SPEAKER_00 0:04

You're listening to the Hanging with the AD podcast, where we break down hot topics in athletic administration and lessons learned through leadership. Now, here are your hosts, Josh Matthews and Don Baker.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Today we have the pleasure of introducing you to an AD who is not a stranger to success. Tim Stelgo was at the helm at Grand Valley State University in one of the most successful runs of any university at any level. It's our hope that you lean in today and learn from one of the best to ever do it. Let's settle in and get to know Mr. Tim Stelgo.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Mr. Silgo, we're so glad to have you joined and done me for this episode of Hanging with EAD. Thanks for joining us today.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Thanks, guys. I appreciate you having me on.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Yeah, so for our listeners, Tim Silgo is an accomplished, retired collegiate athletic administrator. Tim spent 20 years or so as the director of athletics at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. His programs achieved great success while he was the leader there. And Tim has received many awards because of that success. So for a little bit of that background, Tim was named AD of the year in 2013. He was the president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, NACTA, I think is how they say it, 2015-2016. He was the first D2 AD to hold that president's role. And uh later on, a couple years later, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by that organization. Tim retired around 2016, I believe, and is now a consultant in that space. He's also an author of three books. Those books are Anchor Up, Competitive Greatness, The Grand Valley Way, Make One Play Impact Your Success. And then one book we'll talk about later, maybe Mom and Dads Eat the Brown Bananas. Interested in that one in a few minutes. Finally, I have to say Tim is inducted into several halls of fame. We're not going to list them, but it's uh really um uh uh a representation of his athletic administrator uh athletic administration career. So I'll stop right there. I'll let Tim tell us a little bit more about his journey through the world of athletics. Tim, we call it the back of the baseball card bio. So take a minute, tell us what the back of Tim Tim Selgo's baseball card would look like.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

Well, the back of my card would tell you I am from Petersville, Ohio. It's a town about 400 northwest Ohio. Uh I had uh two older brothers, both of them were Division I college athletes at Bowling Green State University. I went to the University of Toledo and played college basketball in the late 70s, and uh we had a great one, made it to the Sweet 16 NCAA tournament a couple times. And uh uh I had two great mentors during that time frame. First was my own father. My dad was a great high school basketball teacher and coach. That would probably be my my parents, Dick and Margaret Selga, would be on my baseball card, and they had a great influence on me in the small town. My dad won over 75% of his games and was a great teacher of sport and life lessons. And then I went to the University of Toledo, as I mentioned, played basketball for a guy named Bob Nichols. Bob Nichols, to this day, is the winningest coach in the history of the Mid-American Conference in men's basketball. Mid-American Conferences, Toledo, Bowling, Green, Miami of Ohio, Central Michigan, that bunch. And Coach Nichols retired in 1986, passed away about 12 years ago, and still to this day is the winningest coach in the history of the Mid-American Conference of Men's Basketball. That were my mentors as I entered my professional life uh in sport. I taught and coached one year at the high school level, and then Coach Nichols hired me back on his staff after getting my bachelor's and master's degrees in education from the University of Toledo. Uh, so you can see the back of my baseball card, there's going to be a lot of University of Toledo there. And uh he coach hired me back uh at the age of 24 to be an assistant coach on his men's basketball staff. Uh, I was that for three years, then I was named the head women's basketball coach, and I did that for three years. And then in 1998, I was just turned uh uh 30 at the time. I was named the associate athletics director at Toledo, which today I would be called the deputy athletics director. And I did that for eight years prior to going to Grand Valley as their director of athletics for 20 years. So the back of my card would be somewhat simple because it would read Toledo and Grand Valley State University as the only two institutions I worked at in college athletics. But those two places were filled with not only great memories for me, but terrific experiences. I had a great run as a student athlete coach and then associate AD at Toledo. During my eight years, guys, our two head football coaches were Nick Saban and Gary Pink. And those two guys were pretty good. And then I went to Grand Valley and I was 38, and our 34-year-old head football coach there was a guy named Brian Kelly, who's also uh uh eventual Hall of Famer and college football coaching. So I had or I was around some great people, had a great run, and then in 2016, uh I was worn out. Now that probably wouldn't be on the back of my baseball card, but it would indicate that in 2016 I became this consultant in college athletics. And I did I've done that now for seven plus years, uh, the first uh uh six or so with athletic staffing and consultants, and then Mammoth uh sports construction uh uh assumed our consulting firm and and and started a consulting arm, Mammoth Sports Consulting. So Mammoth is this sports construction firm with a consulting arm. They also have a creative division that does a lot of the creative things you see in in college sports with graphic design and and all sorts of with video work and so on. So I'm really, really thrilled to at this stage of my career after 42 years of college athletics, I'm really with another winner again with Mammoth. And uh, so uh it's been an exciting run for me in college athletics since I entered the fall freshman year at Toledo in 1976.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yeah, I think it's really unique that you uh two schools to to um to move up the ranks in college athletic administration. You only did two schools, and from my experience, that's uh unique. A lot of people are moving like college football coaches, right? Maybe not quite as much, but it's uh there's still a large uh variety on their baseball card for sure. So hey, we have to ask you during that time of uh Grand Valley, uh you bumped into a mutual friend of ours, uh, talked to him yesterday and told him we were talking to you today. So I want to ask you a question. Were you a better or worse, probably the worst, athletic administrator after you met Dustin Smith?

