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Future-proof your leadership with High Octane Leadership, a place where business leaders—whether by title or aspiration—share cheat codes for unlocking workplace excellence, lessons learned along the way, and insider tips for future generations of next-level professionals. With a career rooted in building people and businesses, Donald Thompson is an award-winning CEO, speaker, and author who empowers leaders to scale with purpose. Over the last 25 years, he has helped startups and enterprises alike drive cultural change, unlock performance, and deliver exceptional results through strategic leadership.
Find him on LinkedIn, and listen here to learn how you can become future-proof too.
High Octane Leadership Ep. 167
From Athletes to Executives: Making Bold Moves in
Business with Drew Turner
[00:00:04] Donald: Welcome to High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. This season, we're diving deeper with more solo episodes, where I'll share the experiences that have led to recognition by Forbes, Fast Company, and others. Not as a boast, but as milestones on my entrepreneurial path. From growing multimillion-dollar firms to successful business exits and building high-performance teams with a global perspective, I'll reveal the insights and strategies from my journey and share them with you so that we can win together. Alongside these solo episodes, we'll have industry visionaries and thought leaders who will explore effective leadership. Ready to empower your leadership journey with real success stories? Let's embark on this transformational journey together.
I'm here today to talk about something that I have a deep appreciation for: legacy leadership and what it takes to grow a great business while staying true to your roots. Today, I'm joined by Drew Turner, the President of Collegiate Sports Associates, a firm that's made its name in the high-stakes world of collegiate athletics executive search. Drew is now leading CSA into a bold new chapter, launching a division focused on academic executive recruitment. And trust me, it's more than a pivot; it's a transformation built on vision, grit, and staying true to the "Family First" foundation that built the company.
CSA was founded by Drew's father, Todd Turner, and they've built something special—not just a company, but a culture rooted in relationships, trust, and results. Now, with Drew at the helm, taking the legacy to new heights as they expand into helping universities find provosts, deans, and even presidents. We'll talk about what it takes to rebrand a legacy business, how they're competing with national firms as a boutique powerhouse, and, yes, maybe even a story behind the midnight interview on Christmas Eve.
At Walkwest, we've had the privilege of partnering with CSA on this rebrand and the go-to-market strategy, and I can say firsthand, they're the real deal. And without anything further, we're going to kind of jump into it and give you an opportunity to share with our audience. But, Drew, welcome, and thanks for spending some time with us.
Drew: Pleasure to be here. We've loved our relationship with Walkwest, so honored to join you.
[00:02:13]
Donald: One of the things that, even before we get into the meat of CSA and some of the things we're talking about, tell our audience about you a little bit. You're working for a family business. Talk about education, talk about anything you feel comfortable so the audience is now talking to you and I as friends.
Drew: You talked a little bit about the founding of my firm. My father did start the firm. He started in February 2010, so this is our fifteenth year in existence. And in fact, our fifteenth birthday is July 10, so coming up—ironically, also my wife's birthday, so a date that I really can't forget. Fifteen years in the search and consulting business. My father was a longtime practitioner in higher education and college athletics. So he was a multi-stop athletics director. He held that position at actually four different institutions, and so I give that background because that shaped my upbringing.
I moved around a lot, you know, in higher education. You kind of got to do that when that's your professional career. I was born in Connecticut. He was the athletics director at the University of Connecticut, and I lived there for all of, like, six months before he became the athletics director at North Carolina State in Raleigh. And, actually, my mom and my dad are both from Raleigh. So when he became the AD at NC State, it was a chance to move back home for them. Unfortunately or fortunately, he is a Chapel Hill grad. So to be the AD at NC State as a Chapel Hill grad, that didn't always resonate with some of the Wolfpack fans. But he was the AD at State for six years, so I did a good amount of growing up here. Went to elementary school here at Lacey Elementary in Raleigh. And then from NC State, he went to be the AD at Vanderbilt. So then I spent ten years in Nashville before he then took another job as the athletics director at the University of Washington in Seattle. So Connecticut, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington were really where I'd spent my adolescent years until I graduated high school.
