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- [00:02]
A
Dive into the dynamic world of high school sports. Whether you're a seasoned athletic director, a newcomer to the field, or simply curious to learn more about this exciting profession, this podcast is your go to resource for inspiration, education and a deeper understanding of the game changing decisions that shape the world of high school athletics. Welcome back to another episode of AD360. I'm Greg Vanderbait and we're thrilled to have another guest on the show today. Our special guest for today's episode is going to be none other than Kelly Dullard, the associate director of athletics at Modern day High school. Yes, you heard that correctly. The Modern day High school. Kelly, really appreciate you joining us today. How are things going, Greg?
- [00:42]
B
Appreciate you having me. I'm excited. First time I've ever done this. So, you know, I've been, you know, barely slept last night thinking about it. But no, things have been good. We're, you know, we're in post season for fall sports. Couple fall sports have wrapped up already as you know. You were at modern day for a number of years. We're crossing over with, you know, started basketball and wrestling and all that. So, you know, it's a busy time, but things are good. It's been a great, great fall so far, so. And then selfishly, my swim team, we're, we're crushing it out there. We're having some, some great practices. I'm really excited for our season in the spring too.
- [01:23]
A
That's fantastic to hear. Well, we appreciate you joining us today and as always, my co host Scott Rosenberg is on with us. Scott. Scott, how you doing today? And you ready to talk some budgeting?
- [01:35]
C
Doing great. Good to be here. Kelly, great to see you again. Yeah, listen, first delayed opening in New Jersey, it is late November. Kids got to school late today. We had some snow. Crazy for you guys to be thinking about, I'm sure, but all good and definitely excited to talk about budgeting. Kelly, like I was looking at your website, I wouldn't have even had the budget to do like a signing ceremony for 29 non football kids signing for college a couple weeks ago. First of all, congrats. But even that, like there's so many differences right across the country with the number of kids you have in the school participating athletics, like where they're headed. So I'm really excited to like learn your perspective on some of this because it's probably a little bit different than mine was.
- [02:23]
B
Yeah. And you know, we'll get into that obviously, but signing day, we've actually changed it to college commitment day because the, you know, national letter of intent is no more. And, you know, kind of changed things on our end a little bit. But, you know, we still found a great way to celebrate our athletes. And, Greg, we did change our format. We don't have coaches speaking anymore. Ooh.
- [02:50]
A
Well, that's a big change. That. That certainly cuts down the time frame, I imagine. Yeah.
- [02:54]
B
With the number of kids in this one, we were like, we're gonna be here for three hours, you know, and it's early in the morning. We do at 7:30am so we had the coaches send, you know, like a. A paragraph or two of something to say. And me, Jessica Perry and Kevin Kiernan, the other ads, we, we. We divvied it up and kind of spoke about a handful of sports at a time as the kid came up to step and repeat coach took a photo. It worked out really well.
- [03:25]
A
Scott, this sounds to me like we have a repeat guest, because when we talk about signing day ceremonies, Kelly, we're probably going to bring you back into the fold to talk a little bit more about this.
- [03:34]
D
All right, all right.
- [03:35]
C
It's efficient. He's in.
- [03:38]
B
Jessica Perry, too. She was the one that did a lot of the planning, so she would be. I'll be there as a backup, as a support. How about that?
- [03:47]
A
That sounds fantastic to me. Well, as we talked about in the beginning, today's episode, we're going to be focusing kind of on budgeting 101 for athletic directors. This is one of the more important elements of the. Of the job and being able to sustain a good athletic program. So we're extremely excited to have Kelly on joining us today, because as Scott kind of alluded to, you know, he. He has a lot of budget knowledge and a lot of unique situations and scenarios that we can kind of talk through. So definitely excited for you to drop a little bit of on us today.
- [04:16]
B
Sure. That's what I'm here for. You know, sorry, Kyle, you go. No, no, I was just gonna say I don't have any, you know, I was a business minor in college, but a lot of the budgeting tips that I'll probably give, trial and error, you know, trying new things, things like that. So I'm excited to share, you know, some of the things I picked up along the way.
- [04:42]
C
I was going to say I'm excited again, you know, California private school, different type of budgeting. Then I'm New Jersey small public schools. So we're going to have a couple more guests on in the future to talk a little about maybe how Different. It might be based on budget size and stuff like that. So I'm so excited to hear your perspective, because I don't have that perspective right now.
- [05:07]
A
And I think that that's a great segue for us to kind of just dive right into the episode. First question for you, Kelly, like, how important is a well structured budget for you to have successful programs at modern day.
- [05:21]
B
Well, you know, it's very important, right? And it's, it's critical because, you know, it provides clarity on the priorities of your athletic program. You know, having a well structured budget, obviously everyone would probably be like, yeah, of course that's important.
- [05:40]
D
Right.
