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 0:17

Welcome to another episode of the Hanging with the AD Podcast. Today we are excited to bring you a conversation with Phil Ryzen, the Executive Director of the NFAA. Phil stepped into this role in January of 2023 after serving six years as associate executive director and has been a key leader in interscholastic athletics for decades. A past president of the NIAA and former executive director of the Kentucky High School Athletic Directors Association, Phil has also been a longtime member of the national teaching faculty for the legal courses, working alongside the legendary Lee Green. His contributions to our profession have been recognized through some of the NIAA's highest honors, including the Award of Merit, the Jim Watkins Award of Excellence, and the Distinguished Service Award. Most recently, he was inducted into the Mountain Sports Hall of Fame. In this episode, we'll talk with Phil about how the role of the athletic director has evolved over the years, the lessons he's carried forward from mentors and experiences, and the responsibility athletic administrators have in shaping school culture and student success. We'll also hear his thoughts on leadership, tradition, and what it means to serve as an executive in today's organization. It's a rich conversation with one of the most respected leaders in our profession. Let's jump right into our interview with NIAA executive director, Phil Risen.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Phil, we're so glad to have you joining Dynamy for this episode of Hanging with the ADs. You joined us alongside your predecessor Mike Blackburn back in January of 2023, but we're finally glad to have you uh for a solo episode now. So thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Well, thanks. It's an honor to uh be with uh both of you who uh not only are colleagues and friends, but uh who do a fabulous job in what you do in advancing the mission of education-based athletics.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

Yeah, we're excited to have you share. We know you got a lot of experience and looking forward to today's episode. But uh for our listeners, Phil Risen is the executive director of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, the NIAA. He has served in this role since January 2023. Uh, and prior to this role, he served as an associate executive director for the NIAA for six years. Phil's a past president of the NIAA. He served one year as the executive director of the Kentucky High School Athletic Directors Association and was an active LTI national faculty member in the legal classes uh prior to um working at the NIAA. Phil's been recognized for his incredible leadership through the NIAA Award of Merit, the Jim Watkins Award of Excellence, and the NIAA Distinguished Service Award, among many other state and national awards presented to him. Most recently, Phil was inducted into the Mountain Sports Hall of Fame. And uh also we must note Phil's son-in-law, Austin Maples, is a previous guest of our podcast, who's the current AD at Phil's former school, Montgomery County, in uh Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Uh, but we'll stop right there and let Phil tell us a little bit more about his journey through the world of athletics. Phil, we can, you know, as we call it, the back of the baseball card bio. So take a minute and tell us what the back of Phil Risen's baseball card would look like.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yeah, he bats right, he throws right, uh, he's a second baseman who converted to a third baseman, but um predominantly was raised in a small community in kind of eastern Kentucky a little bit, kind of where the the mountains kiss uh the mountains kiss the Appalachian a little bit. Uh fortunate enough to be raised in a community, a small uh community where um engagement in athletics was uh uh important. It was our way uh through the day. Um whether we were, you know, before iPhones and iPads and whatever, we were outside. Matter of fact, your parents would kick you outside. Go, go do something, go get out of the house. Uh and so at that point, we'd form our own games, we'd form our own teams, we'd form our own leagues and and play within our neighborhood. And so fortunate for that. Uh a great opportunity was influenced by many, especially in our little league program, uh, throughout many individuals uh who just uh had an impact on the way you should conduct business, the way you should be, the professionalism of uh of going to work every day. And so with that, uh Barbara and Johnny uh were my parents, and I was blessed and fortunate to be able to be raised in that community. I graduated, went from there and graduated and went to Eastern Kentucky University and became a basketball manager for the EKU Colonels because I knew I wanted to coach and predominantly was a basketball manager there for Coach Max Good and the Colonels, and uh finished my degree in business education, got hired as my first uh job at uh Paris High School in Paris, Kentucky, uh a little independent school district, uh the Greyhounds, and uh absolutely was a great place uh to be and start. Uh and and through that process, primarily progressed to to through my career just kind of as a teacher coach the first nine years in in Montgomery County as I left Paris and went to Montgomery County and then uh predominantly um ascended into central office as uh director of operations and then assistant superintendent uh over district operations and whatever. So very fortunate. I've had a lot of people who have built some fires that I was been that I've been warned by, and I'm honored for that and thankful for those who have uh dug those wells that I drink water from.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Yeah, it's good. It's good. You've seen athletics from a lot of different perspectives. You sat in a lot of different seats to look at uh high school athletics, and uh you've been involved in uh in the AD world since the 1990s, I think. Uh obviously, as a coach, you observed your AD prior to becoming an athletic administrator. That being said, how has this role evolved over the years? What skill does an AD need to have when entering this world today that you might not have um been required to have when you first started out?

