Dear NABC members,
Nothing tops the start of a new season. Every slate is blank. Every goal is in reach. Welcome back, basketball!
I wrote to you at this time last year that the state of college athletics felt more unstable than ever. Now a year later – as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. This new era of college basketball continues to pile demands on coaches. Recruiting and game planning have always been a grind – now add to it navigating the transfer portal, staying current on NIL rules, and advocating for players’ mental wellbeing amidst a continually fraught social climate. This profession is not for the faint of heart.
And yet, with challenges come the opportunity to remind the watching world why we do what we do. We’re not simply X and O tacticians. We’re educators. We’re leaders. We’re flagbearers for our campus communities. We’re role models and mentors. I believe these coaching traits and our unique position as Guardians of the Game will shine brightly throughout the 2022-23 season.
A common theme during my tenure at the NABC has been the need to secure coaches a seat at the table. Shutting coaches out of critical legislative and policy-making decisions has been the status quo for far too long. We’re making progress on this front, but much work remains.
Central to our advocacy efforts throughout the past year has been a push to give men’s basketball broad legislative and policy-making autonomy. All college sports provide life-changing opportunities to young people, but not every college sport is the same. Men’s basketball should be structured according to what’s best for the game and its student-athletes. No longer should a policy that would benefit men’s basketball be rejected because it would not be welcomed by men’s golf.
Our autonomy proposal has been presented to the highest levels of NCAA governance, and members of the influential NCAA Transformation Committee have signaled they value our input. The Transformation Committee has also sought NABC feedback on staff composition, official visits and the recruiting calendar, among other key issues. I respect their ongoing efforts to modernize college athletics – our sport included – and I’m cautiously optimistic that the perspective of coaches is finally being heard.
Through our NABC Ad Hoc Committee on College Basketball Issues, we have begun socializing an initial concept to provide Division I men’s basketball with a high-visibility showcase opportunity during a period in the American sports calendar that lacks significant competition – the late summer months. The concept would provide new opportunities for player and coaching staff development through competition against Division I opponents during the summer. We see this as an all-around win for college basketball – players, coaches and fans alike.
Advancing coaches’ positions on policy issues is not just a Division I priority. Across Division II and Division III, our board members and congresses have been hard at work advocating for numerous legislative priorities – notably, separate proposals in DII and DIII that would align playing and practice season models with the current needs of student-athletes. And in the NAIA, we are supporting efforts to expand the legislative influence of the NAIA Men’s Basketball Executive Committee.
Advocacy is one of the NABC’s core values for a reason. Our staff and committee leaders take pride in being a voice on your collective behalf.
Another NABC core value – inclusion – also continues to shape our work. Hundreds of coaches have once again taken the Coaches Voter Engagement Pledge to support voter registration and turnout with their teams, and NABC collaborations with nonpartisan civic engagement groups like the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge and All Vote No Play are ongoing.
We remain staunch supporters of the McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative, having last month welcomed two new MLI Future Leaders – Haven France and Bryan Johnson – to our staff for 2022-23. And we watched with immense pride as NABC board member John Calipari and Elian Rodriguez from our staff represented the MLI Future Leaders program in accepting the Mannie Jackson – Basketball’s Human Spirit Award during Naismith Hall of Fame enshrinement weekend.
When I took this job in the summer 2020, I immediately set a strategic goal to modernize our professional development offerings. I hope you’ve found these upgrades to be impactful. We just completed our third-annual virtual NABC Fall Summit, and our ongoing WBCA-NABC Coaches Forum webinar series continues to tackle pressing topics. We also recently held our first in what will become a series of high school webinars in collaboration with our colleagues at the NHSBCA.
Year two of our NABC Mentor Circle program has over 200 participants from all levels of basketball. In fact, we had more coaches sign up to serve as mentors than we did mentees – a fitting testament to coaches’ passion for serving the next generation. And Coaches+ Media, our new joint initiative with the WBCA and TeamWorks Media, is on its way to becoming the go-to source for telling coaches’ inspiring stories.
Meanwhile, our NABC Championship Basketball Clinic series saw dozens of accomplished coaches speak at three regional clinics this fall. And planning is underway for the 2023 NABC Convention – the capstone of our professional development programming. If you’ve not yet registered, I hope you’ll join us in Houston!
Our community of NABC members grows best not through flashy marketing, but from word-of-mouth encouragement from fellow coaches. To that end, we have introduced a new NABC Member Referral Program that offers current members discounts on annual dues each time a new member joins based on their referral. We aim to serve every coach in the sport – from the largest Division I arenas to the smallest high school gyms.
Lastly, I want to implore you that the NABC’s advocacy work won’t succeed and our member benefits won’t evolve without your feedback. We need to hear from you, no matter if you’re a Hall of Fame veteran or a first-year volunteer. My email is always open and my phone is always on – and the same goes for our entire staff.
Thank you for truly being Guardians of the Game, and I wish you all a successful 2022-23 season.
Sincerely,
Craig Robinson
NABC Executive Director