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Oh you can play the fifth if you want. Now he's a Chicago Cubs fan.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

So unfortunately, I'm trying to get him to be a Braze fan, but yeah, he won't move over.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

So that was kind of uh uh conflicting there with you know, trying to learn from Dustin and but we had a great relationship. We we were on the NCAA uh membership committee together, right, and uh spent some good times together there. And and uh great to uh have called Dustin, a friend of mine. He had me down, by the way, to his uh high school about uh right five years ago to speak to their coaches, and I really enjoyed that. I can't I sorry I can't remember the legendary high school football coach there, but man, it was great to get to meet him and and enjoyed some uh good one-on-one time with him because he built a dynasty at that high school.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

That's good, that's cool. Now, Tim, you're credited with building a championship program there at Grand Valley State. Your programs and coaches achieved success over a long time. We have wanted to ask a leader who found a way to sustain greatness. This question, and we've kind of bounced it off as to who we were gonna ask, and and and you won, quite frankly. So, uh, what word would you attribute or use to describe what it took to build a program of excellent achievement? If you had to put a word on it, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 8:39

I don't know that I could put one word on it, Don, but I I would say nothing happens without working hard. Uh we worked our tails off, okay? And and you can't achieve success without it. Uh, and then when you mentioned the word sustaining success, one of our mantras, once we reached the level, it took about five or six years to get a role in there. Uh, I got there in 96, Grand Valley won five conference championships in the last eight years, and the highest aid finished in the Liverfield Directors' Cup, the National All Sports Trophy was 144th. And I knew we had greater potential than that. So we had to go to work. But after getting it going, the one word I would say was uh well, actually two words, stay humble. Once we once we our mantra was stay humble, keep working hard. And you've got to that takes a discipline to do that because you know that those are nice words to say, but when you're achieving the level of success that we we achieved it at some point in time, everybody's after you. The target on your back is huge. And if you don't stay humble, the minute you get arrogant in college sports, you're gonna get you're gonna get beat. And I could name programs for you throughout time that that's happened to.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