I thought I was a college athlete, thought I was a football player. I actually was a pretty good high school player, and I tore, dislocated, and broke my leg, my junior year of high school—wheelchair for six months. I mean, it was, leg was hanging the wrong way on the field. I mean, it was a big deal, but I still thought I could do it. So I went to play football at Elon University in North Carolina, and I did that for a year. I was on the team. I didn't contribute much on the field, but was a good locker room guy, I guess. You know? I did that for a year, transferred to South Carolina because after I knew I was done playing football, I knew I wanted to be in a big college athletics environment. And probably because of what I had grown up around, I wanted to pursue a career in college athletics and athletics administration. You know? Because my dad, growing up and still to this day, is my hero, you know, my role model, and so I wanted to follow that career path. And I wanted to be an AD, so I transferred to South Carolina. I immediately wrote the AD and said, "Hey, how can I help? I'll intern, volunteer." Did that for three years there, and then I started my career, which started in athletics administration before I made a pivot into the search business.
But that was a really long-winded answer. But I will actually say this because we had our staff meeting yesterday, and we all work remotely. And among our companies, there are about sixteen people who work with us, but we're all remote. And so we start every meeting with a culture question, something different to try and build relationships when you're working all over the country at different places. And the question was, "What travel or cultural experience has had the biggest impact on your life?" And a lot of people had great answers about trips that they took or mission trips or different things that kind of opened their eyes. For me, I actually took a different approach that was my upbringing in that I had mentioned all the places I lived. I then made an attempt to play college football. I then went to an SEC school, South Carolina, and went to this big college experience. And so the biggest impact on my life had been all the different experiences and types of people that those moves and transitions have exposed you to.
Talk about in Nashville, I went to an all-boys, conservative private school in the heart of Nashville. And then I finished high school in Seattle, Washington, which is a little bit different culturally than Nashville. And then I went to play football at Elon, and the demographic of my peers and colleagues was very different than those last two stops. And then I transferred to South Carolina, and I'm in a fraternity and become president of a fraternity, which is an SEC fraternity, very different than college athletics and playing football. All of those different stops really made me realize that, hey, how to find common ground with people of different backgrounds and experience and the importance of doing that to building successful relationships, which is really the key to everything. That's kind of my background and experience.
Donald: I love it. And the last thing you said, I loved all of it, the ability to develop relationships being the success key to everything. And, yes, we're in the technology age, the age of AI and all the digital and social. But at the end of the day, right, authentic relationships are what drive businesses. It happens to be more obvious in the search business and different things. But when you cut the covers back from any business, that's the case. Quick question: Where'd you live in Connecticut? Hartford. So the reason I'm smiling like ear-to-ear is my dad graduated from the University of Connecticut, coached there when Walt Medzack was the head coach. Okay, so that's going to date back.
Drew: What were the years? So he...
Donald: He was a coach in '79. So I think my dad was a player there maybe '74 through '77.
[00:07:26]
Drew: My dad was there from '86 to '90, so might have just missed.
[00:07:30]
Donald: But I grew up in Connecticut and lived in Storrs, Connecticut. Okay. And so you would remember the Hartford Whalers.
Drew: Yep. Oh, yeah. And back in the day, the Canes.
[00:07:36]
Donald: And so as the son of a football coach, I can relate very strongly to the different stops. Mine were Western Kentucky, which is Bowling Green, it's about an hour and a half from Nashville. And he coached at University of Pittsburgh, North Carolina that we talked about, East Carolina, different things like that. And that ability to make fast friends...
[00:07:54]
Drew: Yeah, you got to do it.
[00:07:55]
Donald: ...is something that has helped me in my career and in life. And then to your other point that I just want to reiterate, the ability to look at people through the lens of what you can do together versus the lens of what makes you different is also something that sport does even today, and one of the final unifying things that we really have when everything else is so polarized. So thank you so much for that feedback. What I want to dig into is when we look at CSA as a business now, your focus and the way you've made your reputation has been in the athletics world, like you described, and you're now getting ready to make a very significant pivot. Talk to us about how that came about, how that decision, and what were some of the reasons behind that evolution for the firm?
[00:08:38]
Drew: I'll kind of go back again to my story of career. I always wanted to be an athletics director. I mean, that was the goal I had. As soon as I realized I wasn't good enough to play professional football on career day, that was what I wanted to do: I wanted to be an AD. And so I was kind of on that path after college. Right after school, I went to work at Duke, and I worked in their athletics department. That was a great experience. And then I got an opportunity to take a step in my career, and I went to work at Old Dominion University, which forever will hold a great place in my heart. It's where I met my wife.
