1.question Podcast

Akilah Laster, Assistant Director for Athletic Communications at Cal, visits @TaiMBrown to discuss  a wide range of topics from knowing how and when to speak up at the office to the importance of storytelling in athletics. Laster, a former high school teacher and journalist, says people need to know you care about what you are doing before they are willing to receive your input. She also notes what it means to be one of very few African-American women who are in a Power 5 sports information role.

Mark Dyer, Founder & CEO of Taymar Sales U, visits the 1.Question Podcast to give an update on the third-party ticket sales company. In addition to Kentucky, Taymar Sales U adds LSU and Georgia State to its portfolio. Dyer also gives his thoughts on alcohol sales and attendance issues at college athletics venues.

Shawn Respert, Assistant Coach for the Chicago Bulls, talks with @TaiMBrown about  leading basketball players in the social media era. Respert, with experience in basketball coaching and administration on the college and professional levels, emphasizes the point that social media allows young players to become celebrities before they become stars. He also discusses the importance of celebrating the role player in any organization.

Taurian Houston, Associate AD for Compliance at Rice, visits with @TaiMBrown at the 2019 NACDA Convention. Houston, with experience as a law school grad and a former intern at the NCAA, tackles some of the intricacies of the name, image, and likeness debate with regard to Student-Athletes starting business while in school. He also gives his insight into the process of submitting a potential new NCAA bylaw.

Coach Grant Teaff, former Executive Director of the American Football Coaches Association and long time Baylor University football coach, talks with @TaiMBrown about the phrase "Be Better Tomorrow Than You Are Today." Teaff, long known as an expert on influential leadership, discusses the inherent meaning of the phrase that Brown regularly uses to close each episode of the 1.Question Podcast.

Dr. Kiki Baker Barnes, AD at Dillard and Interim Commissioner of the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference, joins @TaiMBrown on the topic of balancing priorities while serving two organizations. Dr. Barnes, in her second stint as Interim Commissioner for the conference while leading Dillard Athletics, discusses her methods of making decisions that need to be objective for one, but subjective for the other. Prioritize, strategize, and organize are the three steps that help keep her operating at a high level.

Combining Student-Athlete Development with strength and condition, Michigan State's Lorenzo Guess helps the Spartans take the Student-Athlete experience to another level. In this 1.Question Podcast interview with @TaiMBrown, Guess explains the benefit of serving in dual roles within Spartan Athletics. From coaches buy-in to earning trust of the athletes, this unique setup may be a coming trend.

Dr. Eric Wood, Deputy AD for Competitive Excellence at UCF, visits the 1.Question Podcast to discuss the intricacies of his role as it relates to the function of the athletics department. Primarily housed in the internal operations, Wood discusses his interaction with the other Deputy ADs on staff and his process of gathering information to advise the Director of Athletics on critical issues involving coaches, Student-Athletes, and those on staff with sport oversight.

Elliott Daniels, Associate AD for Student-Athlete Engagement at Michigan State, talks with @TaiMBrown about the Student-Athlete Development operation within the Spartan athletics program. Daniels explains how identifying the difference between inviting students to participate in programming versus engaging the students and bringing programming to them helped take the department to new height.

Eric Hyman, former Athletics Director at a number of institutions, helps @TaiMBrown define a number of key leadership terms such as purpose, core values, and culture. Hyman and Brown dive into a discussion on how terms such as these relate to leadership in college athletics industry. Hyman brings 47 years of experience to the conversation; serving as AD at VMI, Miami (OH), TCU, South Carolina, and Texas A&M.

Ariel Pesante, Associate AD for Governance and Compliance at University of Massachusetts, joins @TaiMBrown as the two discuss Pesante's balance of compliance and sport oversight. Pesante oversees Football, Men's Basketball, and Baseball while serving as the primary compliance officer for the department. He talks about his top priority of protecting the integrity of the institution while addressing his learning curve in sport supervision.

Kathryne Buckley, Assistant VP of Partner & Event Services for the Frisco RoughRiders, visits @TaiMBrown as the two discuss activating sponsorships and developing young professionals. Buckley give insight on making each sponsorship partner's experience unique when engaging with the RoughRiders. She talks about the activation evaluation process, as well as, how ideas are generated. The conversations wraps with Buckley's insight on interns and career development.

Tom Michael, Director of Athletics at Eastern Illinois, visits @TaiMBrown to discuss the type of environment that can lead to positive inflection points when hiring for an organization. Michael describes the small pieces that need to be in place for a new coaching hire to have a positive impact within athletics and in the campus community as a whole. He also discusses the tremendous influence his recent football hire, Adam Cushing, has had on other coaches on staff and the entirety of the department.

Coach Danielle O'Banion, Assistant Women's Basketball Coach at Minnesota, visits @TaiMBrown as the two discuss the leadership lessons O'Banion learned during her four year stint as the head WBB coach at Kent State. O'Banion also discusses the lessons learned through her battle with cancer and how she applies those lessons in her current role.

Shawn Heilbron, Director of Athletics at Stony Brook University, visits @TaiMBrown on the topic of communicating with the university President. Heilbron, five years into his tenure as AD at Stony Brook, talks about the importance of immediately understanding the communication style of your immediate supervisor upon assuming a leadership role. Specific to athletics, he mentions that Presidents should be in the loop on everything that could positively or negatively come across their desk.

Mike Lombardi, former NFL Executive and Author of Gridiron Genius, visits @TaiMBrown to discuss the four components of leadership. Lombardi worked with legendary professional football leaders, Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick. In his recent book, he outlines command of attention, command of message, command of self, and command of trust as the components necessary to be an effective leader. Lombardi points out that almost all successful leader possess three of the four components.

Jim Johnson, Director of Athletics at Pitt State, visits @TaiMBrown as the two discuss how Johnson's wide ranging experience enhances his current role leading the Gorillas. With previous positions at the NCAA office, as a Conference Commissioner, and other influential roles, Johnson believes that the servant leadership aspect of higher education is of the utmost importance.

Doug McNamee, President at Magnolia, visits @TaiMBrown as the two discuss McNamee's transition from Sr. Associate Athletics Director at Baylor to his current position leading one of the fastest growing brands in the country. As he approaches a year in the President's chair, McNamee identifies skills used in athletics administration that are directly transferable to the corporate world. He also gives insight into the culture and leadership provided by Joanna & Chip Gaines.

Greg Myford, Director of Athletics at University of Alaska-Anchorage, visits @TaiMBrown with a unique program for engaging Student-Athletes while in the AD chair. Myford has been in the chair for less than a year but has established his Direct Connect program which allows he and his executive staff the opportunity to have multiple roundtable discussions with Student-Athletes from every sport over the academic year. Myford also discusses the department's three fundamentals and 50 organizational priorities.

John Benedick, Sr. Associate Director of Athletics at MIT, and @TaiMBrown get together to reflect on Benedick's 44 years with the Engineers. With 22 years as the Swimming & Water Polo Coach and the  22 years in administration, Benedick notes that in college athletics, there is a never ending resource of opportunities to influence change. His advice to those listening is that focusing on trying to win will always pay more dividends than focusing on winning.