- [05:42]
B
But there's a lot of things that people might not think about, right? And the differences in the private school and public school. I was thinking about this the other day. You know, I would assume public schools is a lot of zero based budgeting, right? Like the district gives you your budget for equipment, uniforms, apparel, things like that. On the private end, you know, we collect team fees per kid. It's almost like a pay to play type of deal. And as a head coach, you're really responsible for budgeting your program and making decisions on. All right, I have $10,000 to spend on uniforms and $15,000 to spend on transportation or 5,000 per team meals. So there's a lot of expenses. Those things add up really quickly. So as a coach, right, having a structured budget, being organized, you know, laying it out on a, on a spreadsheet and finding what works for you and your program, I mean, that's, that's critical otherwise, you know, and Greg, you've seen it. Coaches that go in the red or overspend, and it's usually because of a lack of being organized. Now, from an AD perspective, overseeing these programs, it's important for me that I know the needs of all of our different types of programs. I know the swim team, I know my program really well in the head coach, but I know aquatics in general, their budgeting process, their bottom line is way different than some other programs on campus. And that's due to the size of the program, you know, kind of the background of the program, where your kids are coming from. We have a lot of kids on financial aid at modern day high school, which is a great thing, but that does, that changes, you know, the needs of the budget as well. So I would say, you know, having a well structured budget depends on the program, but it's also just critical for, you know, sustaining your program long term because a lot of those funds aren't given to us. By the school or by a district. They're funds that are fundraised by the coach or collected through team fees.
- [08:05]
C
That's interesting. I'm going to hold off on the zero based budget question for a second, but I think that's going to be important when we talk about like starting out the budget and how, what that looks like. Again, so different perspective on like the coach's input or the coach's responsibility for a budget, depending on where you are. I can remember meeting with my coaches just to get like an idea of what it is that they were going to need the following year. But they didn't have a ton of say per se in the budget number or they had a say in how they spent it, but they didn't have a say in the budget number. And I had to look at the full picture for all the programs. Example, uniform rotation.
- [08:50]
D
Right.
- [08:51]
C
Like I had to build in a uniform rotation into my budget so that like the swim team could get new uniforms every three years. But if you wanted a new uniform, swim is probably the worst example. You always need new uniforms. Shouldn't say that way. But if a specific program wanted to get new uniforms more than once every three years, then that was kind of on them. But it was a little bit different than maybe having the coach as involved in fundraising and things like that. So I love hearing that. It's really interesting.
- [09:22]
B
Yeah. And I actually did a, you know, in college, my undergrad program was sport management, Springfield College, Massachusetts. And I did a practicum my junior year with the high school ad, public school. And very similar to what you said, there was a rotation for uniforms and certain equipment. And after each season the ad, he would meet with the coach and basically ask them like, hey, what's on your wish list? And he had a, you know, a timeline for, okay, in two years I can take care of this because XYZ sports are, you know, in front of you. It would just kind of rotate that way. The private school, hey, if you got, if you have a donor, if you raise money, if you're smart with your, with your money and you're our baseball coach that wants to build a brand new stadium, which I can talk about in a little bit, and you have the funds, go ahead and do it. You know, it's really a matter of just getting city approval at that point. So the funds, you know, you have a little bit more say in the private end as a coach.
- [10:27]
C
You know what's interesting and I wanted to bring this up at some point in budgeting when I got to my school. The way the previous athletic director dealt with coaches in their budget was to basically ask for that wish list, right? The AD knew how much he sort of budgeted towards that program and towards each program, but he would say, hey, Greg, like, you're the football coach. Give me your wish list. And what was so interesting that I found out later was that almost every coach spent way less than was budgeted. Like, I would have thought they're going to come in and ask for the world, right? But they actually asked for less than they even were sort of entitled to in the budget. So when I came in, I, like, I gave them a number and they were surprised that the number was higher than they had been spending. But I was like, listen, you know, you've got whatever number it is now let's figure out how to spend it. So there's even a different approaches to like, wish list versus here's your budget.
- [11:24]
A
And I think that's an important thing to note, and I think that's where it's going to be beneficial for our, for our listeners as we're going through kind of this budgeting series. Because, Scott, as you had mentioned before, we'll get a public school perspective on this too, in another episode. But you're looking at it from the standpoint of like, this is what we've got to spend. And a lot of times in the private side of things, it's like, this is what we need to be able to get to, to be able to accomplish what we want to get done in the coming years. And it's, it's two different approaches to it that have to be universally unique to one another simply because you, you're starting with the number and you know, what you got versus I know what it's going to cost and how am I going to get there, you know, So I think that's where it's going to be really interesting for, for our listeners as we go through kind of getting both perspectives of this, both the private side of things as well as the public. So really excited to continue this conversation.
- [12:16]
C
Segue to that. Starting out the budget. Like, you're beginning to build that budget. When does that happen for you? Like, at what point are you starting to look at next year's budget and where do you start from? You know, that perspective?
- [12:32]
B
No, that's. And that's a great question. I love that because that's something I'm trying to infuse into our head coaches right now and kind of streamline our budgeting process. Probably about five Years ago, I built a very basic budget on a Google sheet, like a Google Doc, Microsoft Excel. And that's really developed into, you know, I calculate how much I'll collect in team fees, what my operation costs are, you know, apparel, gear, transportation, all those things. Right. Those line items, how much I anticipate to fundraise. And then I have, you know, it basically all formulates into what I'll end the fiscal year with in my bank.
- [13:21]
D
Right.
- [13:21]
B
In my. In my swim team account. And it took me a little bit to kind of get that started. But each year, what I do is I look at last year's budget, right? You got to start by last year. Okay, what did I spend on Nike apparel? What did I spend on me Entry fees. And that gives you your, you know, kind of your starting point for the upcoming year so that, you know what? Okay. I spent $2,000 on entry fees. Yeah. Maybe this year we can afford to add an extra tournament or an invitational and spend an extra couple hundred bucks because I have 10 less kids.