[00:09:06]
Donald: Uh, I...
[00:09:07]
Drew: It was actually our first client when I transitioned into search, so huge ODU person. But I was at ODU for six years, and I was on this path of, like, hey. I think I'm on the right steps to becoming an AD, which is what I've always wanted to do. And I was actually on my way to interview for a position that was continuing that journey. And as I mentioned, my dad was a longtime AD, and at that point, he had founded CSA. As you would imagine, he's somebody that I would call for career advice, and he is and was and is an expert in the higher education and college athletic space. And so I called him before I interviewed for that job, and I said, "Hey, I got this really good opportunity. What do you think?" And, you know, I'm thinking he's going to be like, "Yeah, this is great. This is how you should prepare." And he was like, "Don't do it." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And the AD that I interviewed for is now one of the premier ADs in the country. They were up and coming at the time. I was like, this is a great chance to be his right hand. What are you talking about? And he was like, "No, come work with me." And I was like, "Dad, no. I'm not, I'm not doing that." And probably, I wanted really bad to make my own way, you know, and not be, you know, working for my, you know? And so I understand that. I think I was a little nervous about, "Oh, I'm going to be my daddy's son," and, you know, do that. And so at first, I told him no. I was like, "I'm going to interview this job. I'm not, I'm not doing that." The whole time I was up there interviewing for this opportunity, I kind of was like, well, yeah, that's kind of... I never, I truthfully had never thought about doing this. I really hadn't. I kind of thought, like, "I'll be an AD. We won't win enough games. The fans will get mad. I'll get fired. And then I'll go work in the consulting business," because that's just right.
[00:10:37]
Donald: That's the...
Drew: ...whole time. Happens. So I really hadn't thought about this. And but it was kind of in the back of my mind when I was up there interviewing. So I called him back after, and I said, "Okay, I'll come meet with you." And I had obviously, as his son, you know, vacations, family gatherings, all that stuff, I had seen his business. Sure. And quite honestly, he was doing the work because he loved the industry and cares deeply about it. And he was a way to stay busy, but he wasn't necessarily, it wasn't really a career. He was working from the kitchen table, and he had his laptop, and he had his relationships. And so I had seen that, and at the time, I was 30. And I was like, man, I'm in, like, grinding part of my career. Yeah. I don't want to necessarily work at the kitchen table and in between golf rounds. So I went and met with him and kind of heard the whole plan. And at the time, there was only three people working with the company. It was him and two others, and all of them were remote. We met for, like, six hours and really went over everything. And what I realized is that, you know, he had built a really successful business, but was, again, doing it, not operating like somebody who's all day, every day, right, running it. And I said, "Man, if we can capitalize on everything that he's built on the reputation of the brand and run this more like a business, what an amazing opportunity this would be." But I was still kind of struggling with the "Todd Turner's Son" deal. And so I go back. We had a great meeting. I go back to ODU where I worked. And my boss, who is one of my closest friends still, who's the AD at Old Dominion, is a guy named Wood Selig. And I knew about this other job that I was interviewing for at this other school. And so we were set to go to dinner before I made any decision. And we go to dinner, and he talks me out of the other job, and he's like, "Hey, you're not going to do that. Like, we're going to do all this stuff for you. You're going to stay." And I said, "Well, there's also this other thing." And we talked about that. And I said, "But I'm struggling with going to work for my dad and what that looks like and that whole deal. I've always wanted to be an AD, do my own thing." And he said, "Look, if the person that you're working for, you trust more than anybody you know in the world, if the opportunity is real, like, you see the potential, and the only reason you're doubting it because your last name's the same as his, that's not a good reason." And that, like, really stuck with me. I was kind of like, "Oh, shoot. That's a good point." So I called, the rest of the story, you can probably tell what happened. I, I... And take him... I called him back. I took the job. At that point, CSA, again, I was the fourth full-time employee with CSA. We were exclusively, and to this point, we're exclusively focused on college athletics, primarily the Division I level. And we were doing about ten to fifteen search projects a year and a few consulting projects as well. And so that was seven years ago. And today, we've grown our team on the CSA side. We've actually started another company. But on the CSA side, we've got nine full-time employees. We're going to hire our tenth here soon, and we do about fifty searches a year. It was all built on the brand and the reputation that my dad started with CSA, and we've just grown on that.