That's good. Now you mentioned the Leerfield uh cup. Uh you kind of set us up for another question we had uh at Grand Valley State. Y'all won the Learfield Cup 10 times during your leadership era there. I think you finished in the top two, 14 of those 20 years, maybe off a little bit. You said it took you about five years to get it going really good. So it goes without saying that you built a complete athletic program, not one that was just built on the big, prominent sports. How did you align yourself and your athletic department where everyone understood and bought into a mindset that all were valued and that all were important? Uh every sport was important and so forth.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Well, when I got there in '96, the uh uh our conference's all sports trophy was called the President's Cup in the Great Lakes Center Collegiate Athletic Conference or the Gleak for short. And we had not won that at Grand Valley since 1979. And, you know, I've always felt, you know, from my coaching days, of course, you're trying to help your program be the best it can be. Now that I'm a leader of an entire athletics department, you want that's a measurement of how well you do in an all-sports trophy. With how I always felt it was important that we would be broad based and find success throughout our programs. All of those kids work hard, all of them do. And you know, I call them kids, but but they're these are young people in every sport. Try telling your swimmers and divers they aren't working hard when they're swimming in the morning and in the afternoon. Try telling those cross-country kids that they don't matter when they're out there running 10 miles every day in this cold weather we have in Michigan. Okay, you know, so all those people are important because they work really hard. Their coaches work really hard. Again, going back to my days with my dad, he was not only the high school basketball coach at our very small high school, he was also the athletics director. And he made sure the baseball team back then in the early 70s, we had home and away uniforms at a small high school. We had whites and we had grays that made an impact on me. We were the only ones that had that, and we had a good run in basketball, so we made a little money through the tournament. He made sure that wealth got spread out to other programs, and so I adopted that. And the programs that I aspired or to be as I watched, as I learned and grew as a coach and as an associate athletic, to me, those were the best programs that everybody was finding a common cause. And and and and we found at Grand Valley that president's cup, our conference's all sports trophy, and we hadn't won. It took us till 1999, took us four years, and we finally won it. And our our whole approach was if every program got a little bit better, we had a chance of winning that, and certainly it proved true. And then we won and won big, then we then we won the national all sports trophy, and it and it just took off from there. What it did though for an athletics department, and I would argue this does it for every organization. Once you can experience some success, work your tail off, as I said earlier, work hard, get a little success. Our confidence level grew. I can remember when we won our first president's cup in 20 years. We had a photo taken, me and all of our head coaches, and we had that cup in front of us, and I could you can feel the confidence that rose. It was almost palpable. Not only that, you could feel the we won this thing, we're not giving it back. We've won that thing every year since then. I've got a great story about how we won it that year. We don't have time on this podcast to tell it, but it's in my book, so there's a teaser from my book, Anchor Up, guys. But it's a great story. And when we did that and achieved a little success, the confidence level and the competitiveness just rose. And from then on, we were the people that uh had the target on our back that everybody was chasing.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah, I think that that's really good. That idea of it's not going to happen overnight. Like it's it's going to take these small gains, these little wins. And this is something we've talked about in here before. There are no small things, right? Everything matters. Everything is big because it's all part of a bigger picture later on down the road that you guys were able to, you know, see through uh before it was all said and done. Now, you recently said on another podcast that we're in the problem solving and decision-making business. Okay. I could not agree with that more. I think anyone that's listening to this, they're going to 100% agree with that. It's been stated that some special forces units, uh, the military, uh, they talk about having 75% of needed information before a mission. They can't get 200 because it takes too long to do that. It's not realistic and it makes them inefficient and ineffective. Maybe could you talk about, as an athletic administrator, what strategies led you to a successful decision-making process? You obviously got to a point where that process was fairly fluid because you guys had a lot of success. Maybe talk about that for a minute.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yeah, no, that's good. You know, and I gotta tell you one quick story. You know, I don't want to uh take up all of our time telling stories, but guys, after 42 years, that's what you become a storyteller. Okay. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. No, I can remember working with Gary Pinkle, and for our listening audience that doesn't know who Gary Pinkle is, he was just inducted in College Football Hall of Fame last year. He had a great career at Toledo, then went on to Missouri and had Missouri in the SEC Championship game two out of their first three years in the SEC East. Now, uh in our lifetime, we may not see Missouri win the SEC East again, and they won it two out of their first three years. That's how good Gary Pinkle was. And he and Nick Saban, by the way, were college teammates at Kent State under Don James. Pinkle and I were walking across campus at Toledo one day. I can't remember the problem. I think it had something to do with lack of air conditioning and the housing during August two days. And in Toledo, it is hot in two days. And we were walking over there just in conversation. He turned to me and said, We're in a problem-solving decision-making profession. You know, that's a head football coach. He's not saying let's go smart everybody with X's and O's, and and all we're in a problem-solving decision making. And that is where that phrase came from for me. That's leadership. But how do you how do you make your best decisions as a as a department? You've got to have people that you can trust because if you're the leader, you can't know everything, you can't be a part of everything. I wanted to be informed of everything, and I wanted I wanted to hire good people. It starts with that. Believe me, you've got to hire the best talent you can, no matter where your organization is. You've got to hire the best talent you possibly can that are good fit for your organization, and then you've got to trust them to get their job done. But you need, as a leader, you need to be informed of what's going on so that you can make good decisions. You know, uh two things I think uh develop into great decision makers. One, you gather as much information as you possibly can, and then two, you keep your emotions under control. That's John Wood. John Wood uh was a mentor of mine as well from a distance. I met him when he was 95 years old, but I read all of his books and I learned a lot from John Wood, who I consider the best coach of any sport at any level in my lifetime, and that was a huge tené of his is that you got to keep your emotions under control. So uh I I would try to gather as much information as I could. One example, guys, would be when you're in a college athletics department, your peers are your conference. Find out where you line up with your peers, for example, from a budget standpoint. Everybody there, there's the ability out there for schools to find that out. Sometimes it isn't easy, some people like to guard that information well, but you can pretty much find out uh where you line up with respect to your peers financially, budget-wise, and then look at where you're lacking. You know, what I I I basically did with all of our sports. Where are we lacking in swimming? Where are we lacking in softball? Where are we lacking in basketball? What do we need to do to get better? Some sports we were in pretty good shape, others we were not. Some sports that required additional scholarships, some sports required additional staffing, you know, and certainly might involve facilities in college athletics. So you just kind of look at things individually, and that's where you know it takes a lot of study and review and learning of information, and then you can make your best decisions. But uh I always wanted to uh, especially with uh uh emotional decisions that may have involved personnel, sleep on it at night before I finalize. If I woke up the next morning feeling like, okay, yep, that's right, let's go. Then then I'm always on the right path. So there's a lot of things that go into decision making, but if you aren't all in and you aren't passionate and you aren't willing to grind it out at odd hours, because if you're a leader in athletics, you're gonna be working at night and on weekends. Yeah, so you've got to get a lot of these other things done when others aren't aren't aren't doing a whole lot, and uh that's a that's a long-winded answer. Uh, but it it's this is not an easy process. Decision making, it should never be easy.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

No, that's great. Uh, you gave some great strategies there. Uh, love those two, and then sleep on it as always. Great wisdom. But uh, you know, it's funny you say that about grinding out and out hours. I've sat here today. We have a teacher work day, so no students. Uh, thought I'd get a lot done, had a couple things in my mind I really wanted to get done today, and that thing got blown up in a hurry. So I'm gonna be grinding it out tonight to go home and do what I wanted to do during the day because I had to make some decisions and go gather information and all kinds of stuff today. So um I appreciate that encouragement selfishly there. So hey, uh Tim, we mentioned the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. I'd have been nice if they said athletic directors there, but uh I understand that they they set up their organization. Uh, they gave you the Lifetime Achievement Award. You also served as president in 2015-2016. Uh, mentioned you were the only, I think the only D2 AD to serve in that capacity. But I want to ask you about serving in that role, um, what it did for you. So, so what did you gain by serving as president of this organization? What was your why when serving as president of NACTA?