- [14:03]
D
Right.
- [14:04]
B
And my apparel costs will go down. So starting off last year's budget, again, being organized, tracking everything, being accurate with your numbers and what your costs were, that's where you need to start. Each year is based on last year's completed budget. And if that's accurate and reliable, then that's your best friend.
- [14:26]
D
Right.
- [14:27]
B
You can always look. If you get a quote for something, you'll know if it's too high or if it's really a good price. It'll also help you keep track of the expenses and things that you need to buy throughout a school year. Every year. Looking at my budget, it's all in order chronologically. So my very first line item, that's the first thing I bought in the fiscal year, and then it goes down from there. So I look at last year's, let's say it's July or August, and the first thing I see are team meals at the end of summer camp. Last year, I spent 500 bucks to feed my program on the last day of camp right before school starts. It's almost like a reminder, okay, yeah, I need to plan this team meal, and I know what I can spend on it. So again, being organized, being accurate, being detailed, they all seem like really just common sense type of things, and they are, but they're just. It's just so important that you have that because like I said, that's your best friend going into a new year.
- [15:35]
A
Well, I like how you kind of take the. The notion of like the year Itself. Right. We're not just focused on the season because one of the things that's definitely different within the private realm, probably more particular to California, is you're budgeting for a year. And when we say a year, we're not just talking the swim season. You're having to put money aside and figure out what you're going to be doing in July, even though you're not competing until the spring of the following calendar year. Right.
- [16:00]
B
Yeah.
- [16:00]
A
And I think that that's such a huge component and can't stress the organizational element enough. Love the fact with the, with the spreadsheet of being able to keep tracking numbers, looking at historical numbers, that's also great, I think, for ads to have that visibility in your realm because when there is a coaching changeover, you at least kind of have an idea or a baseline of, okay, new coach. Here's what has been the historical. Not saying you have to do this identically. It's your program. You have the opportunity to do what you want to do. But here has been the processes and years prior and how we've been able to be successful from a financial perspective. So I do, I like, I love the fact how you kind of make note of like, hey, a camp meal, you know, we're doing this in July or August. You're planning out the entire calendar year with your budget, which is I honestly think is probably somewhat more unique to the. The private side of things versus the public side. And definitely want to get Scott's thoughts on that as well.
- [16:59]
C
First of all, I was going to say the same thing in terms of like, coaching changes. So the athletic director wants to grab, I think, those spreadsheets, those budgets from all of their coaches individually as much for transparency and just knowing themselves, but also for like those coaching changes. No reason again, for a new coach to have to reinvent the wheel yet they can put their own stamp on things.
- [17:27]
B
It's great to be able to look.
- [17:28]
C
Back at something like that from. For a new coach to be able to have as a resource. So yeah. And in terms of like starting out, being organized and having the right data, knowing who you've dealt with in the past too.
- [17:44]
D
Right.
- [17:44]
C
Like, one of the things I was thinking about in this episode is it varies like your vendors, you know, how. How do people like you may be able to Kelly, like call up your Nike rep. Your Nike rep may be coming to you and be saying like, you know, we have a great deal because you're matter day and we can help you out here. Some people have to go through a bid process. So, like, you know, having that data from the past is wildly helpful, no doubt.
- [18:14]
B
And, you know, take it a step further, right? Having that data, I can look back four, five, six years eventually and see how prices have increased with the same vendor. And that will help me. If you are an AD or a coach that needs to get three bids, having that data will help you. Okay, these costs are going up, you know, astronomically. It's time to find someone new. Or again, hey, I found a new vendor. Let's see how it compares on the ad side of things. And what I mentioned at the beginning of my response was I shared my template, my budget template with all of our coaches and I asked them, basically, this is the first year we've done it. Hey, track your expenses, put in your anticipated costs, and then once you actually have the quote and the invoice, put in the actual number at the very top. You have your team fee collection, estimated number of kids, and all the formulas are there. So it pretty much just balances it out. Once you put all your projected costs, you'll know if you're going to end the year in the green or in the red. And then as you go out throughout the fiscal year, not just the season, the whole calendar year, you just put in those actual numbers. And that gives myself, our other two athletic directors here at modern day access to see, all right, how's our boys soccer team looking financially?
- [19:47]
D
Right?
- [19:48]
B
Because again, on the private side of things, the accounting procedures are a little bit different than a public school. Everything's delayed about a month. And I try to tell these coaches, you need to track your own expenses. So, you know, if you can afford to buy something. So I'm really excited going into next school year, you know, that first head coaches meeting, to be like, all right, let's take a look at your budget from last year. And this is now what you work off of. So I'm in year five of doing this myself. They're all in year zero, pretty much. And next year will be year one. And I think it'll be a really great resource for the coaches. And as an ad, if I'm signing a PO or authorizing a payment, I can pull their budget up and, you know, sign that with a little more confidence rather than just kind of be like, all right, please don't, don't overspend. You know, just hope you can afford this.
