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Note: This story appeared in the Winter 2020 February edition of CoSIDA 360 Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.
Perspectives From Outside the Profession
Program Versus Product
An Opportunity for You, the SID, To Take the Lead
by Trip Durham – 2D Consulting, LLC
The start of the conference basketball tournament season will soon be upon us, and so will a focus on those head coaches who will not have their contracts renewed after the final buzzer sounds. And while the last game for a coach may be close at hand, your role as an athletic communications professional is just about to pick up some steam. (Note: As you continue to read this, you also can substitute any other sport and end-of-season time here.)
In March or April, shortly after an introductory press conference, your new head coach will immediately begin building toward the implementation of a new order for basketball. With each new component comes the potential for uncertainty, confusion, and a lack of clarity. Through the coaching transition and well into the next academic year, you, as SID, have an opportunity to be a leader within your athletic department to represent a consistent voice, philosophy, and protocol when it comes to communication.
Here is our baseline for this article: While the head coach of any sport works on what will help define his or her program, the sport itself is the product of the school. As the personality of the program fluxes over the years, the stability of the school’s product must remain intact through change. As a leader, you can ensure the latter by having a strong plan, a plan approved by those on the athletics senior staff and endorsed by the campus’ office of communications.
In 2017, Business Insider noted the average length of tenure for a head football coach as 3.8 years. WatchStadium.com noted in 2019 that a batch of 29 Division I men’s basketball head coaches stayed at one school for an average of 6.9 years. While these are just two examples from two sports, one can assume that some of these figures can apply to other sports at all levels of college athletics. As a communications professional, your tenure at your institution, more than likely, surpasses the averages listed above. And, when the program loads and reloads every few years, you must take the lead in maintaining consistency for what the school considers its product.
Each head coach hired brings with them a sense of style and organization as to how s/he will manage the way the program acts and operates. The program will have a blueprint for recruiting, the student-athletes will be required to follow a set of expectations, travel will be conducted on a precise schedule, and a myriad of other pieces will be put into place. In time, what the coach constructs will (hopefully) manifest into a program everyone can be proud of throughout the community and the nation.
The disruption in leadership of a sport, as alluded to earlier, can create consternation throughout the entire athletic department. While many staffers are optimistic about the newness and changes, questions about operations can come into play. These are reflected through a commonly heard statement throughout the halls of many campuses that “Coach doesn’t want to do it that way.” Sometimes this discouraging statement is conveyed by a 25-year-old junior administrator who has just come from a meeting with the head coach. Other times, a veteran on senior staff has heard directly from the head coach as to his or her desires for the program.
Through this disruption, the athletic communications officials can lead and maintain the needs of the school’s product.
It’s important to remember that when hired, the head coach becomes the steward of a sport that is the product of the school. The current coach follows a long line of other people who were tapped to lead the sport. It is understood that the head coach will abide by standards the school has put in place for other products owned by the institution (“products” such as residence life, development/advancement, the physical plant, etc). Much like other departments on campus, the head coach will be expected to grow a product that will survive long after that person is no longer on campus.
While it’s important to strike a balance as to how the head coach views the wants of the program, the long-term needs of the product cannot be abandoned. This is where the role of the SID is crucial. As a leader and a caretaker within communications, you must engage your senior administrators in constructive dialogue as to how you will conduct business with the program.
If you have methods and strategies that fit well within the other sports on your campus, and you have a track record of proven success, ensure your plan and your conversations with others on campus upholds maintaining these procedures. If you have a plan, a consistency, throughout all sports (all products), then, as a leader, you can safeguard against inconsistencies, contradictions, and a lack of accord during the tenure of the current head coach. Because the coach simply “doesn’t want to do it that way” is no reason to jettison elements of operation that have been met with favor well before this head coach came along.
Consider a few examples of that point of impact where the new program and the established product could create some stress. After reading these three, be proactive in starting a conversation in your office about what should remain intact on your campus.
The content of social media posts. The new coach may have had an approach of creating content at the last stop. Yet, on your campus, that style in messaging that s/he wants to bring may not fit what your fans and supporters are used to hearing and seeing.
Weekly coach’s lunches or press meetings. The new coach may be averse to conducting a regular series. It could be that the constituents in your area have become accustomed to the weekly events and the events have enjoyed great success.
Post-game press conferences. As fickle as media coverage has become, it’s crucial to keep the rhythm of how you conduct your post-game engagements, especially if you’ve developed a strong following. Hopefully, it will be much easier to adjust the coach’s preferences (a single person) as opposed to gearing a group of people to change the way they gather information after the conclusion of each game.
It’s important to distinguish between coaches and their “programs” and the “product.” You must have a plan and strategies that remain solid through the changes of a program’s head coach and you must build consensus about your approach in representing the product.
Trip Durham is founder of 2D Consulting and is working with CoSIDA and its new professional development initiative, the June Stewart Leadership Series. He serves as host of the JSLS webinars and podcasts. Durham is a former Division I athletics administrator with vast experience in marketing, brand development and game operations, and is past president of NACMA. Trip also serves as public address announcer for Duke University men’s and women’s basketball and football, a position he has held since 2010.
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