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Yeah, no, great question. NACTA, and that is the correct term for NACTA, has been great to me. You know, it's our professional organization for directors of athletics, for people that are in athletics administration. Our June convention, there's 10,000 athletics administrators and college athletics in all divisions, one, two, three, and NAI and junior college, uh, that attend this. And that's our professional education for our profession. Okay. And so I got involved in NACTA a long, long time ago. And I was very, very fortunate to be asked to be uh a part of the uh officers leadership of NACTA, uh, starting as third vice president, working up to become president, as you mentioned. And the great thing for me on that, Josh, was just the learning that I received from watching some of the best in college athletics uh in meetings, how they thought, what was their decision making process? You know, uh, I I've got to be good friends with Jim Phillips over the years because when I was third vice president, Jim was second vice president. And then we worked our way up the ladder together. So for three years, I worked very closely with Jim. Now, of course, H. CC Commissioner, then Northwestern's athletics director. So we were in on meetings that I could see how Jim and Mike Alden before Jim, Mike was longtime AD at Missouri, and I could go on and on with uh guys that I could learn from and see how they operate. Uh that that to me, for an athletics director, you know, coaches go to clinics and they learn X's and O's and they they talk coach speak with their fellow coaches to learn tech training techniques and and uh uh practice recruiting technique and so on, right? Athletics directors, we really don't have that. Our method of that is at NACTA and going to the convention and going to other NACTA programming to learn uh ideas from other athletics directors or administrators. And it's always great to get those ideas. But for me, while I feel so thankful in ACTA and feel so blessed that I was in on the leadership and I was in the room and still am as a past president, uh, I'm still involved in NACTA, and I can go back and watch really, really good leaders, how they operate uh in the middle of a meeting. You know, I mean, that's what you do a lot as an administrator. You go to meetings, right? Right. And uh, and man, decisions that are made and conversations about college athletics. Uh, I couldn't have asked for a better learning opportunity. And I would encourage any athletics administrator out there, high school level, to get involved with your high school athletics association at the state level and NHSAA at the national level, because that's where you're going to learn as an administrator. Watching other administrators operate and discuss things uh to catch ideas and learn decision making from them.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yeah, that's the NIAA for us. And I'm glad you put out that um that plug there because uh I would agree, get involved. Uh, I've I've been fortunate enough to get it sit in some of those meetings as a board member. And I agree with you, watching the best across the country um handle themselves in meetings. And I've been able to bring those thoughts back, and it's it's very different than some of the other meetings I've said in in other places. And it's it's neat to have that experience of watching the pros, let's call it, the the a professional meeting being run or whatever. So uh I agree. Watching, watching some of the best work and do it in a professional setting is really fun to do for sure. Hey, you mentioned telling stories. I'm gonna give you a chance to tell a story here. Um, what is one thing you remember from your time as president serving the organization that maybe you weren't expecting and you look back on and it was greatly rewarding? Maybe a story there that you just that just sticks out to you that what what wasn't expected, but you just look back on, and that's kind of uh one you hold on to.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Well, uh an obvious one jumps to mind. In 2015, NACTA this year, the summer convention is going to be held in Mambalay Bay in Las Vegas, and it was there in 2021. Thankfully, I was I did not have to deal with the pandemic during my time as an athletics director, uh involvement that because that was hard, just really hard, as you as everybody knows. But in 2015-16, we were discussing taking the convention to Las Vegas, and the obvious concerns were you know, its reputation as a sports gambling, uh as a center of sports gambling. So I can remember the conversations at that time, uh, because this is a little bit before every state has legalized sports gambling, and you know, I I'm the president that year. Uh, I actually reminded my friends last uh two summers ago when we went to Vegas because the beauty of uh uh hosting that convention in Vegas, 10,000 people can all be under one roof. You know, it's hard at other convention sites, and and only certain can convention sites can hold that number of people. We've been to Disney, of course, and and so on, but uh you gotta go from building to building and/or people are housed in several different properties. At Vegas, we're all under one roof. And I I I I totally concurred with that because we're really getting to be big and and so on and so forth. Uh, but I can remember saying, now look, guys, we we have to have uh statement ready if we get a gambling issue in the year in which we go to Vegas, and all these college athletics leaders are going to Vegas for their convention, it might not have good optics. We better be prepared to uh uh handle that. Now, since then, uh what we it went off without a flaw in 2021. Now, uh, I mean, we had challenges, but it was a great convention in 2021, and we're going back there here this summer in June and looking forward to that. Uh, certainly there have been some issues in gambling with uh college sports because of the prevalence of online gambling, and then I could go and draft kings or whatever on my iPhone and play some bet easily. That's that's offered some challenges. We've seen in the state of Iowa in particular, they've had some uh uh difficulties with that. Right, but uh with the prevalence of sports gambling legalized in every state, now there's almost no state you can go that it isn't an issue, so it's not an issue. So it's not as big an issue now as it was then. But I was the one that I recall citing my name on the down line thinking this could be challenging if we have an issue in 2021. Thankfully I I escaped that.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah, that this could really turn into a wonderful opportunity. That that's what I say when I get faced with stuff like that. Now, you said about retiring that when you are around 18 to 22 year olds every day, that you better bring the energy. And regardless of 18 to 22 or 14 to 18 for us at the high school level, what do you mean when you say we must bring the energy every day? What does that energy really look like to you?

SPEAKER_03 28:20

It looks to me like somebody that's passionate with a positive attitude, uh, going into work every day. And by positive attitude, I don't necessarily mean happy, go lucky, polyannish, you know, cheery, because I don't feel that way all the time when I went into work. I mean, I was worn out and tired a lot of times. But positive attitude means you just don't let the negative take control. I mean, if you if you do that, it's it's going to be hard. Um, and and you've got to bring some passion. You know, I I like to say it in this way when you're around young people, whether it's at the high school level, the college level, if you're a dud, they're gonna be duds. You're not gonna get them to uh play, compete, learn, grow with any kind of enthusiasm if you don't have it. And that again, that doesn't mean fake enthusiasm. You know, sometimes you've got to summon the energy and you've got to you know uh present a front that you're more energized than what you might feel inside. That's where you know passion comes into play. If you really want those kids to be their best, you've got to be at your best, even when you're not feeling well, even when you've got a cold, even when you know you're dragged down, and and there's numerous times when you're the leader, you're gonna feel that way. You've got to present uh a positive image, and you know that Don that can't occur other than uh in front of a group or one-on-one with people, you're you're gonna run into different individuals, whether they're student athletes or coaches or staff people or people working in your building every day. And if you don't have some type of level of care for all those people, it's gonna be tough to summon that energy. But if you care about people, and and people make you successful in athletics, make no mistake about it. We're not making widgets here. You know, people make you successful. You care about people, it shouldn't be that hard, even when you're at your your you're you're physically your perhaps your lowest. So again, it's not a fake, Pollyanish, happy, go lucky, positive attitude. It's just an attitude, all right. We can do this. Let's just keep going. Let's just keep going forward and and we'll get this done.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