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Well, I think when you look at the the world of athletics, and you can pick any level professional, you can pick uh collegiate or you can put pick interscholastic, but for what I've observed over the course of my career is uh just the liability and the risk management that comes into play for an athletic director assuming that position. Uh, when you look at uh primarily uh our programs in the interscholastic world, they're usually the front door or the front porch to most communities. And I'm a big thing on communities vital. My community was important to me. It was something for me to wear my name of my community on my jersey. And I took great pride in that. And all of my teammates, we took pride in that, and we wanted to always represent in a fashion, whatever. But when you look at it from the interscholastic athletic administrators role, uh the days of throwing the keys to them and saying, hey, you know, lock it up, take care of this, and whatever no longer exist. And and I'm not being um negative, but uh, my athletic director at my school was basically a former coach, and and predominantly he didn't do anything from the standpoint of planning or whatever. The coaches pretty much took care of all of that in the sense they they scheduled their own buses, they scheduled their own schedule, they did all of that. There was no concern for liability. And then when you look at the programs that we now have expanded to and what we what we offer, you know, the the adage of the fact that it used to be the big three football, basketball, maybe, and baseball, uh, is no longer. I grew up in an era basically Title IX, uh inspired in the sense that my freshman year as a freshman basketball player, we were the preliminary game to the girls' varsity basketball game, which they had just started back their team primarily in my community. So when you look at the growth or the evolution of the athletic administrator, it's I that's why I like the term athletic administrator. It used to be maybe we could say athletic director, but from there's so many facets that you're now managing that you're an athletic, you're an administrator managing that. And and those that uh have the the resources, it's more than just a one um staff member job. You have to have from medical assistance uh to the liability assistance in the fact of legal insurance, all of those things that you're dealing with. And then the most important thing is that you're having positive public relations. As I mentioned, it's a it's a it's a front porch to our schools. And so as we know, we want we don't want things to be negative in the used to say, we used to say we don't want to read it on the front page of the paper. And nowadays we say we don't want to see it on social media or anything like that. But it's evolved. Um I would like to think, I would hope, through the advancement of the NIAA, through the advancement of the GADA or other state associations, we have a more professional scope of how uh we uh entertain our position and how we operate in our position as athletic administrators.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, Phil, I know getting back to your bio there, I know that I think it was 1987. I I'm I'm a collector of of baseball cards in 1987 tops, they would put the they were an all-star of the year before. They put a little trophy like in a bottom right-hand corner next to their name. I didn't realize that you had a Hall of Fame trophy next to your name on your on your leadership baseball card there. So that's that's good to know.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

Um I mean, I don't think I'm supposed to tell anybody that.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

We get in and out if need be. Um the uh additionally though, you talked about taking pride in your community. I think that's a dining art, right? Uh, especially here in the Metro Atlanta area, even in my district. Uh most of my schools are anywhere between three and seven miles apart. And the idea of creating community is very difficult. Uh, I know that we have tried, even with my own kids, to to drive to into them representing their school. They are bigger than than than them uh as an athlete. And I know my daughter, especially, she she took great pride in wearing her school jersey, right? I mean, she plays club sports too, but she's very aware of what club sports is. It's a it's a group of free agents that aren't really loyal to anything and they come together to play and get better, right? But at the end of the day, she didn't want to turn her school uniform in. That was most important to me, that that experience was good because it had her her community, her name, her school name on the front. And so um I just wanted to piggyback and echo that. We've mentioned a little bit with your service uh with the legal courses. Uh you served on the national teaching faculty uh for those legal courses. And I know that you had the opportunity to teach it alongside the late Lee Green. Uh Lee was such an icon uh in our profession and someone who really fueled my own passion for that legal side of the AD role. I don't know if I feel the way I do about that element of what we do uh if it weren't for him. Uh what were some of the lessons or maybe takeaways you gained from working with Lee in that setting?

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Well, Don, thanks for mentioning that. And uh absolutely I was honored and blessed to be able to uh uh be warmed by Lee and the fact of the fires that he had built. And when you and for you to say what you just said, and the fact that I don't know if we approach the legal component of our profession without someone like Lee Green reminding us of our duties of responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Agreed.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

And so for for me to be able to uh be able to teach with Lee, the the scary thing about it was is that um, you know, I can remember the first time I talked with Lee. I'm thinking, first of all, I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a I'm just a little old business education teacher that, you know, would teach ASDF, JKL, Semicolon, and work on accounting and do things like that and whatever, you know what I'm saying? And you know, then wanted to leave after the day and go. And I'm I'm sitting here with this lawyer. Uh Lee always would remind me, Phil, I'm not a lawyer, I'm a teaching lawyer. And he'd say, I don't practice law, but I teach law. And he said, I value that impact of it. So some takeaways I got for him was, you know, in the fact that always remember that you can't do this alone. Uh, you need an army with you. And with that army, you need to have support staff that understands the roles that you're that you're engaged in and the liability of those roles that you are engaged in. So he was very good about that. And he was very, he had a way of this sounds bad, but he had a way of just simplifying it, making it seem so simple that, you know, even a uh an athletic director like me could understand, I need to look at this so much better. So, you know, I think I went into that with the fact that this is going to be complex, this is gonna be whatever. And my takeaway was is Lee was able to bring it to our level of understanding. I think part of that because of his brother, who served as an athletic director in Kansas, Lee was able to really bounce things off of him and was able to get that. But probably my biggest takeaway from Lee was the fact of just his his calm demeanor and the fact of the way he approached the law. Whether you agree or disagree with what the courts have done, or whether you I can remember and I don't mind mentioning, we talked about LeBron James and the fact that we had that court case primarily where there was a temporary injunction based on the fact in the state of Ohio over the fact of him selling his high school jersey, and that you know, the the Ohio Athletic Association had basically suspended him. And then, you know, the community and I remember Lee just saying, always remember sometimes the home team wins. And he was talking about hometown judges and how they get elected and they want to get elected again. So I think from really um when I think about my time with Lee and my time even after the fact, because I would call Lee sometimes just to ask some questions related to legal things, maybe that our ADs were dealing with, and how can I help them? And uh, I don't take that lightly because I think our ADs are in a precarious position and they assume a lot of liability that some of the district and and for a I'm just gonna springboard a little bit here, Don, for a district administrator, superintendent, assistant superintendent to tell their athletic director, well, I hope you have uh I hope you have insurance, and the district's not standing behind them to me is kind of a way of saying, I don't really support you. Because if it was a bus driver or a teacher or whatever, and you all we all know we're only as good as the people that we surround ourselves with, but for Lee, I think just a calm approach to teaching the law, making it simple for us to be able to uh dive into and to understand and to leave his course with the fact of knowing I need to have a reflection of my programs and how I make them better. I often say we we don't really know how many lawsuits Lee Green saved. Just from the fact of those that attended the national conference and taking his course or hearing his sports year law and review, we don't know how many athletic directors went back and changed a practice that ultimately changed maybe the outcome of a way something could have occurred.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, and I think another thing you talk about that calm demeanor, uh, he would also inject humor uh you know when when delivering that information uh because that can be really heavy. That can scare people, right? You know, I tell people all the time you go in and teach 504, and I'm like, if you leave with your keys, then I think you're gonna make it, right? Uh I I don't every time you teach at 504, you think that there's just gonna be a bunch of keys sitting on the middle of the table. They're like, I'm out, bro. But the cool part about what Lee would do is he would inject humor throughout as he taught or as he gave that that year review, that kind of it would bring a little bit of levity to it, uh, to something that really could just be gloom and doom if he wanted it to be, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

