Episode Transcript
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Welcome to infinite human, where we explore our limitless potential through conversations with guests who have achieved greatness, overcome challenges, and worked to find their purpose. We aim to share and inspire you to do the same.
I'm your host, Shona Kerr. I'm a college coach, professor and businesswoman who is eager to learn from and sharing the wisdom of others with you and on to the show.
Welcome to Infinite Human. With me today is Wesleyan University athletic director Mike Whelan.
Mike has a storied career in coaching american football and wrestling. He has received many awards and has very successful stints at both Williams College and now our Wesleyan University where he then took over as the athletic director and has been so for the last ten years. Today he'll talk about his path as a student, being a late bloomer athletically, how he met his wife, and some of his favourite moments along the way. I hope you find his story motivating and enjoy the show. Welcome. Mike Whelan. Great to have you here today.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Thanks, Shana. Great to be here.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: We're excited to really get to know you a little bit more and the man behind the athletic director role at Wesleyan. And the question I want to ask you first is you were 20 years old. Did you imagine being here right now at this stage of your life?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: No. In fact, I probably.
I didn't think I'd be at this place when I was 45 years old, to be honest.
Although I obviously made a career out of coaching, it wasn't until very late in my career that I ever even considered athletic administration, becoming an athletic director, let alone ever finding my way back to Wesleyan. I think that was very unpredictable, especially because before Wesleyan I was at Williams and we were pretty solidified there as a family and really wasn't looking for an opportunity when this opportunity came about.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: It's interesting you mentioned the sports administration piece meeting your background there. I believe your master's was in sports administration administration at Springfield College. So was there a hint back then that was something you might be interested in?
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, again, I thought that as a young person that was going to pursue something in the coaching profession, the athletic administration degree made sense. I also got certified to as a physical education teacher, which required me doing a lot of prerequisite courses, undergraduate prerequisite courses from Springfield College, because the liberal arts background from Wesleyan here, I didn't take a lot of the sciences and all those things that you would need to take to meet the requirements for the phys ed certification. And so my master's program, instead of being 32 credits was 54 credits. I did it over two years, but I felt that I wanted to give myself as much versatility as I could in terms of coaching at the high school level, at the college level, and getting both certified in physical education and getting a master's in athletic administration, I thought would make me more marketable.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: You certainly managed to utilize both of those aspects over the years. Is there anything you learned in your masters in sports administration that you find yourself using now? Do you dip back into it, or have things changed so much?
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Things have changed a lot. But again, I think my takeaways from my master's degree at Springfield was how to, how to juggle a lot of different balls at the same time. I think that's sort of a prerequisite if you're going to be in an athletic administrator, you got to wear a lot of different hats and you need to manage several different areas, sometimes simultaneously, which can be challenging.
But I also believe that more the people that I worked with when I was doing my masters at Springfield, I was some really established educators at Springfield who were able to give a lot of good insight from their own experience, and then people that I actually stayed in touch with, at least through the beginning part of my career with regards to asking follow up questions on coaching and athletic administration.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: So we know you as Mike Whelan, the athletic director at Wesleyan, but there was a long path to get to that. And I'm curious, especially for those who don't know, where are you from and what was your upbringing like?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: I was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, which is not very far from Wesleyans campus, but grew up predominantly in Enfield, Connecticut, which is right on the mass border with Connecticut and it's up north just as you're going towards Springfield. And my parents were, were very blue collar, hard working people. Neither one went to college, and so my sister and I got the opportunity to go to college, which was a big deal for my parents. After graduating from Fermi High in Enfield, I did a postgraduate year at Loomis, Chaffee and Windsor to improve myself academically and athletically. And then from there got the opportunity to come to Wesleyan, which was really the only school that was recruiting me to do both football and wrestling. So I had a lot of bigger schools recruiting me to play football, and I had a lot of bigger schools recruiting me to just wrestle. But I didn't have anyone else other than Wesleyan that said I could come and do both, and that was really a big draw for me. In addition to, obviously, Wesleyan being a top academic school, I always knew I wanted to play football in college. The wrestling piece really didn't settle with me until my postgraduate year when I said, I don't think that's my last wrestling match, and hence that led me to wrestling.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: So, yeah, wrestling and football have clearly both been very important to you along the way, and you've coached both to high level awards in coaching in both sports. How did you find and train for each of those sports growing up? What were the opportunities?