And that's good stuff right there. The passion comes from caring about your people. Really, really good stuff. Tim, next two questions are going to be about books. Um, maybe your books in particular. So the first one is uh we we really believe leaders should be readers. Donna and I try to read a little bit here and there, or maybe a little bit more, uh, depending on what time of year it is. Uh, we know, as we mentioned, you've authored several books. And um, so so the question is, what are we as athletic director or athletic administrators, people who may go pick your books up now? What are we going to learn in our role that we do as leaders by reading your books?

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Uh I think you're gonna learn a couple of things. My my first book was Anchor Up, and that's really about building an organization. That's how we built the program at Grand Valley. Uh, and there's stories in there from my time at Toledo that I leaned on to help me build the program at Grand Valley, uh, and so on. But I think you're gonna learn that from that. Then my second book is Make One Play. And here's why that's the title, guys. My college coach, as I mentioned earlier, Bob Nichols, he had a saying to his teams that I've never heard a coach say before or since, and I think it's a great one. He always used to say, you never know what one play will lead to, fellas. And that's the genesis of that book. You know, he often would use that phrase when we were watching film. In those days, it was film, not uh digital. And we would be watching film, and he would run a play back and forth that was seemingly uh an unimportant play. It might have been in the middle of the first half or the middle of the second half. It wasn't the ESPN top 10 highlight play, it was a guy setting a screen the way he was taught that got somebody open for an open shot that we made after going four possessions without scoring that we needed a basket. Some guy did a little thing well. My coach talk about doing the little things well all the time, or a guy taking a charge, or a guy diving for a loose ball. That doesn't show up in a stat sheet, you know. You know, I was talking the other day after watching the World Series. Some of those guys' stats are good, some are even better when his team needs it most. Those things, you know, you know, that that key hit doesn't show up in the stat sheet with an asterisk. This was a key hit, it just shows it as a hit. And so there are certain plays in every athletic contest that you never know what it'll lead to. Think of an offensive lineman picking up the blitz and and tipping a guy so the quarterback has another second to make that first down play in the third quarter that keeps the drive going, that gets the momentum on your side to take over the game, right? That's what my coach emphasized, which what he was saying is you have to go hard all the time because you never know what one play will lead to. Likewise, when you're the leader of an organization, you never know what one effort will lead to. You never know what one smile for someone will lead to. You never know what one encouraging word for someone, you never know what taking the time to have a conversation with an assistant coach, a graduate assistant coach, will lead to. And I learned that from my coach. And so that book, Make One Play, uh, has what I think are fundamentals of success, and it's all based on little things because you never know what that will lead to. And then my third book, Josh, Moms and Dads Eat the Brown Bananas. We hit on the the title. I I got your attention with that title, though, didn't I? I mean, that was uh that was part of the marketing of it.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Definitely, because hey, if I'm honest, when we were when I was researching and it popped up and I went and it showed the list of your books in Amazon. I didn't think that was one of your books. I was I just dismissed it, and then when I read it again somewhere else in a in a legit uh article, I was like, Well, I guess he did write that book. Let me go back and look, look at what it's about.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

So that's about as creative as this old boy can get uh with that title. But I wanted that because of a story that happened. Uh, this is legit in our athletics department of Grand Valley. One morning, we're sitting around early in the day, 8:05. Everybody's got a cup of coffee. We're around our administrative assistant's desk, and I'll come a volleyball coach, and they're going, we're talking. And our our three children were young at the time. And I talked about, and this is one of the things that I emphasize because that's a book about finding a work-life balance. How and and I get that asked that everywhere I go, especially in college athletics. When you're going to work nights and weekends, that's when we play these contests. You've got to be able to find a balance. And and one of my key uh things about finding a balance is your life is to start the day with some quiet time. And for me, now it's even more than an hour. But back then, and I recommend at least 10 minutes. Now that can be quiet time. For me, it was reading some scripture and a reflection of scripture, and then I like to then read. I'm reading uh two books at a time. I'm like you, I I I believe in being a lifelong learner, and I always am reading one book that'll enhance my spiritual life, and then another book of interest, whatever it might be. I like history, I like uh lots of different things now. Uh, but that morning time, call it getting centered, whatever you want to call it. Some people get that way with exercise, and I understand that that uh yoga, other forms of exercise can be a way of getting centered and kind of uh have, but I believe in a quiet time because if I didn't have that before my three kids got up and everybody was in the shower, we're making breakfast, trying to get them to school. It was I described as World War III at that point, and I'm having this conversation with uh some of my staff, and they said, and try to get your kids to eat breakfast before school. That was you know, that's a minor miracle there. If you can, and and I said, Yeah, if we can just get them to eat a banana uh at times, and then one of our coaches said, Yeah, and if the banana has a brown spot in it, they're not eating it. And I found that too. I've got grandsons now, five grandsons and all boys. If it's got one brown spot, they ain't eating that banana, right? So that's that's kind of the where that title came from. But it's a book about balance. How to find balance in your life, how to find balance in your busy life when you've got family, work, your health, uh, your spiritual life. Uh, you gotta have some fun in life. You know, all those things are important, and how to find some balance in there. It's a tough juggling act, it's not easy. One of the keys is you have to work at it, though. You have to work at it. So that that's a teaser for that book.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah, I one of the things that you said in there just a second ago, and I don't want people to miss it when you were talking about your second book is when you talked about the power of a smile. I know that we talk about that at the high school level all the time. The smile that they get from a coach or from their AD or from a teacher, it may be the only one that kid gets all day. Yeah, you know, and and and the power in that is is huge. And that struck home with me just because you know, we we I used to preach that when I was a local school a de is that you really don't know these kids' story. You know, you may know 10% of their story. And if that you taking that few seconds just to smile at that kid, just engage with that kid briefly, you'd have no idea, you know, the positive benefit of that. I think it's great.