So yeah, and to his humor, when we revised 504 and six, Lee uh when we did it, we we came here in Indianapolis. That would have been probably, I don't know, 98 or 99 or something like that. And we were revising it. We came here to Indy. When we left there, Lee said, I will send, you know, of course, back then flash drives were a big thing. He said, I will send you all a flash drive of everything talking to the national faculty. I will send that to you. When I got my flash drive, Lee being Lee and being a true Kansas Jayhawk, sent it to me in a Kentucky, it was a Kentucky flash drive.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

So he always would dig at the Wildcats and and whatever. And and to your point, he uh uh great service in in provided for our ADs through the educational components teaching of Lee Green.

SPEAKER_04 17:58

Yeah, that's great. It's blessed to sit in a couple of his classes, and I think Phil, you were teaching one of them at one point in time. So um, I know all the ones that sat under him, the ones of us that did that appreciated it. Um you know, and I think it's worth mentioning here, we'll miss Lee uh tremendously. And you you said some of you know, do a lot of what he added and his demeanor still lives on. But now uh we've been blessed to have a relationship, a new relationship as a member benefit of the NIAA uh membership with Tom Horn and the expertise that he's bringing. And folks can look that up or experience that through the website. I know, but that's great relationship that uh that what we have now as NIAA members with Tom Horn. So that's good to good to have him on board now to replace a giant in our uh association there. But uh Phil, I want to jump back to kind of your experience and how you got to be where you are now and the leader you are now. And there's some roadblocks or some speed bumps in there uh that you shared uh on another podcast, and you've shared it often. Um, you and I have talked about it, and it kind of goes to you searching for your calling. We probably have all been there. What is our calling? What have we been called to do? Maybe it's because uh you struggling with your wrestling with your faith or whatever, but we we probably have all have looked at and tried to figure out what our calling is, and you talk about thinking you wanted to be superintendent, and how that search uh once again had some speed bumps in it, I think. How how has that search helped you become the leader you are today? How did you not getting a superintendent's job make you a better leader for athletic administrators and the staff that you lead there in Indianapolis today?