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Well, football was. My dad played. I was a very good. Played semi pro football back in the day. I was a very, very good football player. So football was kind of in our family and grew up a big fan of football, unfortunately, was always too big as a younger athlete. And so I didn't start playing football, really until 9th grade. And that really wasn't what I would call a great experience because I was new. And then when I got into high school, kind of grew a little bit, got a little taller, you know, kind of, kind of grew into my body a little bit, became a little bit more athletic then, but really wasn't to my senior year of high school that I actually was an impact player at our high school level. And then wrestling was something I didn't start till my junior year, and that was something that was completely foreign to my family. My dad knew nothing about wrestling. And honestly, it was the high school coach, Joel Arnold, who basically followed me around the halls two years, trying to convince me to come out for the wrestling team. And every time he'd see me, he'd say, if you wrestle, it's gonna make you a much better football player. And finally, I don't know if I just got tired of him chasing me around or if his message actually got to me, but I decided to go out for the team, and I took my lumps early.
I fell in love with the sport very quickly. And what I really liked about it was, you could, I think, relate to this a little bit with the squash, is I like the fact that it had both an individual component and a team component to it, which football didn't have. You know, I could. I could be on the football field and I could do my job to the highest possible level, but if one of the other ten guys didn't do his job, then the play was not successful. And I didn't like the fact that, you know, I couldn't control that destiny piece, whereas as a wrestler and plus I was a heavyweight. So I was the last match of every. Every meet that we had. And I loved the opportunity when it happened to be able to decide the outcome of the team match. So because if I won my match, if the team was close enough, then we could secure the team victory. And I didn't see it as pressure. I saw it as a challenge. And that's really what I think drew me to the sport that I could have to kind of the best of both worlds. You had that opportunity to compete individually, and then you also had the benefit of having teammates and camaraderie there.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Do you have any turning point moments in both football and or wrestling in high school that really said, you know what? I want to do this. I want to pursue this further?
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, again, I think because I didn't play and my high school team was pretty good, there wasn't a lot of kids that went on to play college football, but there was a lot of really good high school football players, and we were one of the better teams in the state of Connecticut at the time. And so I remember when I did first get the opportunity to actually start and play and be a contributor the end of that season, earning some all conference, all state type recognition and then college coaches starting to come around and talk to me was really the first time that I was like, hmm, like I might actually have an opportunity to do something beyond high school. And then on the wrestling side, it happened a little bit later. I had success my senior year, high school, in wrestling as well, but I wasn't sure that that was something that I would, that I would have success with in college, really. I saw myself more as a football player until that postgraduate year. Then I really felt. I felt like I could compete in wrestling at a pretty high level as well. People are surprised when they hear that I didn't grow up playing football. I wasn't playing when I was a youth, and I really didn't see serious playing time until my senior year. And then I didn't start wrestling until my junior year. And I believe that because I was, quote unquote late bloomer that I had a lot more. I guess my ceiling was a little higher coming out because I was just so, I was so engaged with, with both sports and I had great passion for both sports and I really wanted to achieve at the highest possible level because I hadn't really done a lot throughout my high school years. And so there was a lot of motivation there for me. And fortunately, I had the opportunity to continue to go for Wesley.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah. When you say you hadn't done a lot in your high school years, were you doing other things outside of sport? Prior to sort of.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: No. I mean, again, I was on the football team, but I didn't play. Play JB. You know, as is the case in most sports in high school, if you're playing JB, you're not a varsity player. You're really not relevant. So it really wasn't until my senior year that things started to come together for me. And a lot of my friends and classmates, you know, were kids that started as sophomores and juniors, and so they. Their careers were much more established in high school than mine was. Yet I was the one that went on and did, you know, much more at the college level than they did?
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Well, it sounds like you were guiding that ship more than anything. Sometimes we see others pushing forward.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: I would say two different ends of the spectrum. Coaches. Okay, my football coach was a guy. He knew a lot of football, but he literally only coached you from the day the season started to the day the season ended. After that, it was like, okay, see you next year. My wrestling coach was a guy that coached me year round. Like, he would call me out of season, he would talk to me about school, he would talk to me about college. You know, he was a true mentor. I don't hold it against my football coach. He was only paid a small stipend to coach football, and he probably wanted to spend time with his family. And so I don't hold any ill will there, but it did teach me a lot in terms of how impactful my wrestling coach was on me, and I wanted to pay that forward to my student athletes when I eventually got into coaching.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: So then you transition to wesleyan. Well, actually even take one step back from that. You did your PG year at Loomis chaffee, which was probably a really different environment to your high school in Enfield. And I see students actually in squash come from certain programs. They get scholarships to private boarding schools, and it's a bit of a culture shock. Was that the same for you?