- [20:38]
A
Just hoping that it's in there, you know, just. Just hoping that it's in there. And I think that some of the Good points too, that were just talked on. On this is one obviously on the private side of things, how there is kind of like that, that trailing number. Right. And being able to have that visibility, you have to have the accountability there individually, both as the coach and then the AD is going to want to have that. One thing that I did like you talking about too is like you have the historical view of this, so maybe a vendor has increased and you need to get additional bids or maybe costs have just gone up in general due to inflation. You can then be transparent with your families and saying, this is why my fees are more expensive this year because last year we paid X, Y and Z for these line items and now we're paying double X, Y and Z for these line items. And it helps you justify when you have to make increases to your participation fee. So I really like the thought process there.
- [21:34]
B
Right.
- [21:35]
C
Kelly just gave you the baseball steel sign just now. Did you see that? I think that was like steel as opposed to. Yeah, must be right on, man.
- [21:44]
B
No, you're exactly right. That's part of that too, you know, and was, you know, I'm telling these coaches, you know, we're in the meeting, you know, I'm saying that I don't, you know, it's all coming back to me now, but you're absolutely right. It's. Hey, this is now you know what to collect per kid because there is a formula at the bottom that basically takes your total number, your operation costs and divides it. It's very simple and tells you, all right, you need to collect 800 bucks per kid to break even at the end of the year.
- [22:18]
D
Right.
- [22:18]
B
So you're totally right. It justifies what you're charging your program if you're at a school where it's pay to play and you know, justifies why it's that number.
- [22:30]
D
Right?
- [22:31]
A
Yeah. And I think that that's. This is going to kind of play into my next question. I'm going to kind of add a little bit to it too, because knowing the private side of things personally, there's something that I think some of our listeners may not be knowledgeable of on that, on that front, this is going to be kind of a two part question, you know, what are the key components to building out your athletic budget, you know, for their respective programs? But also with that, when you're thinking about key components, I think one area that's a little bit unique to private schools is additional coaches that you have to have the funds for as well that you've got to build in because there's only going to be so many that are paid for, quote unquote, by the school itself that are budgeted for on the actual school side budget versus the athletics budget. So if that makes sense, kind of the two part question, what are the key components and kind of how do you build that out? And then also like coaching has to be factored into that, I would assume. Correct.
- [23:30]
D
Right.
- [23:31]
B
So that is a good question. I'll do my best to, I'm going to try to paint a picture.
- [23:37]
D
Right.
- [23:38]
B
And Greg, you know, you've been here, you've dealt with the budgets here. I'm sure other private schools, they might operate similarly, but also in their own, on their own terms as well. And I would be shocked to public. Many public schools operate this way. So pretty much we have two different budgets within our school. We have an operational side which is called the school side. And then you have your custodial budget, which is where coaches collect their fees. That's like their checking and savings account on the school side. That's money given to the program from the school. So they'll give us a small budget. You know, like you have $6,000 in your school side budget that can be used toward pretty much anything. Official costs, uniforms, if you need to rent a facility, things like that. And again, $6,000, it's, it's not a ton of money if you're gonna try to go rent a gym for a month because your gym's down, right. So it's, it's minimal. So we really rely on that custodial side. And that's where you collect your fees, all that money comes in. So as a head coach, you pretty much want to, you want to spend all that money that the school gives you, right. They'll give you a small allotment for transportation, which might cover the whole season. It might not. Depends what your schedule looks like. If it doesn't cover all of it, then guess what, it's coming out of coach's pocket on your team fees, AKA your players and your families. Those are more like program specific costs, your fixed costs, right? The non negotiables. You got your salaries, you got facility maintenance, you have insurance, things like that. The school will pay for that in season, right? Modern day high school give our coaches, hey, you get five assistant coach stipends. Here you go. If you want more coaches than that, guess what, it's coming out of your family's pockets and you're fundraising for that extra person. If you want to pay them more, they do have that flexibility. But basically those are some of your components, right? Your fixed costs, salaries aren't going away. You have to pay insurance. The school will help our coaches with that to a certain point if you really want to run a big program. And Greg, you've seen our football staff, our boys basketball coaching staff. Some people might look and be like, wow, they have 15 basketball coaches. You know, it's more than the whole team. But that coach, our head coach, has fundraised for those people, those individuals. So, you know, I don't mean to go off on a, you know, tangent here. I'm doing my, like I said, I'm going to try to paint a picture of the types of budgets that we have. A lot of things within your athletic budget, those are things people don't think about. Coaching salaries, your insurance. And then you get into like professional development and your special events, right? Like your fundraising costs. School's not going to help you put on a fundraiser. You need to come up with the funds through your fees and your collection to kind of, you know, invest some money so that you can put on a good event, rent a venue, things like that, and then hopefully turn a profit and fundraise for your program. Another thing people don't really think about or, you know, kind of put a slush fund together for your unexpected repairs. Just the other day, our pool heaters went down. You know, the school will help us, but only to a certain point. You know, if it's going to cost $60,000 to fix them, they'll probably ask me as the swim coach or the athletic department, me as an ad. Hey, is there any way you guys can help out with these, this repair cost? And it's really important that you budget for those unexpected things. And then the last example I'll give are lockers, right, At a public school that might be on a wish list or rotation. Okay, the baseball team needs new lockers in their locker room because they're old, they're broken, blah, blah. We, as an aquatics program here, you know, we had to pay for a good percentage of that new install and the new equipment and the new lockers and all that, and also kind of plan and schedule and coordinate it. So that's something I knew a few years ago and I built that into my program in my team fees. So I can say, yeah, we can put X amount of dollars toward a locker room revamp and things like that. Because again, private school budgeting is a little bit different. They give you that small school side operational budget, but it's not going to cover the things that are really needed for your program because they're relying on you to collect fees.