SPEAKER_02 19:47

I think uh two things directly. Number one was my faith, and number two was the fact that uh uh I was always told that if you don't believe in yourself, how are you gonna get somebody else to believe in you? And so with that being said, uh it's not an arrogance or whatever, but I do think we have to have a confidence in what we do as long as we're trying to do the right things wrong along the journey. Uh Josh, you mentioned for me, I was blessed for 27 and a half years to have just the most awesome support staff that supported me tremendously. I worked for a superintendent for 12 years that pretty much told me that if someone went to him and said, and it was athletic related, he would always say, I'm more worried about test scores and I'm more worried about this. If you want to deal with athletics, you go talk to Phil. Phil's in charge. And you don't know what that does for you as a leader. And number one, it made me work harder for for this individual, but it also made me understand that he trusted me enough to give me that autonomy in order to lead. So I was fortunate there. Uh, the last three years of my career, you know, uh, as I went into central office, first of all, it's kind of ironic for me. All I ever wanted to do was teach and coach. You know, I wanted to teach. Uh, and you know, people say, well, why'd you get a business degree? Well, I wasn't for sure if I was gonna like teaching. So therefore, I uh I wanted to have an out. I thought, well, maybe if I don't like teachers with the business degree, I maybe get into insurance or banking or something to that effect or whatever. Uh got in and absolutely loved it, loved being around the kids, loved the the day-to-day with that and whatever. And so all I really wanted to teach and coach. And uh nine years in, my principal came to me. I'd just been named teacher of the year at my high school, and my principal came to me and said, I'd like for you to be our attendance director next year and assistant athletic director. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm good. I'm okay, I'm I'm good where I'm at. And my wife always said that if someone tells you the team needs You're here, or this is best for the team. You're one of those that's going to say, All right, I'm in. If that's where the team needs me, I'm in. You know, she said, You're always going to get the 110% because the simple fact is you're going to be coachable and so forth. So all of that occurred and kind of started my journey on administration. So at that point, I've got my I got my certification because in Kentucky we had 10 years to get our master's. So, or in order to maintain our teaching licensure. So, therefore, I get that. I get my certification. And then I'm offered an assistant principal AD job and uh by one of the most wonderful individuals in my region. And I was able to work with him for a year. And then from that, I came back. I did miss coaching tremendously. Uh, and so I got out of athletics for two years and I coached basketball. And then all of a sudden, uh, the school district where I left there in Montgomery County primarily called and said, We'd like for you to come back home and be our assistant principal, athletic director. And so that journey there for those 27 years there was outstanding, except for the last three of that journey was really difficult. And I've been in central office, been assistant superintendent. The position came open. I applied for it. Just for the simple fact is, I was at the latter part of my career. I was still working with the Kentucky High School Athletic Directors Association. I'd just recently been named the executive director in transition with Jim Watkins. And uh I applied for the job and didn't get the job on a three to two vote, and that was fine. And I think everybody thought, well, Phil's gonna leave and he's gonna go find a job and whatever. But to your point, during that whole process, as I got into it, as you well know, there's uh headhunters out there that had identified me as a potential candidate. So I interviewed for 13 superintendents' jobs, counting the one there in Montgomery that I didn't get. And I was a finalist in six of those. And pretty much was told, hey, Phil, you really had a great interview. You did a great job, whatever, you're gonna be a great superintendent someday, but we're gonna go with this person and whatever. And so, with that, pretty much, you know, um, that happened and it occurred. And so as I shared my last three years as the superintendent that got the job over me, it became a whole uh kind of a holy war between him and the board. And so uh in the middle of that, they pretty much left him, let him go. At that point, uh told me I was interim superintendent for about four or five months, and I served in that role for about four or five months, was going to was going to apply for the superintendent's job again. And as the you know, faith, my faith would have it, and whatever's board members come to see me, and there were certain agendas they had. And at that point, I'm not an agenda person. I'm gonna treat people the way I want to be treated, and I'm gonna display respect and just because of things that happened in the past. So ultimately, uh, you know, I told them I wouldn't do that and couldn't do that because I have to look at myself in the mirror every day. And so ultimately, what uh they did, uh they hired a new interim superintendent and he abolished my position. And so at that point, I had one or two choices. At that point, I can either leave or I can retire. Well, I have my time in, and so um I often refer to it and I've got a little lengthy a little bit, but it was my gap year. Paula was still teaching, Paula was still teaching, uh, she was finishing her 30 her career, and uh, so I was the executive director for the state of Kentucky, which wasn't a full-time job, but I was traveling around to the different co-ops in the state and meeting with superintendents and and whatever, based on relationships that I'd built up built over a 30-year career. And uh I think you know, it's um I I heard a quote this morning uh in the sense that someone talked about uh people kept writing letters that I was done. I just didn't reply back. And I go back to the fact that saying um, number one, uh when this job, the associate job became available here in in Indy, I was in Kentucky. I was quite satisfied, I was quite happy, and you know what I'm saying? And I'd served on the board up here, as you already mentioned, I'd been in in um with the national faculty and the legal courses and so forth. And uh when Bruce White had retired and they elevated Mike uh Blackburn, Dr. Blackburn, I had some friends who I'd served with call me and say, Phil, you need to apply for that. And I'm like, you know, you got to live there. I don't think Paula's ready to leave Kentucky and so forth and whatever. And so, anyway, to kind of sum it up, uh God had a different plan than I had. Um, I I if you I my brother often says, Dad does not know I'm in Indiana. If he did, he'd be rolling over. You know what I'm saying? Uh and my brother would say, you know, dad passed away, you know, before you went to Indiana. And he said, he doesn't know you're there. And you know, and and to quote the good book, you know, my brother would say, just remember you're a foreigner in a strange land. And I was like, I am, but for some reason, uh, and I do think it, I do think it's God ordained in the fact that I'm here. And I've been so blessed to work with some of the greatest boards, the greatest people. And uh I'm I'm thankful for the opportunity that I get.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

That is that's so good. It's so funny how uh it's not on our timeline, right? It's not gonna be we think we're in control of things, but we're just ultimately not. And it's you know, there you are applying and applied and applying it's like he's beating you over the head trying to tell you what to do, you know, uh, before you finally realize uh, okay, maybe I'll maybe I'll I'll do what I'm supposed to do now. Um we're glad that it worked out for where you are now for sure. Now, uh you recently wrote an article for the NFHS that opened with a very powerful line. It said athletic administrators play a pivotal role in shaping the educational experience of student athletes and fostering a culture of excellence within their schools. Could you maybe expand on that a little bit, maybe speaking both to school leaders about the value of the athletic administrator and then to us as ADs about the responsibility that we've been entrusted with? You talked about being empowered by a leader who saw the value in you as the athletic director. Uh, I don't think that is common for everybody, right? So maybe speak to both sides of that coin.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah, Don, that's that's great. And thanks for mentioning that article I wrote in the National Federation today. But again, I think the athletic administrator is one of the most powerful positions, but it's also one of the most uh the hardest working positions in the district. I think the relationships that you that we get the opportunity to build are paramount in the fact that they carry way beyond the educational scope. You know, we've all we all know when you talk about the percentage in which we get these student athletes in our building based on the life scope of that. Uh, but I think when you look at the empowerment of the culture, and you've already mentioned it, my concern is community is going away. When community goes away and we don't have pride for that jersey, then we lose the reason why people go to games on Friday night. We lose the reason why they get engaged in a community and support a team that ultimately could go to uh advance in tournaments or whatever. I think that community spirit is something we have to try to bring back. And I think athletics is the key component of that. Uh, you know, it's um when you think about, I often think of the fall, especially, it is so great whenever your football team gets off to a good start, at least in in our community, because the simple fact is it kind of helped the the atmosphere a little bit, the culture, the spirit within the building. I'm not saying it's about winning or losing, but I am saying that when that season starts, it develops that. So when you talk about how we and the role we have, I mean I just don't know how I'm in my whole career, I never had the first, I never had the first person come in and say, if you don't fire that math teacher tomorrow, we're leaving, we're out of here, we're gone, we're going next door, whatever. But I can't tell you how many times I had parents who were upset that would come in and say, I'm telling you right now, Phil, the soccer coach has to go. And they were very passionate about that. And I I feel like that sometimes as an athletic America, the regular community don't know what we deal with. And you know, we often say, uh, you know, we have our parent meetings and we say, these are our boundaries. Don't talk to the coach after a game, that's the wrong time. You're gonna go through me to talk to the coach, or you're gonna you can set up a meeting with depending on your policies or your handbook or whatever. And nowadays we live in a society to where when things don't go right, let's go straight to the top, let's go straight to the state legislators. Heck, let's just go to the governor and let's just change the law, let's change the process. Where have we grown anyone in this process? So I think uh when you talk about the empowerment, the most important thing today for our athletic directors is mental health. And when we think about the things we're asking them to do over the course of working a 14 or 15 hour day, you know, especially I I think personally, and I think it's asinine in the sense that we tell someone that's worked till 9:30 or 10 o'clock, oh, by the way, you got to be in at 6 30 in the morning for bus duty. Well, what about the science teacher? Bring make sure they get there for bus duty after they I I really think, and that's part of maybe I'm so passionate about that. I think it agitates me to no end to think that uh we don't have respect for those who serve in that position and who ultimately are serving some of our brightest. When you look at student athletes, and we use the term student athletes, research will show us their opportunity for success is greater because of their engagement in the interscholastic. And I you've heard me say this before, Don. It's the best athletics is interscholastic athletics is the best dropout prevention program we have in our school. If it's ran right and the the concept of um the student athlete, student athlete is engaged. Yeah, it's good, it's really good.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

