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Reflections From The Big Chair With PVAMU’s Anton Goff & SIUE’s Andrew Gavin

Guest Anton Goff, PVAMU; Andrew Gavin, SIUE
28:11 min watch

Summary

Multi-stop ADs Anton Goff, currently the Director of Athletics at Prairie View A&M, and Andrew Gavin, currently AD at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, sit down with ADU’s Tai M. Brown at the 2024 NACDA Convention to offer insight, advice and reflection from their time in the Big Chair. Gavin, Goff and Brown discuss establishing culture and defining core values; dive into the nuances of strategic planning and how to incorporate a variety of stakeholder perspectives; highlight the progress that can be made within an AD’s first year at a new institution; and provide feedback on the value of professional development experiences. Goff and Gavin also discuss the nuances of hiring staff, open up about early decisions they made as young ADs and how they would reframe those opportunities with the benefit of hindsight and experience and reflect on the concept of legacy.

The conversation is indexed below for efficient viewing (click the time stamp to jump to a specific question/topic).

  • - You've both been in your current chair for about a year but you've also been ADs before; how do you not "take your old glasses to the new place"?
  • - Andrew, what are your thoughts on that?
  • - Establishing your non-negotiables and core values are important; tell us about your process of establishing and creating your core values at your new place?
  • - Tell me about the process of arriving at those words and then the process of ensuring that everyone was on board with using the same definitions for those words?
  • - Where do those overlap with the core values of the university?
  • - Anton, tell me about your passion for student-athletes in the context of your career trajectory. What values do you bring to Prairie View and how are you implementing those values now via some strategic planning?
  • - Tell me about your strategic planning process.
  • - What are some of the things you've been proud to accomplish so far during your tenure at SIUE?
  • - What progress do you feel like you've made at PVAMU?
  • - Andrew, where are you on that last point about the culture shift?
  • - When you're recruiting staff, do you recruit to the university and the environment, do you recruit to the culture or do you recruit to the other, existing staff?
  • - It's interesting how you impact someone who's a student-athlete or an intern and now you're hiring them for their first or second job...
  • - Both of you have experienced various leadership development programs - do the things you experience in those program resurface while in these leadership roles?
  • - Andrew, what's your insight on this?
  • - When you reflect on your first time in the Big Chair, was there a decision you made that probably wasn't the best decision you could have made in the moment but now you realize it led you to important learnings that serve you better today?
  • - What about for you Anton?
  • - What is the role of an athletic director? What legacy should they leave behind?
  • - Anton, any thoughts?

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