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Huge. It was. And again, I wasn't a great high school student, but I wasn't a bad one, either. Like, I was the kind of kid that. I mean, I never brought a book home at night. You know, I always was, you know, someone that was going to participate in class. My teachers liked me, all those kinds of things. So, you know, it was a situation where I didn't really get challenged academically. And so I think that when I got to Loomis, and it was a completely different environment where everyone was really focused academically, everyone was talking about what schools they were applying to, everyone was so focused on what was coming next after high school, that that's when I finally. It kind of dawned on me. The light went on. And honestly, it was a conversation I had with my college counselor at Loomis. It was the first one I had. And, you know, as you know, you went in, and I sat down, and she said to me, hey, tell me about some of the schools you're interested in. And I listed a lot of division one football programs, division one wrestling programs that had shown interest in me from my senior year that I was continuing to stay in touch with during my PG year. And then at the last school, I threw out, I threw out Wesleyan. And she just kind of gave me, whoa, whoa, whoa. She's like, mike, if you were to apply to Wesleyan, that would make 22 students from Loomis who apply into Wesleyan. And if I had to rank them one to 22 academically, you would be 22. Basically, she was telling me not to apply to Wesley.
I walked out of that office, and I was bound and determined that I was, or at least get admitted to Wesley. And I worked my tail off. I remember I had a great english teacher.
He was one year out of Amherst. He graduated from Amherst and was teaching, and he was a brilliant guy, and he taught me how to write. The first paper I turned in, there was more red on it than blue when it came back, and there was no grade on it. And he just said, see me.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Oh, he did.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: And so I went in and I saw him, and he challenged me in ways academically that I'd never been challenged before. And make a long story short, I got that acceptance letter from Wesleyan and went back into that guidance counselor office, and I handed her the letter and I said, not bad for 22, and I walked out.
But that was a motivating thing for me. That was something that. I don't know if it was meant to be motivational, but it was definitely something that. That motivated me. And again, it was hard. I mean, my postgraduate year at Loomis was harder than my freshman year at Wesleyan. I believe it just because it was such a transition, living away from home. And so when I got to Wesleyan, I had done a lot of the things that a lot of other kids hadn't, except the boarding school kids. So, yeah, it was a. Like, I'm a huge advocate of the postgraduate experience, and my son did one. And through the years of, you know, college recruiting, I sent hundreds of kids to prep schools before they came and played for me whatever school I was at.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Were you. Did you know whether you were still 22 when you applied, or had you bumped your grades up that you were like, you know, we made it to 15, but we're now up number four.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: I don't know the answer to that. I knew that. I know that I was the number one recruit in two sports. I know that.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: I'm sure that didn't hurt.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: So that helped me. But again, I did had a. I did have to really focus on writing a good essay, really focus on getting good teacher recommendations, doing some extracurricular activities, making myself a more attractive candidate to Wesleyan. But, I mean, let's face facts. There was kids that were at Loomis for four years, and they were just smarter. They were just smarter than I was. Fortunately, I happen to be pretty good athlete.
That helped me.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. And determined. I mean, if you're driven, then this is what you can do.
Then you made your transition to Wesleyan. Sounds like first year wasn't too bad after the pg year at Loomis. But there had to have been things that were different. There had to have still been adjustments.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: No, there definitely was. You know, I mean, again, it had my challenges, but I would have had no chance. If I had ever come here straight from my public high school in Enfield, I would have had no chance of success. And so I really, really do value that experience there at Loomis. And I knew I wasn't going to be a math or a science major. And so, you know, the beauty is you can kind of steer away from those courses. And I actually found a real interest in sociology, and so went there, took some government classes, took some econ classes, and took advantage of the liberal arts education.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: What were some of your favorite moments as a wesleyan student? And both. Both on and off, in and out of the sporting arena, per se.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: I mean, I would say that, you know, most of my fondest memories are, you know, with friends or teammates. That was. That was, you know, the focal point of my wesleyan experience. I'm still very close with, you know, my four roommates 45 years later and close to that 40 years later. Obviously strong bonds there. I think we didn't have as much success in football as I would have liked in one year.