Uh Phil, I wanted to talk about um and and it kind of piggybacks on that a little bit as far as the level of operation or what the athletic administrator does, but I want to take it a step further up the food chain and the uh administrator uh hierarchy a little bit. You and I recently talked about um a word that gets used with leadership teams, and that word is executive. So throw that word executive on the front end of uh executive committees or a director or whatever. Uh, my wife said yesterday that they met an exec team, and there's their little private school that they're she's in, executive team or or our church calls it exec staff, or executive staff is the highest level leadership team within our church. You know, it's a small team, including the pastor and whoever else is on that exec team. You know, that word executive implies something different about that group or team, I think. What does the word executive mean when paired with a leadership team, like I mentioned? What responsibilities that does that team have when called an executive team?

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Well, I think um, first of all, you know, we can play on words a lot. We can use the term CEO, we can use the term executive, we can use the term uh athletic administrator, athletic director, uh leader, team leader, et cetera, et cetera. We can use all those terms. At the end of the day, ultimately what it comes down to, are you there for the betterment of the cause? Whatever the mission and the vision is, if the mission and the division is for the NIAA, we are a professional development association. So therefore, whenever our teams meet, whether that would be uh our board, whether that would be our committees or whatever, what's your cause? If you're a committee member and it's the endowment committee, or if you're a committee member and you're a certification member, what's your cause in the fact of are we working collaboratively together? Executive to me means you just basically have kind of been given, quote, and I don't like the term title. If if I need a title in order to work with people, then I guess I'm I'm a little bit um titles scare me a little bit. And I I put it this way I can walk in your gym, I can walk in your football stadium, or I can walk into a meeting and pretty much know anyone, and I can tell you who the leaders are within a matter of five minutes. Pretty much pretty easy. It's no different than teaching. It's kind of like you can walk in a classroom and you know within a matter of five minutes whether there's instruction, proper instruction going on, and the teacher has relationships with the people. So, executive to me means that you've just been kind of handed the keys a little bit to kind of lead and guide the group. Ultimately, what you have to do is foster, you have to foster a team that works collaboratively together toward the mission, the vision, and the goals that have been established. You know, serving on our board that we establish board goals and we establish staff goals, plus the fact that we have a strategic plan that we that drives us on a five-year cycle. Those are things that we look at, those are instruments that we look at in order to guide us. But everyone in that room should have an equal voice and should have equal input to the fact of their input within that. And the group collectively should be able to foster and make a decision that doesn't mean you agree. I mean, if we agreed with everything, then hold up, we got some issues. You know, uh, dad used to say, if two people are thinking alike, somebody's not thinking. I like that. And so that's how you kind of build the the collaborativeness of the fact of working with that. Um, you know, I I I you know, to me it's kind of like baseball manager, you know, really are you you're a manager, so really you're not doing any coaching? I mean, you just get a manage. And I don't know about you, but I I would hope some of our best baseball people that I see that quote quote have the title manager are coaching as well. And I realize that's a a little bit less a little bit bigger level, but I mean in little league or in high school, he was the coach, he wasn't a manager. Now, granted, they have to manage some things, but ultimately they're coaching and trying to lead and direct and guide their team. So I don't know if I answered your question in the sense of, you know, executive to me. I'm the executive director. I've been fortunate enough that a board has put the support in me to say that I am the executive director of our association. At the end of the day, I'm an athletic director that's working with 16,593 that are members. And I'm trying to make sure that we're providing them the resources that they have in order to be successful in the difficult job that they got. I'm no better than anyone else. I'm just fortunate enough that I get to sit in this chair and be able to be uh enlightened by people in this profession that are the best of the best.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

Yeah, you kind of uh you kind of mentioned, I love what you said about what's your cause, because I think that's kind of what I was trying to drive at and see maybe I'm off off base as well. But as an executive team, when you get together, uh whether it's an executive leadership team or our board as you mentioned, or maybe it's an admin team in a school, whatever it is. Uh it depends on the organization. Are there things that that executive team uh should avoid? Maybe, maybe you know, do that do you avoid getting in the weeds because you got other people doing that? Leave that to them, think at a higher level as an executive team, bigger vision. And I think that's what I was trying to say and ask. Um, does executive mean you've got to hold yourself to a higher, maybe not level, but standard of thinking and operating and and and uh managing?