[00:13:26]
Donald: And to give your dad his flowers, the brand and reputation he built, but then to give you yours, it had to be maintained and grown. And so the work you all have done to not only cement it, but then accelerate it is really, really powerful.
Drew: I didn't answer your question, Donald. You, you...
[00:13:41]
Donald: You got... We got plenty of tape, and I'm here to learn it, so we're good.
Drew: You asked about the expansion. You know, when I first joined the company, we're about a year or so in, and I quite honestly, I think a large corporate firm recognized this moment of transition where we had this good brand, but I was new coming in. I didn't have that much experience. And quite honestly, I thought they were like, "Hey, this is a good time to buy CSA, buy their brand. It's a little bit uncertain with the new guy Drew coming in. Is he going to be able to maintain what his dad has built?" And so somebody tried to buy us, and we looked at that. And, ultimately, I remember being on vacation with my dad, my boss at the time. And this firm that was pursuing us reached out, and they're like, "Hey, can you guys hop on a call, you know, at this time or whatever?" And, of course, we did, and we got on it. And we got off the call, and I went to my dad, and I said, "Hey, Dad, I'm pretty sure people work their whole lives to not have to answer to somebody saying, 'Hey, can we interrupt your vacation?'" Not to say our clients interrupt our vacation all the time, but it's different. That, that's... And I kind of had this moment where I was like, "I'm not ready to say that we can't keep building this thing on our own." And it was that moment that we called them back, and we were like, "Hey, thanks. We've loved everything, and we still have a good relationship with them. But it just wasn't the right time. We wanted to see where this could go." And since that time, we've grown significantly.
Fast forward five years from that point, we had now grown into, you know, one of the really three premier search firms in college athletics in our space. And we, you know, after five years, felt like, gosh, we got to keep doing what we're doing great. But in this college athletic space, there's not that much more room to grow. There's always going to be a need for diversity of firms in the space. There's only so many Division I schools. There's only so many jobs that come open. So there's not that much more room to grow. So, okay. We had another firm reach out again five years later. And at this point, we said, "Okay, maybe we can't grow on our own anymore in the space we're in, so we'll explore this again." And same kind of thing happened. We ultimately decided, "Hey, look, we like how we are." And but once we made that decision, we said, "Well, you know, I got a long career ahead of me. We don't want to just maintain. We want to grow." And to do that, as I just mentioned, we needed to look for another market to grow in. There was only so much room in college athletics. We've got to continue to be elite in college athletic search and consulting, but where else can we take the brand that we've built and attack a new market? And, really, the two that we looked at were pro sports and higher education academic leadership positions. I know this narrative's out there that college athletics is becoming pro sports and all that, and so that's probably why we looked around at that. But, ultimately, we decided that most of our relationships, when we help an institution hire a new AD or a coach, you know, we deal with the board of trustees. We deal with the president. And so we've got really trusted relationships with them. Well, it's the president and the board of trustees that hire a new president, provost, or dean. We said, "Look, this academic space makes the most sense for us."
And so on August 1, I think, is when we're technically going to tell everybody about it, but we're going to launch our new academics division. We've strategically not just rushed into it. We've been working on it for almost a year now. The first step was we needed to hire and identify somebody to lead that business or division on a day-to-day basis. Because while we know search and we have great relationships, or at least at that point, we didn't have the expertise to run academic searches. They're a little bit nuanced and different than those that we know. So we went out and, like, a good search firm, we identified candidates who may fit what we were looking for, and we found a gentleman named Charlie Kaler who had been in the academic search space for over fifteen years and hired him in January to be our managing director. And we told him, "Hey, look, we're not going to announce this publicly because we want to get all the infrastructure set and ready to go." Charlie will run the division on a day-to-day basis. Again, on that August 1 date or around that time, we'll let the world know about this new division. We've been doing some things from a soft launch perspective to let some of our friends and family clients know about it. But, yeah, we're going to tell the world on August 1 and hopefully go attack the academic space.
Donald: Oh, that's fantastic. And thank you for that context. Anytime you're pivoting a business, right, it's exciting, but it's also a little bit daunting because it's new space. But that's where the opportunities lie, right, is in that growth. A question more specific to you and your leadership style and learning: what are some of the characteristics that you learned in working at really the highest levels in college athletics about delivering on promises, about attention to detail, about really representing the brand in your actions?