We were in the mix for an S championship that came up a little bit short, and so I would have liked to have been a little more competitive. We never won a little three in football, which obviously was something I wish we could have done. I could have done as a player. It was fun to do it as a coach, but I would have loved it on player as well. And in wrestling, we had a lot more success as a team.
We were second in the New Englands twice and had some really talented kids on our team. And John Bitterskombe was our coach and did a great job. And so, yeah, I mean, the majority of my memories centered around athletics or friends that I was on with teams. People ask me all the time, like, what do I think is one of the real advantages of Wesleyan education? And I didn't understand it at the time and I didn't appreciate it at the time. But looking back on it, I think the diversity that Wesleyan offers and having the opportunity to interact with people from all around, all over the spectrum prepares you better for life because you're not going to be dealing with the same kind of people every single day and whatever you choose to do for the rest of your life. And I really believe that that was one of the best things that I took away from Wesleyan Washington, because in addition to doing the athletic piece, I was the student manager of the school pub. So I dealt with a lot of different students there. I was an officer in my fraternity, so I dealt with some different people there. So again, did other things outside of athletics. And I think having the experience to the exposure sort of outside of my comfort zone a little bit, I think that was really one of the more positive takeaways.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: I think I still see that today with my students that I work with, and I see students who would never have come across each other to learn about each other's lives and become friends and truly start to understand different aspects of society and the world. And as cheesy as that sounds, it's interesting to hear you say that all, all the way back when you were here, and to see that still very relevant now. What was some of the, what were some of the more positive things or learning aspects you took from your coaches at Wesleyan that you remember that you still bring with you and, or how did they influence you at this point and in your coaching careers?
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think. I think Bill McNamara, head football coach, he was also my positional coach. He coached the offensive line, which is the position I coached for a lot of years in college. He was very highly regarded after he left Wesleyan. He coached in three professional leagues. He coached in the CFL, Canadian Football League. He coached in the NFL, and then he coached in the USFL. So obviously very, very talented and well known coach. And there are a lot of things that I learned from him. Biggest piece, I think, that he really taught me and helped me with was the networking piece he got me into summer camp that was called the all american football camp, and only head coaches were allowed to work the camp. But he got me in, and I first went in, like, when I graduated from. Right when I got from college, and I was kind of like a counselor. I wasn't really coached then, but I kind of worked my way up and more importantly, gave me the opportunity to really get to know some of the coaches in New England at all levels, division one, division two, and division three. And those guys were, I mean, still some of them I'm still close with today. And there's no question that they helped me along the way in a number of different ways. So that was probably Mac's biggest contribution to me. And then biddy, because he then went the administration route after he finished coaching wrestling, I would always stay in touch with and, you know, just. Just talk to him about, you know, his path and when he knew it was time to get out of coaching and those kinds of things. And he's always been a. Been a great mentor for me. He still is to this day. And, you know, I think that it's so much about the people you meet along the way and your ability to establish relationship, build relationships. Relationships, and most importantly, maintain relationships. I think that's one of the things that a lot of younger people miss today, is following up with people, staying in touch with people, writing handwritten notes to people. Those kinds of things are all. It's all social media now. It's all kind of new wave. But I believe it goes a long way with people.
You know, when you go out of your way to reach out to them and maintain a relationship. And it definitely, no doubt in my mind, has helped me in my career.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. And something we're trying to impart to the students today, and I think that piece is still 1000% relevant in every aspect of what anybody wants to do in life, is the networking and the effort that goes into maintaining. It's not one and done. It requires effort, but the rewards are huge. And, you know, you served you very well that these guys were able to impart that to you. How was division three athletics changed since you were a student competing?
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Well, first of all, when. When I was at Wesleyan, team sports were not allowed to participate in any sort of postseason nationals type competition. They did occasionally compete in the ECAC.
It was a one game type of championship. It wasn't like an NCA tournament sort of speed. And so that obviously is a big change. And I think the other piece was, there was a lot more two sport athletes or multi sport athletes. Back then, kids came to Wesley and to do both. We still, as you still get kids that do both, but it's not as many. And I think that's a direct result of kids focusing too early in their careers, growing up, their athletic careers growing up. They're forced to pick a sport. They want to be the next Tiger woods, they want to be the next phenom. And someone's convincing them that if you want to reach that goal, you got to play this sport year round. You can't play any other sports. My whole argument is when you're 810, twelve years old, you don't know what you're going to be yet. And the more sports you can involve yourself with, hopefully the better athlete you're going to end up becoming. And if you're talented enough to be a division one athlete, they'll find you. Don't worry about that. You don't have to go to every showcase in America to do that. But that's just my belief.