SPEAKER_02 39:23

I would agree, yeah, I would agree. I think sometimes we have to be cautious of the fact of especially, and I'm gonna reference the boardroom. Our input, my input, or Becky's input or Rich's input sometimes could influence a board member in a way in which they don't need to be influenced. So we need to be very cautious of what we say because number one, we want to be grass grassroots led in the sense and organized. So that's why we number one, we have our order leadership structure of our president. But sometimes we can get in the weeds or we do cross the guardrails. And maybe at that time, I feel you're laughing because we probably both can refer to when, but we do at that time, you will probably you probably witnessed me say, okay, we we've had this, but here's where we need to keep our thought process. And so I think that's part of part of my job is to make sure I do think there there has to be proper uh facilitation and discussion. And I do think you need to allow as many in the room that want to have their voice heard be heard. But what I have found um from those that come into the boardroom, and you got to realize I've been in that boardroom now since 2010, except for one year. And what I have observed over those 15 plus years is the fact that you have the best of the best come in there with how can we get better? And that's been good.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Home run of an answer there. Now, those of us that have been around you for any length of time know that you're a great example of what I would call a contradictory thinker. Okay, let me elaborate on that. You deeply value tradition. We've talked about that already here today. Yet you're never afraid to try new things or implement fresh tactics or embrace new methods to get the job done. We've talked about that today, about that the role and how it's changed. How can leaders strike that same balance, respecting tradition while also leading it in a very progressive, forward-thinking way?

SPEAKER_02 41:34

That's a great question, Don. I mean, um it I what I see is I see we have talent. Two things concern me a little bit as we move forward in this role. Number one's technology. What what kind of role is technology going to play in the future? It's already playing a role right now, but with the onslaught of AI, what what role, and I I know you all had Chris Chisholm on, and I'm excited to have Chris in in Tampa and for him to be able to speak to our members. But uh there's things about AI I learn every day that is helping me, that can help me. But uh as Tom Horn reminds reminds us and reminded our state coordinators this past weekend, understand you can use AI, but when you utilize AI, understand and you transfer it to the factor where it's coming from an email from you or whatever, those are your words, and you better know you're gonna have to own them. So, number one, you better make sure you're proofreading or doing whatever and and some of that, because AI is proving itself, it's not always correct. To your point, I think all if you have a lens of how can we be be better, and if we're always doing it the way we've always done it, and with the evolution of the change of demographics, demographics are it used to be the athletic administrator maybe didn't uh get into that position until they were maybe in their late 40s or early 50s, and they'd probably coached, you know, 20 years or 25 years, and they're they're tired of coaching because of the whatever. And so they they get handed the keys and they become the athletic director. But when we look at that evolution of the change there demographically, we uh we have to appeal to a younger audience, a younger audience in the different techniques of the way they learn. Uh, you know, the the the days of the sit and get are kind of gone. They better be more in short burst, to the reason uh that we have had a tried to have a broad scope of the fact of how we're doing things. An example is our AD roundtable. You were doing something that was just absolutely outstanding. And I watched that and I was a participant of that, and I I observed that, and I'm thinking, we got to get this to more people. And so now, you know, by you coming on board to being our host. And partnering with the NIAA, we offer something now that every one of our members can have access to. Because now we're loading it after that. Whether they can attend live or not, we're loading that on our content page to be able to allow those that I've got a son. You all mentioned my son-in-law. This phone, the phone, they do more business on their iPhone than I ever thought about doing. You know, I can text and email on the iPhone, but they do from every other app, program, and whatever. And so they they're very confident with that. Well, they even watch videos on their iPhone. So we've got to look at it that way in the fact of trying to be progressive, but while we're maintaining the, and so I said there were two things that keep me up. Number one is technology, and the other one is is kind of the George Jones approach. Who's going to fill their shoes? Because gang, I I don't know about you, but I don't get taught. We never we never got paid for teaching. We would go to a national, my dad used to say, so let me see if I get this straight. You go to the national conference, you teach four classes, you did a you did a a workshop and you did all this and whatever. What they pay you. Well, dad, they didn't pay anything. Well, what why are you doing all that? Dad, it makes me better. Because when I'm around those individuals that are challenging me to be better, guess what? It makes me have to be better. I have to bring my A game every time. And so I'm I'm worried about that. Because the younger, and I I don't I don't like the term young, but the generations coming behind us don't seem to have the service attitude of the fact of I want to help others. I've often said the great thing about our profession is as a coach, I wanted to beat you between the lines. But when I became an athletic director at that point, I wanted to help you help your programs in order for us all to be the best we could be. And again, it goes back to the Tony Dungey quote. If it's just about winning and losing, then it's it's got to be more than that. And that's why I say when you look at our research, our student athletes, research shows us their success rate of being productive citizens, being leaders in our country, being leaders moving forward. It warrants the fact of us having education-based programs in our schools.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

It's good stuff right there. Really good stuff. So, Phil, one more question before we uh get to our two-minute drill. We've asked all our guests this year this question. It comes from the book, The Five Graces of Life and Leadership. Uh, that's the book that you and I have um so commonly been um referred to, page 28, by our friend Damien up there in Connecticut. Uh, but there's a quote right after that or right around there uh on page 28 that says leadership. It starts with a leader, but it's not about the leader. How do you respond to that statement on leadership?