- [28:40]
C
I think that's so interesting. Like, first of all, we don't ever want to rewind the wheel here. So we're going to hit you up for your template at some point to get over to us so that we can share that. Gosh, Like I'm thinking as I'm listening to you, how do parents respond to like you banking money towards the future?
- [29:03]
D
Right.
- [29:03]
C
Like, I, a lot of times I ran into, we're raising the money now. We want to spend, like we'll have a little rainy day amount in a booster club account or Right, the team account. But like my kids a junior, we're raising money for them. And you're thinking about lockers when they're going to be a freshman in college.
- [29:26]
B
No. That is a great question. That's a very difficult thing to do. I'm very transparent. All of our fundraising is optional with my swim program and each program here, like from the ad's perspective. Yeah, we have an athletic department golf tournament.
- [29:44]
D
Right.
- [29:44]
B
That Jessica Perry puts on. And it's an awesome day. And that we raise funds to go toward something big like our weight room that all programs use or new lighting on the fields to switch them to LEDs. But each individual coach will run its own fundraiser. And I'll speak for myself as swim coach. We do a parent social auction type of event. It's very low key, it's very casual because I found my parents, they kind of prefer that There's a lot of events throughout the year that are formal and big deals. Sometimes they just want to, hey, you know, it's a Friday night, let's go hang out with the parents in the program, have some cool auction items. And it gives me a chance to talk to them. Hey, this is what I want to do next year for the program. Here's what I want to do in two years, three years. So being transparent, having a plan, that's how you kind of make those asks for, hey, three years from now, this is what I want to do. And parents can decide if they want to give to that or not. As long as there's something that can come in the immediate. Like, hey, the primary right now is for next year.
- [31:00]
D
Right.
- [31:01]
B
We a couple years ago, I need new lane lines, 10 of them. They go for about $800 each. So it's, it's a pretty big cost. And you buy the reels, that's another two or $3,000. You need two of them. So I'm like, hey, we are trying to raise $15,000 for new lane lines. And once we have the money, I'm buying them. I have the quote, I'm ready to go. I just need the funds. And we fundraise that money almost immediately. You know, probably over the course of a week or two. You know, we're very fortunate to have, you know, generous parents that support the program and care about it enough to, you know, give to a cause like that for their kids. And they showed up on the pool deck probably a month later, two months that's showing, like, hey, I said we were going to fundraise for this, and here it is. Now, if you have a surplus on that fundraising, that's when you start to kind of, like, pocket it and build on that for the next year. Hey, we fundraised $18,000. We only needed 15 for the lane lines last year. Going into the next year, you already have a plan. You've kind of told them what you're working towards, and you can say, you know, we raised a couple extra thousand dollars last year. So now our work's cut out for us. We don't have to fundraise as much. So that's a really good point. You know, how do you convince parents to give to a program when their kid will graduate out? And that's where you just have to be really transparent, honest, and build that trust and relationship with your families.
- [32:38]
A
I love that response, because so many times when Scott and I are on here just kind of shooting the breeze back and forth and doing these episodes where we don't have guests. There's a couple key points that you touched on that I think Scott and I just champion all the time. First, transparency is king. You know, you're never going to be getting yourself into trouble when you're being fully transparent of what's taking place in your program. Two is just the communication piece and making sure that everybody's all lined up and they understand what's taking place. But I think a big takeaway for me on this is relationships that you're developing both as an athletic director as well as a coach, because you're doing it on both fronts, right? And you're making sure that those families who are tremendous resources for you when you're in the private school setting. I mean, across the board, they're tremendous resources, but particularly in the private school setting, there's an element of keeping your families happy and being able to be successful. That's going to play a role with it. Right. And as you're developing those relationships and you build them and they're strong. You can go and have those conversations that might be a little bit uncomfortable where you're saying, like, hey, you know, I understand your child is a junior. And what I'm envisioning is going to be three to four years from now. But what I'm coming to you and asking for is you saw such a great experience that they had. We want to provide that for others. And you have that relation aspect where they look at you and they have the belief and the trust because you delivered on the landlines. You. They know, hey, Kelly's coming to me for this for a reason. I got faith in him. He's proven time and time before he's been transparent. He's communicated with us. Strong relationship here. I'm going to open up the checkbook. And I think that those are some great takeaways that, that I, that I got from that response. How about you, Scott?
- [34:18]
D
Yeah.
- [34:19]
C
Everything you said for real transparency is king. And building up that trust factor coming through.
- [34:27]
D
Right?
- [34:28]
C
For families, if you say you're going to do something, if they do their part, you have to do your part. So I think that's so important. Colorado timing system. I'm not a swimming guy. I remember, like, isn't that a thing? Like, that's expensive. I used to rent that out. We didn't have our own pool. Talk to me a little bit and maybe both of you guys. I don't know if you have an answer, but any major pitfall, any, like, story of screwing up a budget where we could tell somebody like, geez, man, I made this mistake once or only once, thank God. But anything that, like, top of mind where semi disaster, almost disaster, you know.