[00:18:09]
Drew: I think in the services business, there are a lot of firms who do what we do and do it well. And so I've used it. You, you almost have to be elite at it. Like, you can't, you've got to be communicative. You've got to be responsive. You've got to be right. You've got to be trustworthy. You've got to be genuine. Most times we try and pursue a search. We have to interview for it, just like a candidate interviewing for a job, just like a business trying to earn business, just like when we talked with Walkwest about working with us. We interviewed multiple firms. One of the things that we kind of leave our clients with is we tell them, "Look, there's"—and, hopefully, this isn't, you know, our competitors aren't watching this. They're going to take this. But there's really, you know, four things that...
Donald: This might be for me. We can edit it out if you want. But I'm interested. I'm a competitive learner.
[00:18:47]
Drew: We tell clients at the end of kind of our, our pitches, there's really four things that they should look for when they hire a search firm. Is, A, do they have the experience to manage a search of this magnitude? You know, have they done search in projects of similar scope? And particularly up to this point on the athletic side, we've managed searches at, we've done the AD search at Ohio State, the football search at North Carolina, the basketball search at Texas A&M. We've worked at the highest levels. We've worked them in majors level. So we've worked at all different levels in that space. So we do have the experience and expertise to do that.
Do they have the relationships and networks in the space that you work with that can find out what your candidates are going to be beyond the interview process? Because anybody can be good during a three-month interview process or on a Zoom. You know, you can be really sharp. But what really matters is when the interview ends and the process is over, what are they like on a day-to-day basis? And because of the makeup of our team, all of us, in addition to our experience as search executives, we've worked in higher ed, we've worked in college athletics. So we can find out what these people are really like, not what they're like only as candidates. So that's really the second thing that we talk about.
The third piece is, are they communicative? Are they responsive? Like, these searches, particularly on the athletic side, and you hinted at it in the intro, like, holidays, weekends, nights, they move fast. You've got to be communicative, and they've got to know that, hey. We're going to be responsive, and we're going to get back to them. And then there's really no way to display that in an interview, but we encourage them, "Hey, talk to anybody we've worked with," and they'll tell you that you don't get our voicemail very often, and you don't get an email that doesn't get a response quickly. And that's important in these high-stakes search processes.
And the last piece that we, that we really sell them on is, "Hey, we're going to be in the trenches together. We're going to be working together."
[00:20:25]
Donald: That's right.
[00:20:26]
Drew: "Do you enjoy working with us? Like, are we enjoyable people? Are we, do you trust us? Do you like us?" And, again, it's hard to convey in an interview, but we encourage them to talk to our clients. And so those four things were, we feel like, really set us apart or make us unique. Particularly, you know, you mentioned we're kind of a boutique. We are a boutique firm. When you interview with us for a search, it's not like we're going to get through the interview process. We're going to call, "Hey, you got the project," and then we're going to say, "Hey, you get our junior associate that you haven't met with that's going to manage your account." You're dealing with the people that you've, that you're working with. And worked with through the whole process.
Donald: No, that is powerful. One of the things our team here, before we got to chat and sit down, is they helped me with some research notes and just different things, and, and certainly, I knew of you all and been a big admirer. There was a little nugget in there about a Christmas Eve interview. So there's a story there that I want to hear about that.
[00:21:15]
Drew: It's actually happened a couple... I'll give two stories. I guess, when I first joined, from shortly thereafter, in 2020, it was the heart of COVID. We were helping Boise State hire a new athletics director. The AD searches are very different, or administrative searches are typically a very different process than hiring a coach. You know, in this era of college athletics, you have transfer portal and all these time for recruiting windows. So, like, the coaching searches, ten days maybe, usually under a ten-day period of time, whereas an AD search is typically more processed. Yeah. You meet at the start. You chart out the timeline. You have meetings set on calendars. It's more of a formal process. So we kick off with Boise State. I think it was maybe two days before Christmas. What, I mean, it was around the holidays. We meet with the committee. We chart out the course so everybody feels good about it. We say, "Hey, we'll see after the new year, and we'll get back together, and we'll get back into the search process."