Obviously, the whole club, team, AAU, that whole culture is just, that didn't even exist back when I was a young athlete.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Got you. Yep.
Yeah. Things got more serious. But I do agree, the more sports you can as a kid, the better you're going to be at whatever sport you end up choosing. And you mean you're a great example. 9th grade football, 10th grade wrestling, and here we are.
So you found yourself coming back to Wesleyan as a football coach. It wasn't a straight laugh. There were a number of different schools and experiences that you coached at and you were an extremely good wrestling coach. So it's sort of interesting that you decided to go with the football coaching aspect versus wrestling. Was that path?
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it was an interesting journey. After I graduated from Wesleyan, I coached for a year at Wesleyan. I coached football and wrestling. I was still trying to potentially get into an NFL or USFL camp to try to play football and thought that if I stayed and worked out here, and so I kind of fell into the coaching piece. I kind of would. I signed up to do it just because I was going to be around. And then as I started doing it, I really, I really started to love it. And so when the football thing didn't work out, I was like, okay, I want to coach. And so that's when I applied this Springfield, got in there and I was, I coached both football and wrestling at Springfield. I was there for two years. And then. And then I, I went down to the University of Pennsylvania to be a part time restricted earnings football coach. And I did that because I wanted to experience the Ivy League and I wanted to see what coaching at that level was about and had a great experience there. And in fact, we didn't lose a game. We were undefeated at the varsity level, undefeated at the JV level, and undefeated at the freshman level.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: It's pretty impressive.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And so fortunately, I got an opportunity, a full time job offer at Lafayette College, which is in the Patriot League. And I took it and went to Lafayette. And I was there for six years just coaching football. However, a wesleyan friend of mine who was a very good wrestling coach was the head coach at Lehigh. And he called me up and invited me to go over to Lehigh and work out with their heavyweight. So even though I was not still in coaching the sport of wrestling anymore, I still paid attention to it. And while I was young, when opportunities like that to wrestle came my way, I would always do it because I really still enjoyed it. And then I went on from Lafayette, I left there and went to Colgate. And the reason I left Lafayette was because there was no more room for advancement there. And I got the opportunity to go to Colgate to work with a guy that I met at the all american football camp network. He got the head coaching job there and offered me the associate head coaching position. So that was an opportunity to build my resume, go there. And the program at Colgate wasn't doing very well at the time. And I thought that if I went there as the associate coach and we turned the program around, that it would give me the opportunity to potentially be a head coach at that level. And that's really what I wanted at that point. I wanted to be a head coach, head football coach in either the Ivy League or the patriot league. And unfortunately that didn't happen. And we didn't win enough games and the head coach got fired, which means everybody else gets fired. And so I found myself without a job. And that's when a friend of mine from Wesleyan, who was the head baseball coach at Williams, he also coached football at Williams. He reached out to me and said, hey, we're looking for a head wrestling coach and assistant football coach. Would you be interested? And honestly, I really wanted to stay at the division one at the Ivy League, Patriot League level. But I was also married and we had just had our second child and I knew I had to get a job.
So I ended up taking the job at Williams, thinking that I would go there for a couple of years and then try to go back to division one. And I went there and just really enjoyed the quality of life there, and it was a good situation for our family, and we ended up spending 15 years there. And I did have. I had an opportunity at Yale, I had an opportunity at Princeton to go back to division one, and I just elected to stay at Williams. I thought it was the best situation for me and my family. And then I was there basically thinking I was never, probably ever going to leave Williams. And in 2010, I got a call and they said President Roth wanted to meet with me and talk with me about what Wesley needed to do to be more competitive in football. And I came down and we met and we talked, and the rest is kind of history. Here I am.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: There to another. Yep, here we are. So you did mention your family in there a little bit. And we're really lucky to have Karen, your wife, on board, helping us from raised for the athletics department. How did you guys meet?