SPEAKER_02 47:05

Well, it it the leader has to kind of be the one that directs and sets and guides, but at the end of the day, it's not about anything I've done. You know, the we were talking, uh we were talking this weekend. People always say, uh, well, what legacy do you want to leave? And we were in a deep study talking about a deep dive of conversation, legacy. What do you want to leave? And I think about that word, and I think about, you know, what do I want people to think about when the fact that I walk away from the NIAA, I want them to think about the fact that number one, he cared. Number two, he cared about the the day-to-day athletic administrator and the and the job they were happened to do in the trenches. But I don't want it to be listed as a legacy. I want him to just think about the fact that, you know, he was one of us, he was a teammate, and you know what? We just happened to put that individual in that chair, and he just happened to be designated as our team leader, and he was blessed by that opportunity. So, a leader, when you think about that term and and whatever, I mean, we we can get political, we can get corporate, we can get educational. When you walk about that leader, again, a leader doesn't have to wear their title. And when I say a leader doesn't have to wear their title, people gravitate to them and want to be around them because they are they are drinking from a fountain that and that enhances every one of us is influences us to be better.

SPEAKER_04 48:49

Oh, I love that last line. That's so good. So good. All right, Phil, thanks a lot for um making us better leaders today. Appreciate that. Now we're gonna jump into our two-minute drill. I'll let Don lead us on that. We'll get to know you a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

All right, Phil, we're gonna hit you with some rapid fire questions. You just tell the first thing that comes to your mind, okay?

SPEAKER_04 49:07

All right.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

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

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Uh, first paid job was uh uh food world. I was uh in charge of the dog food aisle.

SPEAKER_04 49:19

Big time. Nice. Don't you wish you were still there to feed that dog of yours, right? I need some of that those poundages of bags. Oh Jasper. All right. Best item you picked up for yourself at an AD conference you attended. Best item you picked up for yourself at an AD conference, a physical item or an educational item or a thought item or what? I I mean, I think the key is you picked it up yourself.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

I think he's going somewhere with us.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

I know he is, I know where he's going. I don't want to go there. I don't know if we got past timeout pass.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

I don't know, but all right. Fair enough. Well there was a nice visit to Devon Park in Oklahoma City. We'll leave it at that, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Yeah, well, he he's trying to incriminate me in the fact of saying that you know, uh we were at section six and we got to go to see Oklahoma City to this to see this where they play the national softball tournament, and the gates were open, and I walked in. And you know, uh again, I have confidence in the fact that if security would have come up and said, What are you all doing? I would have said, Hey, I'm Phil Rising, I'm here from Indiana. I you gotta realize we were driving through. I want to just see this beautiful place where I watch it on ESPN and whatever, but somebody, but the the probably the the Gatorade Tau is what he's referring to, or the or the the souvenir cup that we got out of there, or the game softball that we got out of there. So there's that make you feel better, Josh. It is like the or and or or or yeah, I like that. That's good. But the thing about it is is that uh, you know, if if I go down, there's some going down with me.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Pretty much those items are gonna be put in the trash. So I think we just helped them take out the trash.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

So oh man, that's good. Okay, uh, let's get serious here. What is the key to a successful March Madness bracket, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Uh don't overthink it. Yeah. And you don't don't even have a strategy.

SPEAKER_04 51:34

All right. If money were no problem, what franchise would you open?

SPEAKER_02 51:39

Oh, it would be simple. I you know, that me some sugar llama donuts. Amen. I'd open one right here in Carmel. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

All right, let's play a game of hot or not. So these are hot takes. Uh, they could be an unpopular opinion that people feel very strongly about. So we're we're gonna say it. If you say hot, you agree with it. If you say not, you don't agree with it. Okay. Skyline chili is overrated.

SPEAKER_04 52:06

Not all right, hot or not, barbecue mutton in western Kentucky is a must-have dish. Hot.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Okay. Josh's mom's chocolate pie.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

Double hot.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Double hot.

SPEAKER_04 52:25

All right, the only type of tea is sweet tea. Hot.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Thought you would agree with that as well. Okay, we've asked everybody this season to uh take part with us with uh Brett Ledbetter's book, 365 Questions. So I want you to pick a number between 365.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

10.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

That's exactly what that was. Okay, here we go. What has been the hardest thing for you to unlearn to make your life better?

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Uh that I have to take care of myself, that I have to physically um instead of I have to take care of me, the wellness part of me, making sure I'm eating the right things, uh doing the right things, exercising properly. I think sometimes, and that's the thing with ADs, uh, we didn't talk about it enough. We don't we don't talk about the fact that we have to take care of us. It's okay for an AD to to go and do a workout. And quite honestly, I think they should be able to do the workout during the day or whatever. But I think for me, the hardest thing is for me to take care of me.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

That's really good. We're gonna that it's funny that you picked that question. Uh, the we're gonna have Sam Chan on the uh 80 round table, and one of his big things is we we learn, we unlearn, and then we relearn, right? And and the process of development that goes through that, I think, is uh is is critical.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

Yeah, that's a fantastic question and answer there. All right, Phil, I'm gonna give you five people, and it's five people you're passionate about. It's gonna show your passion for your wildcats. Give me one word to describe each person. All right, first one, Joe B. Hall.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

Class Rick Patino, Toby Smith, Humility, John Calapar, Rich, Mark Pope. Uh special.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

That's good. Good answers. Uh, what's your favorite leadership book?