SPEAKER_03 38:40

It's huge. And as you said, you you don't know what's going on in that kid's life, or in the case of a leader of a college athletics department, you don't know what's going on in the life of your uh employees. Yeah, you know, it could be that janitor, it could be that assistant coach, could be that head coach that you think is on top of the world. And that coach might have something going on in his or her personal life that's making them miserable. And so you never know. And sometimes it's just a smile, more than that, maybe I think an encouraging word. You know, when you think back, I think back to my the great leaders I had in my life. When they encourage me and let me know I was on the right path, somehow, some way, they would tell me just keep up the good work. You're doing a great job. I walk out of that meeting, man. I was I was lighter on my feet, I was ready to go, I was motivated to do something better. So sometimes that's make one play, just a smile, just a word of encouragement, and uh you'd be surprised at what it can do for people.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Make one play, man. What a what a way to live, right there. That's good stuff. Hey, Tim, last question. So you did it at the collegiate level. Don is at the district level, he's our district AD. I'm a local school athletic director. So for any one of these levels, anyone listening, maybe a middle school athletic director listening, right? All different levels. What successful secret travels to any level of athletic administration?

SPEAKER_03 40:04

Yeah, I think they all do, Josh, quite honestly. Uh, I admire you know what you're doing at the high school level. You know, I always tell my colleagues that, hey, think of those high school athletics leaders. They've got freshman JV and varsity of almost every sport, men's and women's, boys and girls, right? They talk about a busy schedule. It's it's incredible. So I admire and respect that. And and I think that um uh the one thing I lean on, you know, I go back to John Wooden, okay, uh, quite honestly, is his definition of success. And you know, his definition of success, that pyramid of success that he has, and anybody in athletics, most people know about John Wooden's pyramid of success that are of my generation, but younger generations may not. So I always encourage people to Google John Wood's pyramid of success, it'll pop up, okay? Well, in that pyramid is his definition of success, which I think is the best definition ever of the word success. And he developed that, and he developed that pyramid of success when he was a high school teacher and coach in Dayton, Kentucky, and then in South Bend, Indiana, right? So before he got to the collegiate level, he was heavily influenced by his work at the high school level, as was I. I taught and coached one year at the high school level. My dad was a high school teacher and coach, and I learned a lot in that one year of teaching six classes of math every day. Uh, I can still remember this day. Our principal, Jake Press Prentice, God rest his soul, always would tell us under the proper leadership, they will respond. And he was right. But Wood's definition of success, and here's how it goes success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of the self-satisfaction and knowing you did your best to become the best you're capable of becoming. That applies to anybody, anywhere, in any walk of life. You can only do the very best you can. If you're at the middle school level and all the challenges associated with that, uh, I've got grandkids at the middle school level. I know I've been to all those games, right? I'm going through them again, over again as a grandparent. All right. At the high school level, I know what it's like. These kids are going through a lot of things in their lives, they got busy lives, they seem to be have more stress than we did back in the day when I was going through it. But you've you've got challenges there, so you've just got to do the absolute best you can, and that is success. Success is that peace of mind we all get and the self-satisfaction knowing we did our best to become the best we're capable of becoming. I mentioned earlier, and when John was 95 years old, I got a chance to meet him in person, and it was like going to the mountaintop for me. I spent three and a half hours in his little living room where there were four couples, and he was wonderful. You talk about being humble. What a humble man living in a two-bedroom apartment. Okay. Now imagine a coach of his stature today in retirement, living in a small apartment like we all lived in when we first got uh our our lives going. And uh, and he he shared that definition, and then he looked at every one of us in the eye and said, only you can know if you're doing your absolute best. And man was he right. And so, to all the leaders out there, whatever level you're at in athletics, uh, you're making a difference. We all know that, whether you're coaching, administration, those kids are looking up to you. And uh give them your very best. Uh, when I started my time in college athletics, I can remember my first day in August of uh uh 1980. Wow, it's a long time, 1982. Yeah, was that I got we my wife and I got married July 1980. I should remember. It was a week later Coach Nevis at highly back. I started my work at college master as an assistant coach. That was my that was my end at age 24. I'm so thankful for my alma mater lead over Coach Navy for doing that for me. And I remember walking in that building and saying to myself, okay, dude, uh, here you go, here's your chance. Go help those kids have the same great experience you had as a student. And so that stuff with me my whole career. And so you go back to uh what are some of the things you can do with decision making and and uh and helping those in your department, uh help those kids, make one play all that stuff. It goes back to helping them achieve the best that they can. If you're doing that, you're gonna be successful.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