- [35:09]
B
I've had a couple moments where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm. I'm nervous, you know, and I've kind of got. It was before I really started organizing as well as I do now.
- [35:21]
D
Right.
- [35:22]
B
I didn't have my, my system down.
- [35:24]
D
Right.
- [35:24]
B
This is probably like, I don't know, six, seven years ago. And I remember it bothered me for months. I'm just like, like, I think I spent too much money. It's no, like, it wasn't like a critical, like, example like you just asked for. It was nothing in particular. It was just a. I was very unsure and uneasy about what I was spending. And they were all costs. I'm like, I have to spend. I have to buy hotel rooms for our team. We have a meetup in NorCal that we're busing to. And then the dinner happened, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, it was $2,000 more than I anticipated, right? And I didn't have it all, like, well thought out. And luckily it all worked out, and it was. It came down to the wire, and our fundraiser went well, and it was all fine. But that's just the type of person I am, you know, I'm like, I don't feel organized. It's going to bother me and keep me up at night. We've had some coaches in the past go in the red a little bit, Greg, you know, and basically what happens, you know, mistakes happen sometimes with our business office, right? And this isn't a knock on anybody. This is just the way it works, right? You submit your PO purchase order or a check request, and it doesn't. It's not processed through our business office for a month or two, or something gets lost, right? That happens. There's so much paperwork. Our coaches, every month, they get a copy of their project report so they can see all the line items spent and whatnot. And there's a number at the bottom that shows what their account holds. But if that PO they turned in two weeks ago isn't listed on there, and that POS for $10,000, well, that number at the bottom is not accurate.
- [37:19]
D
Right?
- [37:19]
B
That's outdated really quick. So we've had coaches, right, Especially new ones, before they know the budgeting procedures at the school. Oh, okay, here's my number. I'm good. I have more money to spend. Blah, blah, blah. And they had not forgotten. But, you know, you. You turn things in the office. We're all busy, right? We're coaches. A lot of them are teachers. They're giving out homework, they're grading papers, and they forget they've turned in a $20,000 PO for new uniforms or a soccer goal or something like that. So that number at the bottom might have shown, oh, I got $8,000 in my account. Well, guess what? You got to subtract 20. And some coaches have learned the hard way from that. And that's why it's really important with my template and spreadsheet to track every expense. That doesn't happen.
- [38:11]
C
You gotta balance the checkbook, right? You gotta balance the check. I was just gonna say, Scott, I should try and do that more in my own house. I know, but, like, you know, you gotta balance the checkbook, otherwise you could be in trouble. That's. That's what I'm hearing.
- [38:24]
B
That's. That's essentially that. That's exactly what it is. But as a coach, you can't blame them, especially if they're a walk on coach. They're not on campus all the time. They're probably expecting that number to be accurate, you know, and that's not unreasonable in my opinion. But that's just, that's the way it works. You know, you can't rely on that number from a report without auditing every line item to make sure that all your POS are reflected.
- [38:52]
C
Unfortunately, if you don't mind me jumping in because. Sorry. I think that's where like athletic directors can be so helpful with their coaches.
- [39:00]
D
Right.
- [39:00]
C
Like that's, that's the leadership side where it's like you've got to be in constant communication with your coaches. You should be sitting down with them. I feel like in those cases and going over that with them and making sure that like you're setting the example. But again, just communicating whether it's at the water cooler or whether it's a formal meeting in the office, like that's the kind of AD that you need to have as a coach who's going to make sure that they keep you in line because it's just too easy with all those other things that you said, like to miss something.
- [39:33]
B
Yeah. Really important that as a coach you communicate with your ad. And there's some coaches that. That's hard. You know, it's a personality thing. Some people are as comfortable just hey, I need help on this or hey, let me tell you about this. Some people have different situations where, you know, if you're our tennis coach, we don't have tennis courts on campus. So she's hard. They're hardly here.
- [39:59]
D
Right.
- [40:00]
B
That's hard. It's a hard dynamic.
- [40:02]
D
Right.
- [40:03]
B
Every sport's a little bit different. Every person's different, obviously. But yeah, that communication with your head coaches and ad, you have to go out of your way to make sure you're asking the right questions. You can't rely on the coach to just come to you. And some, some might, but some won't.
- [40:23]
D
Right.
- [40:24]
B
And as an ad, it's your responsibility to seek them out and ask those questions to make sure you don't get in a situation where, oh, wow, we're $20,000 in the hole, you know, and.
- [40:38]
A
I think that brings up a good question, you know, whether that's, you know, you're looking to add to your reserves or maybe you got yourself into a little bit of a financial pickle. What are some of the effective ways for athletic programs to really kind of Generate additional revenue. You know, like, are there ways that they're able to properly capture funds? Whether that's, you know, fundraising, ticketing, streaming, things like that, additional sources for them to kind of tap into to ensure that there is ways to generate that additional revenue. When you've already done your fundraising, you've already collected your fees, but now you got to a point where, like, hey, you know, I think this is the time of year where we might want to try and generate some additional funds. What are some of your thoughts on that?
- [41:25]
B
Yeah, I think there's always room and opportunity for that. I think it's really important that you don't come off like you're nickeling and diming families either. You know, you don't want to be the person or the department that has 30 fundraisers throughout a year.
- [41:44]
D
Right.
- [41:45]
B
Because that kind of turns people off. They're like, well, you're always asking me for money.