Either the twenty-third or somewhere around Christmas Eve, the football coach at Boise State surprisingly leaves, like, was not expected, and he goes to be the head coach at Auburn. And so now all of a sudden, Boise doesn't have an AD, and they don't have a football coach. And I mentioned these recruiting windows, transfer portal, like, they need to hire their coach quickly, but they felt like, I think this is a good strategy that they didn't want to hire a new football coach without an AD because the new AD would be managing the most high-profile position on campus, and they didn't have any involvement in the hiring. He immediately got back on a Zoom. I think it was Christmas Eve. And I remember, like, being at my in-laws and being in the car on a Zoom, like, talking to them about, "Okay, what are we going to do? We need to hire the new AD." And that process was really expedited because they wanted to hire the new AD before the football coach. And so on, like, we went back to the school, and we were like, "Hey, I know we said it was a three-month process. We're actually going to do it in seven days." And so we actually told them, we're like, "Hey, look. Usually, we have a very defined process. You provide feedback. We hear everybody's, but because of what we're under, we're going to recommend eight people that fit your profile. You meet with them and you tell us who you like most, and then we'll help you there." And so that's what we did. They ended up hiring a guy named Jeremiah Dickey to be their AD, and he just won AD of the year nationally this past year. Maybe we do all processes in seven days. I don't know. Accelerated. Yeah, I don't know.
So they hired him, and we conducted that whole process remotely. Ironically, again, during COVID, he had never, the AD had never been to Idaho, which is where Boise State is. Never been to Idaho and didn't go to Idaho until his press conference. So, like, he moves his whole family to be, but that was a different era in COVID. Usually, it doesn't work. Like, absolutely. And then his press conference ends, which at the time was all virtual. And then the minute his press conference ends, he gets back on the phone with us, and we try and hire a football coach. You know, we got that done in two or three days after the hiring of the AD. So that was one Christmas Eve story. That, you know, when... That's good stuff. That kind of stuff just happens in our business.
[00:24:03]
Donald: Which is interesting because most folks, they read it in the paper, yeah, the moves if they follow sports and different things, but I've always been interested in the behind the scenes, yeah. Right? I was always interested in it, as you know? And then I was telling earlier, my dad's a football coach, and all the things that happen when you're recruiting a Julius Peppers or when you are, when I was the ball boy for Dan Marino at the University of Pittsburgh and seeing the behind the scenes that they maneuvered from college to pro or, unfortunately, the times were job changes and different things and how they occur. So there's a backstory to everyone. You said you had two. I'm interested in this one.
[00:24:37]
Drew: The other one was actually this past year. We thought, so the football coaching carousel typically happens over, like, a month period of time. Our family has learned that it's, you don't really schedule anything during that because, like, I told that at first year I joined the company, I'm in the car, like, trying to Zoom with Boise State about a football search while my in-laws are trying to have me for dinner. I think it was the first year we were married. Like, I was like, "Okay, we can't schedule anything anymore because you just are basically on call for that month period of time." This past cycle, we, I think we did seven football searches at the time. It was, like, two or three days before the holiday, before Christmas. We thought we're all through. And in fact, our whole, we do a retreat every year, and the staff comes, our team comes to Raleigh. And everybody was over at my house, and we were having pizza and hanging out. And my phone rings late, and it was the last high major football opening of the year, and it was the AD there at Washington State. And I was kind of like, "Man, we thought we were through. Like, we thought we were done," but Washington State, we've had a great relationship with them and historically a great client. And they were like, "Hey, our guy's going to..." Jake Dickert went from Washington State to Wake Forest. That was kind of surprising to a lot of people, and they reached out to us when they say, "Hey, we need to move quick, and we need to work with you." And, of course, we wanted to, to do that. So we thought we were done for the holiday, and we're going to kind of coast into the Christmas, New Year holiday, and we got the last search of the cycle. I remember, like, coming out of my office at my house and, like, looking at my wife because, because we were supposed to go to my in-laws again the next day, and I was like, "Hey, we got one more, so it's going to, we're going to have to change some of the plans." And, yeah. We ended up, I think we literally, because they were West Coast time, I think we were Zooming until, like, literally midnight on Christmas Eve.
Donald: But you got it done. Yeah.
[00:26:15]
Drew: Great client, great hire for them, and a good story out of it.
