yourself the room to be human. It's the same grace you'd extend to any kid on your roster.
The conversation you don't want to have — but need to
We also talked about something every AD eventually runs into: the veteran coach who isn't buying into a new direction.
Brian Petersen's approach was to build weekly one-on-one meetings with his head coaches during their season — a standing time where they could tell him anything, door closed. When something came up outside that window, he didn't let it sit.
"You have to have that conversation, because if you allow it, that is your culture."
"I immediately said, hey, stop by tomorrow morning, I need to chat with you about what happened tonight," he explained. Giving a coach time to think it over first, rather than confronting them cold, made all the difference.
His bigger point applies well beyond that one scenario: "You have to have that conversation, because if you allow it, that is your culture." Whatever you tolerate becomes the standard — whether you meant it to or not.
Find the part of the job you love
Keith left us with one more thing worth holding onto: figure out what part of this job you genuinely love, and lean into it. Maybe it's developing coaches. Maybe it's solving problems, building programs, or just connecting with kids.
"Find a way to lean into that and fill your cup," he said, "so that when you wake up in the morning, you're like, man, I can't wait to get to this part of the job."
Because we can't pretend every part of this job is fun. But if you can find the piece that lights you up and protect it, it'll carry you through the parts that don't.
In our final part, I want to get honest about something our whole panel has in common: every one of us left the AD chair. And I want to explain why that doesn't mean we left the mission.