[00:30:47] Speaker B: So, we met at Lafayette, and I was there for three years, and, you know, Lafayette, very small school, you know, college community, eastern Pennsylvania, not, not a really, you know, the Lehigh Valley. I mean, you know, there's. I mean, it's not like being at Williams, but it's. It's.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: It's not New York City. Yeah.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Not me being in the city either.
And so myself and the assistant men's basketball coach, we were the only two single people in the department when I got there.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: And so it was the end of my third year, and I was out recruiting over the summer, and my roommate called me and he said, hey, he said, you're not gonna believe this. He said, we, we. Because we just hired a new athletic director. And he said, our new athletic director brought a woman with her from Temple, and she's gonna be assistant athletic director. My friend said, yeah, she's very attractive. And. And so that's how I found out Karen was working at west, at Lafayette. And when I came back from recruiting, the season was starting, and Karen's. One of Karen's responsibility was she was administratively planning and coordinating all of the football travel, and that was also my job responsibility from the football perspective. So we met, you know, as soon as I got back to campus and kind of worked together for a couple of months, and then kind of halfway through the season, decided that we wanted to start dating, and here we are.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Pretty cool. It's a pretty cool story. And the fact you're still working together in athletics, it's special.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah. People, I think, find it pretty amazing that, because, I mean, there were times. So all of our time at Lafayette, we worked both in athletics. And then when I went to Colgate, she was in admissions for a little while, and then we left there, and then we went to Williams, and she was in athletics operations and then worked her way up to being the associate athletic director for business.
And then when we left here, I mean, when we came here, left Williams, she went to advancement. And Barbara Jan offered her a position there, and she worked in advancement in a couple of different roles. And then this athletic director of athletic fundraising role opened up and that enabled her to come back. And she still reports to advancement, but obviously works with all the coaches and just loves being around student athletes and helping support our teams and our coaches and. And so I know she's really enjoyed kind of getting back to her athletic roots, so to speak.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Well, we're grateful to have her. She keeps us all in check and certainly helps with our fundraising efforts, which are essential. And she's fun to have around, too. In terms of athletics. And Wesleyan, where do you, and how do you see that component fitting as an educational experience within the education as a whole at Wesum?
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's a great question. I think when I. To reference back to my initial conversation with President Roth, when I first came and we talked about football and what you need to do in football and the changes that would necessarily be needed to make, to make the point program more competitive, one of the conversations I had with them, when we were talking more philosophically about what we believed in our core, I just said to him, I said, having had the opportunity to work at so many great academic schools, you know, I've really, you know, developed a true appreciation for the scholar athlete. And my own personal opinion on this is that I know that Wesleyan has always put a high premium on the academic excellence, achieving academic excellence. And, you know, I'm totally on board with that. But. But I also kind of take it a step further from the perspective of, I believe that whatever we're going to offer our students at Wesleyan, so not just student athletes, students as a student body. So whether it's the dance studio, whether it's. Whether it's film, whether it's the chemistry lab, whether it's, whether it's football, whatever we're going to offer to our students, we should try to offer it at the highest possible level. We should try to give them the opportunity to truly achieve that same level of excellence in their area of passion outside of academics.
And he looked at me and he said, well, I believe that, too. And I said, okay, well, then, you know, there's some changes that we need to make to be able to achieve that athletically. And that's how the conversation started.
I truly believe that, you know, and you've heard me say this a million times, is I tell our students and our coaches all the time, academics always come first. You know, as coaches, we never ask our students, student athletes to do anything athletically. That's going to take priority over what they're doing academically. So academics are always number one. That being said, I also believe that to be competitive in the most competitive conference in the country, in division three and in your sport, division one, but division three, the NESCAC, you have to treat your sport as a very, very, very close second. So it's academics one and football one a. Like, that's how close I think they have to be. Because if you don't have that as your priorities, you're never going to be able to achieve what you or I or our coaches hope we can achieve in terms of that level of excellence that you're striving for. Because, you know, college is full of choices. There's a lot of things that you can. That college students can do with their time, especially all the time that we asked of them as college athletes. So they've got to be really committed, they've got to be really passionate. It's got to be really important to them. But if they check all those boxes and they can look you in the eye and they can say, hey, I'm all in academics one, squash one a or academics one, football one a, if they can look at you, there's a very good chance that that person is going to have a lot of success in your program because that's the level of commitment you need to be successful in our conference.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. There's no shortcut. There's no shortcut to sport, which I kind of appreciate these days. I think it's a great lesson, a great discipline, and you can't just google it. It requires time, it requires commitment. So obviously, on the same page there, what are some of your biggest success stories as students that have graduated and really utilized their athletic experience and wesleyan education to go on to great things?