[00:26:18]
Donald: We covered a lot of things I wanted to cover today. We're going to do a little lightning round. I'm just going to ask you some general questions and have some fun with it. So what's your favorite placement of all time? The one you're most proud of?
[00:26:32]
Drew: I don't know if, um, we love all our placements. Yep. But I think the one I'm most proud of or one I'm most grateful for and probably why I'm still such a big supporter and fan of Old Dominion is when I first transferred into the search business, I didn't really know what I was doing. You know? The first year, I was going to just shadow my dad and learn the business as much as I could. And that year, Old Dominion, where I had just worked for six years, made a change with their football staff, and I should. I reached out to the AD who I was also close with, and I said, "Hey, we'd love to help you." But I literally had been, like, on the search business job for four months, so I didn't really have the expertise to fully know what I was doing. But my dad was actually leading another search, so he was like, "Hey, like, you got to do this." Yep. And Wood, the AD at Old Dominion, just trusted me. And I know that it's probably weird too, the person that we used to be on our staff. Now we're hiring you to be a consultant, and that was only six months ago. But he gave me the opportunity, gave CSA the opportunity to support him in that search, and he didn't have to. And so that one probably means the most to me, and I actually just went and did something at ODU last week. I just care so much about that place because of things like that. And so that Ricky Ronnie is the guy that they hired, and he's still there, and he, I think they're going to have a really good team this year. That's probably the coolest experience and the one that I follow most closely. I mean, I, I'm a huge Old Dominion fan. Watch every game and become a bigger fan since I left campus, actually.
[00:28:01]
Donald: What's, uh, one of the craziest, most interesting search requests through the process that you can...?
Drew: Oh, shoot. There, there's a ton of different stories from the different searches we've led. I'm, I'm trying to think of one that really stands out from a client. Let me think about that one and, and, and come back to it.
[00:28:19]
Donald: So let's pivot a little bit to, we've talked about the rebrand and the pivot and the, really, the expansion. Because pivot's the wrong word. It's not a totally new direction. It's a new arena for you, right, with a lot of the same skills. This really transfers not just in search business, but really any of our viewers that are in business. What are some of the things you thought through in rebranding your business and going to a new arena, in how you wanted to tell your story, how you wanted to change your digital? How did you all process that?
[00:28:49]
Drew: You know, the name of our company formally today, uh, will change on August 1, is Collegiate Sports Associates. So this sounds really silly and simple, but, like, for a while, I was like, "Man, how are we going to venture into any other space when our name is Collegiate Sports Associates?" Presidents aren't going to hire you to run a provost search if they're not going to be able to sell to their stakeholders. "Hey, we hired Collegiate Sports Associates to hire the new, you know, chief academic officer." That wouldn't happen. So, like, for a reason, like, really struggled with the rebrand and the rename. And I was actually reading this book about CAA, Creative Arts Agency, called
Powerhouse. And you probably know that CAA was originally founded as an agency for, uh, screenwriters and actors. That's right. And, you know, in our world, in the sports world, they are now one of the biggest agencies for coaches. You know, they represent Nick Saban and big Kalen DeBoer, high-profile coaches. Not necessarily creative arts agency. Like, you don't say them now, but you, you don't think of a lot of these coaches as creative arts. And I was reading the book, and it talked about as they wanted to expand beyond just Hollywood into other areas. And they were just like, "Well, we'll just be known as CAA." And I was like, "Okay, we don't have to overthink this. Let's, there is some brand equity in CSA. A lot of people refer to us that anyway. So let's just formally change our name to CSA Search and Consulting, still capitalize on the brand equity that that has with people, but not just bring too much attention to the fact that we're college sports." So that was something that doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but we just kind of light-bulb moment decided to do that, and we'll officially announce that as our name.
And then as we were thinking through this, we wanted to be really strategic in the brand we carried forward. We wanted to capitalize on the past relationships, the expertise that we had, but we didn't want to be the old college athletics firm that was started by, that was only former ADs. We wanted to be innovative. And so the term that we used with your team at Walkwest was we, we want to be "innovative, yet elegant and experienced." And so we want to show, like, "Hey, we can be agile. We can adapt to this new world, but we also still are this experienced, distinguished brand that's been around for a long time and led several searches." And we wanted to carry that forward into academics.
