The officials who show up on time. The bus that's waiting. The gym that's ready. The families who know where to be. None of that happens by accident.
As athletic administrators, we do a lot of our best work in the dark. Emails. Texts. Calls that happen months in advance, weeks in advance, and sometimes minutes before kickoff.
Our student-athletes get their moments and our communities get their memories because of work most people never see. And almost all of it runs on the schedule.
That's what makes the schedule the invisible MVP behind every program. When it works, nobody notices. When it doesn't, everybody does.
I recently sat down with three athletic administrators I've gotten to know and respect over the years to talk about what that looks like day to day:
Geoff Dixon, Athletic Director, River Valley School District (PA), about 30 programs across junior high and varsity
Phillip Gilmer, Athletic Director, Maricopa Institute of Technology (AZ), about 20 high school programs plus middle school and elementary
Jason Corley, Athletic Administrator, Long Branch Public Schools (NJ), 18 years as an AD, K-12, with 35+ high school programs
Three different states. Three different school sizes. A lot of the same lessons. Here's what stood out to me.
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Remember your last rainout? For Geoff, that means reaching at least 10 people, at minimum: buildings and grounds, security, the bus company, the principal, coaches, game workers, officials, and the opposing AD.
And it's never just one call, because once the game is off, you owe everyone a second call when it's rescheduled.
"It takes about half the day just to get a hold of everybody."
— Phillip Gilmer
Bound has changed the game for ADs like Geoff. "In the old days, that was a bunch of phone calls, back to back to back," said Geoff. "[Now] you can go in, cancel a game, and all those people who are scheduled to work, your officials, your opposing teams, get that automatic notification."
Phillip shared his own experience, with an added wrinkle: many of the schools he competes against are charters where the AD or coach is also teaching during the day, so they can't pick up the phone. Add ticket booths, concessions and parent and student volunteers, and the list keeps growing.
"If I don't have everybody listed on Bound, it makes it much more difficult," he said. "It takes about half the day just to get a hold of everybody and work on rescheduling."
I've been there too. Years ago we canceled a game during a snowstorm while the opponent was already on the bus. I got through most of my list, but my concession workers showed up anyway, because they were the group I didn't have time to call.
That's the invisible part of this job. Now, when a game moves in Bound Activity Scheduling, the change goes out automatically to the officials, workers, opponents and families tied to that event. For me, a single cancellation used to cost at least an hour and a half of phone calls.
What happens automatically now that used to take a phone call? For Phillip, it's simple: "Everything. I mean, literally everything."
People get informed right away, and when a game is rescheduled, they get notified again. "Bound has taken a lot of the time away from me making phone calls and sending emails," he said, "so I can work on the bigger projects I need to get done."
Once the schedule is locked in, everything else follows from it.
Geoff's transportation story is a great example. His department used to send the bus company a weekly email, typed out day by day with teams, departure times, dismissal times, locations and maps. After he moved transportation fully into Bound, he can move his transportation scheduler a live link with every trip through the end of the fall season.
When he added a volleyball scrimmage between the end of the regular season and the playoffs, he sent one text: "Refresh your link. Next Tuesday, there's a bus that needs to go to Portage. It's that simple." That same live link carries administrator and transportation notes to secretaries, principals and the transportation company, so early dismissals for students on other campuses are handled in one place.
Jason's community saw it during a football weekend with a storm in the forecast. They moved a 6 o'clock kickoff up an hour, and the update went straight to families.
"Just changing it on our schedule popped the information out to all our parents," Jason said. "I didn't really have to go in and do anything. I didn't have to post anything on social media."
And it extends to the people around you.
"My community embraced it. My coaches embraced it."
— Jason Corley
Jason's coaches now manage their own rosters in real time instead of sending the office lists of students who left the program. "When you empower coaches to have a little more control of their rosters," he said, "it keeps a lot of work out of my office."
Geoff's volleyball coach enters scores set by set from the bus ride home, and those scores flow to the school's social channels automatically. Geoff doesn't have a secretary, so as he put it, "I am the secretary." Every task that comes off his plate matters.
When introducing a change in how they scheduled, these ADs all acknowledged it took a little bit of work. But with that work came rewards.
"Anytime you put change in front of people, there's going to be a little bit of resistance," said Geoff. "But once that change is in place and people start to see the results and the time it saves them, their resistance quickly starts to go away."
"I'm kicking myself for being resistant, because it is a game changer...It makes everything so streamlined."
— Phillip Gilmer
Phillip knows that resistance firsthand. He first used Bound as a coach and pushed back, because it felt like one more thing to learn. "I was resistant to it, and I'm kicking myself for being resistant," he said, "because it is a game changer. It really is. It makes everything so streamlined."
Now Bound is his one-stop shop for the weekly logistics emails he sends to his superintendent, principals, and maintenance team. It's also where he collects activity registration documents and signatures, so when he gets that late-night call that a student is hurt, he can pull the physical and waiver in a couple of clicks.
The time you get to do the job you love is the whole point.
During one of my own years as an AD, I averaged 287 emails a day. If you're answering those, you're conservatively spending three hours a day on email alone. Every hour we save on scheduling is an hour we get back for the work we got into this profession to do.
"I only saw a handful of plays. Now I'm seeing more of what our kids are doing."
— Geoff Dixon
Here are some examples of where that time goes for these ADs:
Bigger projects. Phillip is putting cameras on his fields and courts for live broadcasting through the NFHS Network and working on sponsorships to buy equipment for his programs.
Being present at games. "Sometimes I'd get to the end of a football game and think, I only saw a handful of plays," Geoff said. "Now I'm seeing more of what our kids are doing." That presence pays off: "I can see a disgruntled parent and have a conversation with them before they leave. Those are proactive things that help you build relationships." Phillip feels it too. Having everything in one space, he said, "allows me to be present in the moment, and actually enjoy the game a little more rather than working the entire time."
Trusting the team. With the details all in one place, it's easier to hand off an event to another administrator on duty, because everyone knows who's in charge and where to be.
A life outside the building. More time with family, and fewer nights staying late just to keep up.
The schedule can also bring in revenue. Because the schedule is where your community goes, the digital sponsorship assets around it — like web ads, app ads and splash screens — can raise real money. When I was an AD, sending everyone to our schedule added $20,000 to $40,000 to our athletic department.
Each panelist left us with one practical tip:
Phillip: Put registration online, with documents. Have families upload and sign required forms, including physicals, so you're never digging through files for a piece of paper a teenager never turned in.
Geoff: Streamline into one place. Give parents a single place for registration, schedules, tickets, team messages, and scores. When families know where to go, you win them over, and the community follows.
Jason: Empower your coaches and your community. Let your coaches and families use the system with you. It takes work off your plate and helps you plan for the future instead of only reacting to right now.
The national average tenure for an athletic director is now under three years. We keep losing good ADs, and a lot of it comes down to time: too many hours, too much pressure, too much work no one sees.
That's why I do this work, and it's why Bound was built by athletic directors for athletic directors. When your schedule is your source of truth and it's connected across your whole program, you get time back to build relationships with kids, support your coaches, and lead your department. You also get time to be a parent, a spouse, and a friend. If you can't fill your own cup, it's hard to fill anyone else's.
Thank you to Geoff, Phillip, and Jason for sharing so openly, and to the NIAAA for everything it does for our profession. If there's ever anything I can do to help you, please reach out.
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