- [41:49]
D
Right.
- [41:51]
B
I think it's really important to have like a flagship event. Like we do our athletic department golf tournament. That's an annual thing. It's not going anywhere. And then on the side, we do have some other things. Like we've talked about starting a phone a thon to really get alumni involved. And they're very basic concepts. You know, it's nothing new, but it's really just putting in the work and taking the time to make it happen can go a really long way. And it's not just about money either. It's about building relationships, kind of like we talked about a few minutes ago. And I know that you guys wanted to ask about like corporate sponsorships, so I'll just dive into that right now. That's huge. If you have a DAC board, like a Daktronics board or a video board, you should be seeking out local businesses, businesses of your. The parents in your program or companies.
- [42:49]
D
Right.
- [42:49]
B
And representing their logos on your video boards, at games, at practices, throughout the school day, whatever. That's a great way to generate passive income. You know, it doesn't take a lot of time and it's almost. It's a win win. It's a very mutual benefit for that company or business and for your program, whether you're the AD or head coach.
- [43:09]
D
Right.
- [43:10]
B
You can do that either. It depends on your school structure. But using things like utilizing your video boards, right? Or even buying a frames and getting them printed right through a print company, it's a low cost, but it'll go.
- [43:25]
C
A long way.
- [43:28]
B
Toward generating extra revenue for your program. So I think local business is Huge. And again, it might even help them more than it helps you. And then having that flagship event is really important because then people can rely on it. They know every spring or every summer, we have, you know, the golf tournament or the school auction or whatnot. And I'm sure every school does something like that. But if you do have control over your own programs, fundraising, and you're not doing that, that's something to really look into. And, you know, just sit down for like an hour, an hour or two a week and really plan that out with your staff or your ad.
- [44:15]
A
Definitely some great thoughts there.
- [44:18]
C
My last question, maybe, maybe tougher one, right, Is what happens if you have to cut, like, any strategies if, if all of a sudden you've gotta cut your budget, Somebody says you have less or you fundraise less. Like, have you had to do that? And how do you do that? But obviously keep like, the quality of the program at that same level.
- [44:43]
B
That's a great question. And what I'll start off by saying is always lowball your fundraising estimates or projections and always heighten your costs, right? So in my budget, I know there's probably like a couple thousand dollars of wiggle room, right? I always budget worst case scenario, okay, I'm going to fundraise almost nothing, and my costs will be really. I'll mark them up like 5, 10%. And then when I actually fill out my actual costs, it kind of comes together. But there have been times where I'm like, hey, I can't afford a team photographer this year. I can't pay him X amount of dollars that I paid him last year because I have four more kids on financial aid who can't pay their fees. And I'm going to waive them if I can, you know, so I find things like that, like team photographers, you can cut that out of the budget and have a parent who's, you know, skilled with the camera to really help. Those are smart, you know, I mean, those are ways to. Those are luxuries, right? I'll pay our, our photographer if we can, but if we can't, then, you know what, I'll find an alternative and get someone to either volunteer their time. You can also utilize families who. Hey, coach, I. We really can't afford this right now. You can ask them in exchange. Well, then, you know, can you come and help out a little bit at the snack bar or, you know, timing or working the table if you're a gym sport? One thing I just thought of for extra revenue, going back to the last question, really quickly. Merchandise sales, concession stands. Again, they sound very simple. They're very basic. Your school might have a situation where you're not allowed to do that as a head coach, but if you're an ad and you can sell gear and apparel, parents love that. I'm constantly being asked by parents, hey, how do we get the sweatshirt that my daughter has? You know, and that's the official team gear. So I always over order a little bit so I can sell them at our competitions. And that's a good way to kind of generate some passive income for your program.
- [47:07]
C
Listen, my takeaway from what you said about having to cut is to just be conservative when you start things out. Right. That's the way I would classify it. I feel like, hey, if I knew my budget was this much, I would say to my coaches, you have this much. And it was always less than I budgeted for them. And, like, if it wound up at towards the end of the year that we had a little bit more money, like, I would use that towards big ticket items that helped everybody. Whether that was software that helped everybody, whether that, you know, a stem machine for the trainer's office, like, whatever it was, I'd rather have that at the end. Again, probably should treat my own house like that a little bit more at times, but be conservative to start out the year. And then again, with experience, you can sort of see those trends and see that maybe you don't have to be as conservative, but you gotta get that baseline down.
- [48:01]
B
No, exactly. And then once you get more comfortable with it, you can, you know, you'll be more comfortable or maybe a little more bold. Pulling the trigger on a. On a big purchase that's beneficial for your program. And you look at it, everything is like kind of an investment.
- [48:17]
D
All right?
- [48:17]
B
I'm investing this money into my program to get a better product at the end.
- [48:22]
D
Right.
- [48:22]
B
Or to build a positive reputation in the community or locally or whatever it might be. Everything that you spend for your program, you're expecting your kids to get a better experience because of it. And I think it's really important not to lose sight of that.
- [48:42]
A
Fantastic information. I think I'm going to round us out for the final question. And it's a. It's a pretty broad one, but if you were to give a singular piece of advice to a new athletic director when it comes to budgeting, what would you advise them to look for or to do?
- [49:05]
B
I would say, don't be afraid of it.
- [49:07]
D
Right.