[00:30:58]
Donald: That is super, and I appreciate the way you described that. One of the things I want to share, and whether folks use Walkwest or different things, the co-development, yeah, of the future vision is super important when you're selecting a partner with a rebrand. And a lot of times, and I have, um, worked within an agency space and currently am the board chair at Walkwest, but I've also been a consumer in all the different business ventures that I do. And one of the things where I've seen the most success is where we create that new vision with the client, and the iterations are faster, and product is always better. Because, ultimately, people want a guide, but they want to dictate their own story.
[00:31:40]
Drew: Yeah, exactly.
Donald: Right? And so I appreciate that you experienced that with our team with Walkwest. I could absolutely talk to you all day, but I want to be careful with your time, and I want to close this out with, with this. What would you share with our audience? What would you share about CSA and your story that maybe I didn't think to ask you?
[00:31:52]
Drew: One, I do think of a crazy request or story from earlier, and I'm going to be careful with confidentiality here. But we were helping a high-profile client, a Division I institution, hire a new basketball coach. And it was in the middle of the season, and most of the, you know, their candidates were current coaches and coaching their own team. And the client, you know, said to us, they're like, "Hey, we want to meet with this candidate on Tuesday for dinner." And we're like, "Okay, well, they have practiced, like, their coach and this is in a different state, not close. You can't drive there." It was not close to where that candidate was. We were like, "Okay, well, you know, they practice until 5:00 PM or whatever." And they're like, "Oh, that's fine. We'll send them the plane. The plane will pick them up, bring them down for dinner, and then we'll have them back by 11:00 PM that night." And so they did that. They, they flew a plane. They had a very supportive donor. And that's baller? Yeah. I was like, "Oh, shoot. All right, that's..." And they'd, I think they just sent the plane without anybody on it, picked up this coach, brought him down for dinner. After dinner, they said, "Thanks." Sent him back home, and he was there for work the next day. So that was quite a story where I was like, as you said, I was like, "Dang, that's a baller." Pretty good recruiting tool. Tool. Yeah.
[00:33:10]
Donald: Yeah, yeah, "We'll send the plane for dinner."
[00:33:12]
Drew: They're now the coach, so it, it worked. So that was pretty interesting and fun example from...
Donald: That is awesome. And, no, thank you very much for sharing that. What have I missed? What would you like to share that I didn't ask that you'd like to share with...? I've just absolutely enjoyed chopping it up with you.
[00:33:27]
Drew: It's been, it's been a lot of fun, and I, and I too could sit here and talk to you all day. Um, I think the thing that we kind of opened with is, like, I've learned, and I'm still young and got a long career ahead of me, but I just the value of relationships, and that has been, I know everybody says that, but that's how we've been successful. And not just knowing people, not just being like, "Hey, I can call this person or..." But genuine relationships and trust. Like, and in the search business, I guess, that's more important than anything. But do you really trust the people you're working with? And if you can build genuine, sincere relationships and deliver on what you say you're going to do or exceed expectations...
[00:34:07]
Donald: You know, really in any business, particularly in the services business, that's how you build a successful company.
Appreciate that for the last word because our reputation is built on what we deliver. And, you know, we can do all the marketing, all the digital, all of the rebrand, but, ultimately, do you keep your promises and do you exceed expectations for your clients?
[00:34:27]
Drew: And then that's our vision. Like, we talk about that as a team, and we want to, we want to offer best-in-class services and consistently exceed our clients' expectations. And we've got to carry that forward in the next generation.
[00:34:37]
Donald: I'll let that be a wrap. It was my absolute pleasure to spend some time with you, get to know you better. We've known each other from afar and worked together with our companies. But when the team said, "You know what, Drew and you, it would be great to sit down." I was just like, "Absolutely. Let's just put it on the calendar." So thank you so much.
[00:34:52]
Drew: Oh, enjoyed it. Great to be with another DT. Yeah, that's right.
[00:34:58]
Donald: Thank you for joining us on High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. Today's episode is a step in our collective journey towards leadership excellence. Remember, every story we share and every insight we gain is a piece in the puzzle of our leadership journey. For more insight and detail, hit the subscribe button so that we can stay connected. For deeper information and more episodes, go to donaldthompson.com. Continue to lead with vision and purpose, and until we meet again, embrace your role as a high octane leader in the ever-evolving world of business.