SPEAKER_02 54:29

Uh currently, right now, we're I have several of them, but I I really think the one that probably moved me a little bit uh to the fact and we did an office was uh Be the Unicorn, as we were looking at that and going through that. So that's the one that I kind of pull, I have sitting on my desk at home and I pull that aside. Uh, we're doing the culture code right now. We had a gentleman on the board give that to uh all of our board and and our staff, and and so we're doing that right now, and it's been really good. Um, I think uh there's a lot of great leadership books out there. John Gordon always has the little quick hitters, so I don't want to leave any of them out. I'm an avid reader, uh, but for me, be the unicorn probably got me thinking a little bit differently than some of the others.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

That's good. Are you are you do you really read or do you just take pictures of books like Dustin Smith does?

SPEAKER_02 55:20

I do not take pictures of books.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Okay, I I there's no way he reads that much. He's he's just literally taking books. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 55:27

No, Don, you set that up. You set up a comment I was gonna make is I've had the opportunity to be in Phil's office, be in Phil's house, and he's got a great little basement office, and I always sneak down there and see what books are on his desk, but I'll pull them off his shelf a little bit because he absolutely devours a book. He marks it up, he puts little tabs in it, he gets after a book with some final four intensity, as he likes to say. Uh, it he he he gets into a book for sure and gets after it a lot of different ways, so yeah, it's good. Um all right, so waste of time question, but Don put it on here, so I'll ask it. Better basketball state, Kentucky or Indiana?

SPEAKER_02 56:07

Uh at the collegiate level, Kentucky at the high school level, Indiana.

SPEAKER_04 56:13

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 56:15

You took a neutral side there. It's been hard for me to say that, but being up here and getting the opportunity to go watch some high school basketball fundamentally and what they do up here, and it's a bigger state, but it and then knowing um, you know, the Kentucky Indian All-Stars, which my brother coached in '97. But yeah, Indiana has bet better high school basketball. Collegially, nah. There's I mean, look, when's the last time Indiana won a national championship? I mean, at least, you know, 1980 something or what?

SPEAKER_01 56:45

Been a minute.

SPEAKER_04 56:46

That's what I thought. That's the answer I thought we were getting. No, you you tried to play it, play it, play it neutral there for a minute. Yeah. All right. Last one. Let's finish with our trademark question. Phil Rising today, you've been hanging out with the ADs, but let's say you can hang out with anyone. Who would that be and why?

SPEAKER_02 57:10

Um he was not an educated man, but he shared wisdom. And um I'm sorry to get emotional, but I mean uh, as my brother often reminds me, dad doesn't know I'm in Indiana. So, but I I I would like to talk to my dad again. There's a lot of other people out there um that um, you know, you would like to have the opportunity to uh you and I got the opportunity to visit with Roy Williams, and that was neat to get to see behind the screen a little bit or whatever, or behind the camera. But uh I think the people that are closest to us, you know, that have influenced us the greatest, um, you know, I'd like to talk to dad again.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Great answer. Phil, thank you so much for the time uh to join us today. Uh, and in the way that you continue to lead both of us and the NFAA. Your example challenges all of us to keep growing and to keep striving for best practices in interscholastic athletics. We truly appreciate your time and leadership. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

Thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate what you guys do, not only uh in the state of Georgia, but across the country. Uh and uh Don, definitely appreciate the partnership uh doing leading the AD roundtable. And Josh has been, I just got to say, Josh's term is up. Uh, but as I tell our board, you never leave the room. And he's left a presence in there that I can assure you he will never leave the room.

SPEAKER_04 58:41

I consider it always a privilege to get to talk to Phil Risen, the executive director of the NIAA. As he mentioned there, get to serve in the same room with him or have served for three years. Uh Don has uh picked up an opportunity to serve alongside uh Phil and the group there at NIAA with AD Roundtable. And we're just privileged to be a part of NIAA and uh be in the presence of Phil's leadership. And you got a little taste of that today. Uh Phil's a phenomenal leader, did it at the local level, the state level, and now uh is a great leader at the national level. And uh I I some of the takeaways I had here, and I really never heard him talk about the evolvement of the athletic director title or position. And I've heard him talk a lot about the athletic administrator, and he does say that more often in AD, but uh he made a great point in this conversation to say athletic administrator is more appropriate in today's world because there's more administration part of the job than there is just directing. Uh, and I thought that was a great thing he said early on in this conversation. Um, talking about you got to believe in yourself so others will believe in you. What a leadership uh mindset and focus that is in principle. We've got to make our community believe in us as the leader, uh, whether it's our coaches, our players, or our community members. Um, we got to believe in ourselves first, man. That was great. Uh, and then talking about the future of athletic administration and high school interscholastic athletics, you got to have a lens of how we can be better. And that's what Phil is so good at. He's been doing it for a long time. But what you heard today is he's not afraid to change. He understands tradition and loves tradition, but he's not afraid to change to get better. And you got to have that mindset of growing and getting better. And then uh, you know, I've heard him say this to me so many times, um, but he talked about the one quote his dad said, if two people are thinking the same, someone's not thinking. And I think we always want to be in a room with other people, and we got to make sure we're in a room with other people who may not think like us, so we get better. And that's the only way to get better. So I love that quote. If two people are thinking the same, someone's not thinking. And that comes from Phil's dad. So I'm glad he shared that. And you got to see how he felt about his uh the dad, how much he misses him and loves him, and would love to learn from him some more. And we're probably all that way. So, hey, thanks for listening today. I know you got better listening to Phil Risen talk to us about leadership. So if you wouldn't mind, leave us a rating or review on the podcast platform you're listening to. Those help us get better and help us get heard by other people. Thank you for taking time to do that. And as always, thank you for spending your time hanging with the ADs.