That's really good stuff. Great, great, great stuff. Thanks a lot for uh helping us get better today, be better leaders. You have a wealth of uh leadership knowledge and wisdom, and we appreciate that. I mean, I can't wait to really hear the final version of this, hear it again, uh, when I can just really process it. Um, so so we're gonna move into our two-minute drill, get to know you a little bit better, have a little fun, and Don will start us with that.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Okay, Tim, we're gonna hit you with some rapid fire questions. You just tell us the first thing that comes to mind, okay?

SPEAKER_03 45:17

Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

What was the first job you ever had ever in your life?

SPEAKER_03 45:22

Magan's seed at the Richner Seed Company, Pennsylvania, Ohio.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

All right. All right, fair enough. If you could time travel, would you visit the past or the future?

SPEAKER_03 45:33

Past. I my dad was a history teacher, and I love history. It'd have to be past.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

That's good. That's a good one. What's the best book you've ever read?

SPEAKER_03 45:43

I'm gonna say the Bible, but I've read a lot of great books. Uh other than the Bible, James Mitchner's book, Centennial. It's about a thousand pages. Mitchner, I got almost all his books. They're long books, but man, you're talking about a wealth of information and liking history. Centennials about the settling of the American West.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Let me call an audible here in our two-minute. The you we've talked about John Wooden several times. If if you have to pick one, which which book is is the one, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_03 46:18

They call me Coach.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

I took this with me to my meeting with Coach Wooden and had him personally autographed. So this is in my library here at home.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

That's cool. All right, let's play a brief game of over-under. So these are things that are, in your opinion, they are either overrated or underrated. And if you want to tell us why you feel that way, you can. So over under live music.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Underrated. I grew up in the greatest era of music ever, the 60s and 70s. Young people today sing our songs when they play them at athletic contests, but we never sing their songs. So underrated.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Yeah, we just had a debate, a discussion about that in our football games or for our football games. Like, what music do we want to play? And we were playing some of your music as you said there, and uh people are like, hey, let's play some newer stuff. And then somebody else said we can't understand it. We don't know that we can't say the words to it. So it's like, nope, let's go back and play your music.

SPEAKER_03 47:18

Yeah, I I would have to say that's canned music, but I consider that live music, okay, because you're at an athlete's conference here. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

All right, over under dogs and sweaters.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

Overrated. All right, dogs don't wear sweaters.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

They are a sweater, right? Okay. Uh over under carnival food.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

Oh, wow. I I I must say that's uh uh that's underrated. The taste is underrated. It's not good for you usually, but boy. I miss I met County Fair for me was going to County Fair in our school area and where I grew up. Oh man, the the elephant ears and uh sugary lemonades and milkshakes. Oh yeah, yes, sir. Underrated. Yes, good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Last one over under road trips.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Very much underrated. Road trips, you said road trips, right? Yes, sir, road trips. Yeah, very much underrated, uh, in my opinion. I've done a lot of them, guys. And when you're in division two, as I was uh for most of my career, you know, you're traveling with Air Chevrolet, you're not flying anywhere, and you're in the car a lot. I think those trips, I got a lot done with our staff going to games. You know, we were in division two, we traveled two to five-hour road trips, right? You can get a lot done with people in a car uninterrupted. Okay. And we got a lot of work done. My uh Brian Kelly and I, it's in my book. Our two months into my um tenure at Grand Valley, he and I had to make a road trip to Detroit. It's about two and a half hours one way from Grand Valley to uh speak to some alumni. And so we were five hours in a car together, and then we kind of laid the groundwork of what we needed to do uh to take Grand Valley football to the next level. So those are the reasons. And then the other reason I think it's very much underrated is even when you're alone. Everybody needs some alone time, especially if you're the leader. I mean, I don't care if it's middle school, high school, or college, you've got somebody that wants a piece of your time all the time. And when you're in the car, you can get some things done from a thought process. You can start thinking strategically a little bit, and you can dream a little bit. You know, I am no question, that's a part of it. Dream about what your organization can become. Then the other thing for me, uh, and and this is a bit more personal than professional, but the time in a car is some of the best time for those of us that pray a lot. Uh, you can, you know, shut the music off, spend some time in prayer. Now, you gotta watch what you're doing on the road, of course, driving the vehicle. Uh, all right, but you know, that's some time to get quiet time. Everybody in today's world, guys, there's almost twice as many people in America today than when I was born, all right? And there's more noise on it. We all know that. And sometimes you've got to shut the noise off to grow and develop that decision-making ability that we were talking about earlier, and to grow and develop that planning. Uh, you've got to shut the noise off. And for me, prayer is a great way to spend that time on a road trip. And uh nowadays, guys, I got a big road trip coming up. My three youngest grandsons. They're age seven and five, and we're jumping in the car and driving to Madison, Wisconsin. Uh, their uncle uh and is on the football staff of Luke Fickles in Wisconsin, and we're going to the Wisconsin Northwestern game this Saturday. Uh, me and the three grandsons, and uh uh so we'll see who has to stop more often to go to bathroom, grandpa or the three little guys.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