- [49:08]
B
Budgeting and numbers. Kind of a lot of people, like, I said earlier they want to just sign it. Okay. I don't want to look at the number and in our personal lives too. You know, I think people do that quite a bit. Right. It's hard to look through your expenses and your finances sometimes, but I think you really have to approach it with a, hey, let's, this is a, it's a positive thing, it's a solution based thing. It's not a scary thought, right? I think that's, that's. Number one, don't be afraid of it. Go and attack it and just own it. Just do it. Number two, you can't spend a lot of time on it as an ad, especially a new ad, you're learning a lot. There's parent meetings, there are games to go to. There are so many important things that you have to get done on a day to day basis. You should only allocate 10 to 20% of your time on budgeting. And by being organized and having that system, right, if you attack it from the start, you'll be able to, you'll find a way to be really efficient and accurate and organized. So those would be my thing. Don't be afraid of it and don't spend too much time on it.
- [50:18]
A
I think those are some great closing thoughts on that. I really appreciate it. Well, folks.
- [50:26]
C
Yeah, you know, I can't just let him go. I got, I got a swimming question, right? Because I, I just got to bring it up. I proposed to my swim coaches back in the day. I'm like, can you please put numbers on the top of their swim caps? And then I need a roster that's related to the number so that, like, I could never tell who anybody was when I would go to swim meets because everybody looks the same. So I want your, like, your perspective. Like, what if you put a number because the name probably be too small right on top of them? And I mean like the top because they're in the water. So, like, when I'm watching them, I want a number and then I want you to have a roster with it. What's your response?
- [51:05]
B
That's, that's a good thought. I've never actually heard that before. A lot of teams, they do have the names on the side and you'll see like, Katie Ledecky on, on the side of the cap, right? And that's generally if you're at a swim meet, that should be bigger or big enough so that you can recognize them. But here's the thing with the numbers. Right now you're talking about ordering custom swim Caps, which.
- [51:33]
A
Yeah, it's a good point.
- [51:34]
B
Your price goes way up. To put a name on a cap, you're paying for the silicone caps about 10 bucks a pop. You put a name on it. Now you're paying probably $18 each, and there's a minimum order. You got to get two. So now you're 32 bucks a kid for two caps that will probably rip in, like, two months. So when they rip now, you got to put in another order. And guess what? There's a minimum order. So your cost is going to double, triple, quadruple throughout a calendar year.
- [52:08]
C
No name. I got you. I got you. Listen, I can buy in bulk because I need, like, 10 number sixes, because somebody's always going to be number six.
- [52:17]
B
That could. Yeah, that. That would work, too. I think the best solution, though, go get a good old Sharpie and write a number on the arm or something.
- [52:27]
A
I mean, I can only imagine the. The battles that would ensue for swim numbers. You know, that's just an additional one, right? Just kind of leave it at that. Kelly, just with our institutional knowledge on that front, I would imagine that would cause some intriguing questions and concerns amongst the swim families of. Why is my child number 112?
- [52:49]
B
Yep, yep.
- [52:51]
C
Brian Boardman and Michelle Cromwell. Brian and Michelle. My. My swim coaches have just been vindicated by laughing at me for all those years.
- [53:00]
B
It's all good.
- [53:02]
A
Oh, that's fantastic.
- [53:04]
B
And, you know, they all switch and do. It all get jumbled anyway. And then all of a sudden, number six would be number 12, you know? You know, kids are. I can't even get them to lock their lockers in the locker a, man.
- [53:16]
A
Yeah, getting them to put on the right swim cap and number, that's. That's just gonna be an additional battle in your day. Well, Kelly, we cannot thank you enough for taking the time to join us today and giving us that insight as it relates to. To private school budgeting. You know, it is a unique animal. It's a different. A different realm in itself. So hopefully this has been helpful for some from. For the folks that have tuned in this week. I think that's going to do it for this edition of AD360. Kelly, any closing thoughts or insights before we hang it up?
- [53:48]
B
Not really. I really appreciate you guys having me. I will share that template, that budget template. Again, it's nothing super fancy. It's a very basic tool that, you know, and I'm sure a lot of. Anyone. Any ADs listening or coaches, you're probably like, oh, I already have a budget template, which is great. If you don't have one, I'm more than happy. You know, I can email it over to you guys and you can share it with anybody who asks or reaches out.
- [54:14]
A
That would be very much appreciated because as Scott mentioned, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. You've had some great success there. I'm sure our listeners would love to be able to take it, look at it and peruse it a little bit and see how they can implement that into their own program. So again, cannot thank you enough for joining us today. It's always great catching up with you. So with that said, folks, if you liked what you heard today, stay tuned for future episodes. We will be taking a episode where we look at it from the pri, from the public school viewpoint as well, where I'm going to be able to kind of pick Scott's brain as to how things work and seeing it from the other side of the universe, if you will. But if you liked what you heard today, please make sure you follow us wherever you get your podcast from, whether that's Spotify, Apple Podcasts. And also please give us a like, you know, we, we appreciate you tuning in and we want you to get those follows so you don't miss any new content, new episodes that are coming out. But with that said, from A.D. 360, I'm Greg Vandermade.
- [55:09]
C
Scott Rosenberg. Kelly, thank you again. Good luck this year.
- [55:13]
A
Until next time, folks.
- [55:14]
B
Appreciate it, guys.