[00:38:23] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think there's a lot of them.
I think that when I. When I came back to Wesleyan, one of the things that I brought from Williams that played an integral part in our success there was our alumni mentoring program. And I think it's not so much for the student athletes, but for their potential student athletes, recruits, but for their parents, they love to hear that as a coach, you are going to be mentoring their son or daughter, and you're going to be helping them find the next step after Weston. Because again, we all see all the articles and people questioning the value of a liberal arts education. So to have alumni that are out there that are willing, are very, very successful, that are willing to give up their time to meet with and counsel student athletes about interview techniques or how to best write your resume or a cover letter or how to best use LinkedIn or all the different opportunities that experiences that these alums can pass on to student athletes can be extremely valuable and really take a lot of pride and satisfaction in having student athletes come to wherever I've been throughout my career and put the trust in me that if they come and they earn a degree from Wesleyan, Williams, Colgate, Upenn, Lafayette, any of those places, that they're going to be on a track after graduation that is going to provide them with a good life and in particular, love the opportunity to recruit kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. First generation kid. Again, I mentioned I was either my parents went to college, and I know that it wasn't that my parents didn't love me or, I mean, my parents did an unbelievable job, but yet when it came to college, it wasn't, there wasn't a lot of. A lot of guidance there. Wesleyan was 45 or 50 minutes from my house and I didn't even know it existed until I went. So able to sit down with a single parent and basically tell them, hey, if you trust me with your son and he comes to the school that I'm at, I'm promising you that he's going to come. He's going to reach his full potential academically and athletically. And most importantly, he's going to graduate and go on and do great things and, you know, knock on wood. I've been able to hold that promise in pretty much every situation because schools that I've worked at have all been great schools that, you know, have strong alums and people out there that are willing to help these current athletes the transition to the real world.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: So what still gets you up in the morning and what do you still have left to do?
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Well, I mean, again, I still think. I still think there's. I mean, we've obviously had success that. I think we've been able to get some team national championships and NASCAG championships, world three championships, and all those things are great.
I still think that there's. We haven't, we haven't, like, reached our ceiling yet. I still think there's more. There's more to do there as a whole. I think that my colleagues that I work with every single day, you know, they inspire me in terms of how hard they work and how committed they are and, you know, how, what a positive influence they are with their student athletes and just, you know, honestly, just having the opportunity to be around young people, that that's, that really excites me. It's something that funny. I tell a quick story.
[00:42:33] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: My son Jake, my oldest son, he graduated from Brown, and he was home for Thanksgiving, and he had started his job. He was working at Epsilon Fortune 500 company as a business analyst. And he was probably two or three months into his job. And we're sitting around the table after Thanksgiving dinner, and he looks at me and Karen and he says, so, is this it? And I said, is what it? He goes, like, is this my life? Like, is this what I'm going to be doing the rest of my rest of my life? And I said, well, yeah, you know, essentially, like, it's, you're going to have your buddies, you're going to have your friends, you're going to hopefully meet a significant other, and, yeah, that's life. You know, you're going to build your life. And thought about that, that conversation after, and I realized that I never had that moment. I never had that. Is this it? Moment because I really never left college.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: Always been in a college environment my entire life. And honestly, I've never really felt like I had a, quote unquote, a real job. And I'm not demeaning what we do. I value what we do more than anybody.
[00:43:50] Speaker A: I hear you loud and clear.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: It's never been, it's never been a chore. It's never been, it's never been something that I, I mean, hey, we all have days when you get up and you dread something you're gonna have to do at work. But, I mean, the good days way, way, way outweigh the bad days. And a lot of my friends, wesleyan grads who were incredibly successful people that made a lot of money, I would say 30 to 40 occasions, people have said to me, like, you got the best job.
I would trade places with you in a second. You know, and here I am looking at them and all the things that they have and the trips that they make and the houses that they have. And, you know, fortunately, fortunately, most of them invite me to play golf at really nice golf clubs.