I don't know if you'll be able to shut the noise off then.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

Uh we ought to have over-under on that right there.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Yeah, that's great. Uh what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_03 51:30

Uh, no question. I lean on my my dad. It kind of is related to what we talked about earlier. I was what one of the tougher times in my life was my freshman year in college. You know, I'd been I've been all state and everything in high school, and our team got in the state finals, and I went to the University of Toledo and they had a very good program, and all of a sudden I realized, man, all these guys are really good. They're all all state. And our our competition was stiff to get playing time. Uh, our practices were harder, the schoolwork was a little harder, and I was homesick. And I went home after three weeks of practice. In those days, all right, this is the 70s now, mid-70s, late 70s. You practice six weeks with no games. You know, we're watching college basketball right now. I chuckle. Those guys are playing a little practical a little bit, now they play a game. Are you kidding me? We went six weeks of nothing but practice. You talk about learning how to grind it out, learning how to take a positive attitude, even when it's tough. That was tough. And after three weeks of my freshman year, I was really struggling. And I went home to my parents that weekend and I sat down with my mom and dad in our living room, and I shared with them. I told, I'm not ashamed to tell you, I was crying all that. I said, I don't know if I'm ever going to play it. I don't know if I can get through this. I don't know if I can handle four years of this. And I'll never forget what my dad said. He said, regardless of whether you ever play at Toledo or a first team all league, or whether you get straight A's or straight C's, your mother and I only want you to just do the best you can. And then he said the magic words. He said, Because whether you're all league or never get to play, or whether you get straight A's or straight C's, we're gonna love you either way. And we just want you to do the best you can. At that point, I could almost palpably feel a burden off my shoulders. And I realized then that in some degree or another, I was trying to please other people. And then you come back to Wood talking about success and doing the best you can, and only you can know you did the best you can. And at that point, I determined right there. I'm gonna determine, I'm gonna take the God-given talents that I have and just do the best I can. And I'm not, you can't worry about results, you can't worry about wins, you can't worry about how much money you're making, you can't worry about how many honors you're getting. You just gotta go do the best you can. If you can do that, you're you're gonna find success and happiness. Um, and so that was another story, Don, for the question of you know, great piece of advice. Just do the best you can and don't try to live up to other people's standards. Live up to your own, and you know what? You're gonna do this funny.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

Yeah, that little simple truth there, that little simple challenge led to a Hall of Fame career. So uh you're in the Hall of Fame at Toledo, we should add there some really cool. All right, this next question, we mentioned Dustin Smith earlier. Dustin and Don like to pick on me uh because I don't watch Star Wars and all the sci-fi stuff. So the next question is it may be aimed at me, but I'll ask you fill in the blank at the end of the sentence, finish the sentence. I've never seen an episode of blank.

SPEAKER_03 54:42

Star Wars.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

All right, you go. I knew I liked it. There you go, that's right. All right. Um, today, Mr. Tim Suffko, you've been hanging with the ADs. We're gonna finish our trademark question here. Um, it is if you could hang out with anyone, who would that be and why?

SPEAKER_03 55:04

Wow. Well, I I I would say uh uh of of most importance, Jesus. I'm I'm a follower of Jesus, and uh, you know, uh if I have the opportunity to to truly be there when he walked the earth, um, that would be great. And uh, you know, again, I got my three and a half hours meeting with John Wood when he was 95 years old. Um but but for that I would probably would say John Wood for the impact you know he's made on my um uh my career.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Tim, thank you so much for the time today. You've helped us and our listeners get better, and for that, we're incredibly grateful. So thanks again for the time.

SPEAKER_03 55:51

Thanks, guys. I've enjoyed all of it.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

What a great time it was with Tim Selgo today. Tim, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate your time. We didn't know Tim before this conversation today, but man, we know him now and we understand why he was as successful as he was. Tim is a winner. Tim knows how to make winners. Tim Tim Tim is a champion, right? In a lot of different ways, but especially in his personality and in his leadership. You know, I I thought Tim talked about um the secrets, the secret sauce, if you will, when he talked about staying humble and working hard to sustain a championship leadership style. And uh, you know, I think staying humble the way he talked about it, just shows that people who are humble realize they don't have it all figured out and they are chasing something else, they are chasing better, and the only way you chase better is to work hard, and you can't achieve success, as Tim said, without working hard. Tim Tim had a lot of great nuggets in here uh talking about grinding it out, working odd hours, being informed of what's going on, not micromanaging, but having an understanding. And then I I thought uh he talked about you know you can't be a dud. If you're a dud, your team's gonna be a dud, which means the opposite of that. If you're if you're chasing greatness, your team's probably gonna chase greatness as well. Um and then the last thing he shared there toward the end of our conversation was just really, really good, where he said, only you can know if you're doing your best. Going back to that working hard. Uh working hard really can't be defined, right? Uh, but you can define it because you know what hard is for you. And if you're going to that or beyond, you know if you're giving your best. So, Tim, thanks for sharing so many great nuggets with us. Man, we appreciate this conversation, and we hope our listeners got better today. We hope you got better today, listening. So, if you did, we'd love to know what you thought. Please leave us a rating or review. We read them all, good, bad, or ugly. Uh, just know if you give us a rating, one of those star ratings, four or five star rating, it helps our podcast uh get in the hands or ears of others. So we appreciate you just hitting those stars. If you don't have time to write a review, that's okay too. And as always, thank you for spending your time hanging with the 80s.