I have that going for me, but, and that really resonates with me, that people look at what I do and say, hey, he's got a good life. And I agree with him. I do.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I hear you loud and clear. And we're lucky to do what we do. Really are. We really are. So let's just suppose. Let's just suppose there's life after Wesian, although it could be a long ways off at this point. Completely understand that. Let's say there's life after Wes. Ian, what would be on that bucket.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: List be professionally or just anything?
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Anything.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Up until coach Belichick got out of the NFL, I had always said to myself, it would be great to just go and volunteer or do whatever role he would allow me to do to be around him and staff and the players and experience. That would be something that would be really appealing to me. I thought about, you know, doing.
I really enjoy opportunities to go to high schools or prep schools and talk about the college recruiting process.
So, I don't know, some sort of consulting thing. I wouldn't be doing it to try to make a lot of money. I'd be doing it more to help people, and especially people from disadvantaged backgrounds that don't have great advisors.
So that's something that I would be interested in doing. Think. What else?
I know Karen wants to travel a lot.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Well, then that's obviously on your bucket list right there.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, I've. For me, playing golf in Scotland, England and Ireland have been. Those were. Those were bucket lists for me. Those are things that I really enjoyed, so. But I think. I think for the most part, I'm not looking to do anything outrageous, I guess.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I got you. You found your purpose and I. Here we are. Yeah, I understand that. So, just to wrap up, I have a few fun questions, so I'll just fire them at you quickly.
What's your favorite sport to watch at Wesleyan? And you can't say football or wrestling.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Favorite sport.
Well, I can tell you this, I become a bigger tennis fan than I ever thought I would, specifically our women's tennis team. I also have, again, known nothing about these sports. That's the best thing about the job, is that going and seeing coaches and student athletes, other than cheer, there's not much I can do. There's nothing I can add to the conversation. There's nothing I can help with those kinds of things.
But I just.
I love watching our kids compete like that. I think I told the story at our NCA meeting this year to our student athletes. This spring, I had the opportunity to see the men's team, men's rowing team, win the national IRA championship.
I also went out and watched the women's Dennis team, I mean, battle, battle, like, to the very end, against. Against the University of Chicago for the national championship. And one team won and one team lost. But in my view, they were all winners because of their passion and their competitive spirit and the way they represented the university. So I just love having the opportunity to watch our kids compete.
What I love about the job is it's exposed me to sports that I know that I knew nothing about and still don't know a lot about.
Yes, but respect the heck out of what our student athletes do to compete at such a high level.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: So you mentioned golf. If you could golf with any three people on the planet, who would they be?
[00:48:56] Speaker B: I would say Jack Nicholas, Tiger woods, and I don't know if they played golf, but it would probably be someone out of the football realm. I've actually had the opportunity to play golf with coach Belichick, but he would be on the list if I didn't. But like Vince Lombardi, a Bill Walsh, you know, a Nick Saban, you know, those kind of people, I would really relish that opportunity as well.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: And mentioning Bill Belichick, what was he like as a squash player at Wesleyan?
[00:49:32] Speaker B: You know, he did. He did.
He did go to Andover. So I don't know if he played squash in Andover, too. I can tell you that he was a much better, much better lacrosse player than he was a football player at Westminster.
But he is a pretty good golfer and he does have pretty good hand eye. So I would guess that he was probably okay in squash.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: I'm sure he was. I'm sure he was just, you know, without being able to go back in time. I figured you may have caught a glimpse. Okay. And here's the last ridiculous question for you. You both. You played both football and wrestled.
Which uniform did you prefer?
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Well, I'd say probably football.
My son, I'm going to reference my son Jake again, who ended up wrestling, but when he was very young and I tried to get him to start wrestling at a younger age, because wrestling is a sport that if you do pick up at a younger age, you can be very good at it. And he said to me, daddy, why do I want to go into a gym full of people and wrestle somebody else in my underwear?
And so that always resonated with me. And then fast forward to his last match after his PG year, during his PG year at Exeter, when he won the New Englands but then lost in the all american round. He then said to me, why didn't you make me wrestle when I was great, so.
But yeah, you know, I guess I've had a pick. I prefer the football uniform.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: This is a fair answer. Well, I thank you greatly for spending this time and allowing others to get to know you a little bit and see the lineage prior to the success and what's possible. And hopefully this inspires others and will spur more questions and allow you to help others moving forward.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: Happy to do it. Thanks for having me, Shona.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: This has been infinite human with me Shona Kerr until next time, keep challenging yourself and make others better along the way.
