The ladies’s basketball program at Stony Brook has develop into one thing of a clearing home and stepping stone for coaches attempting to maneuver as much as the following degree within the sport. Starting with Beth O’Boyle’s remaining yr, the 2013-14 marketing campaign the place the Seawolves went 24-9, Stony Brook has had simply two seasons with a dropping file since and so they’ve gone to the postseason six occasions — together with the NCAA event in 2021.
In that decade-plus stretch, greater applications have come calling for the Seawolves’ coaches, providing bigger paydays. O’Boyle went to VCU, Caroline McCombs departed for George Washington, and final yr Ashley Langford took her abilities to Tulane after guiding the Seawolves to a program record-tying 28 wins.
By way of every of these modifications, Shawn Heilbron has been the athletic director at Stony Brook. And each time he’s had a gap, he’s referred to as – after which employed – one in every of Brian Stanchak’s purchasers. When Langford left final spring, he employed his third consecutive coach represented by Stanchak in former Tennessee assistant coach Pleasure McCorvey.
“Working with Brian is like working with a teammate,” Heilbron informed SB Nation. “Despite the fact that I do know that his job is to symbolize the very best pursuits of his purchasers, my expertise working with him has at all times felt like a partnership.”
Stanchak is an agent who represents ladies’s faculty basketball coaches virtually completely. The roster for his company he based — BDS Company — options 51 present Division I head coaches, eight former head coaches, 9 Division II and III head coaches, and 15 Division I assistant coaches.
When the teaching carousel in ladies’s faculty basketball will get going, Stanchak is among the individuals on the management board with the facility to make it cease or spin even quicker. Put extra merely, when any athletic director has a gap for a head ladies’s basketball coach, chances are high that they – or the search agency they’re utilizing – are going to have a dialog with Stanchak about who may fill it.
Previously calendar yr, three of Stanchak’s purchasers landed their first head teaching jobs within the Energy 4 ranks: Megan Duffy at Virginia Tech, Gavin Petersen at Utah and Kim Caldwell at Tennessee. His different purchasers embrace a variety of coaches, from Michigan State’s Robyn Fralick to North Carolina A&T’s Tarrell Robinson to Division II Ashland’s Kari Pickens to Texas assistant Elena Lovato.
“I don’t know the way different brokers function as a result of I’ve by no means labored for an additional agent. Contract negotiations and selling them, that stuff is essential. However I’m additionally a sounding board. I’m in a position to form of give individuals peace of thoughts,” Stanchak informed SB Nation. “There’s a variety of businesses that don’t prioritize ladies’s basketball. That’s a part of the explanation why I’ve stayed targeted on this area of interest.”
Stanchak’s highway to turning into an agent wasn’t a straight and straightforward one although. There have been some twists and turns alongside the best way earlier than he grew to become the person whose telephone by no means stops buzzing in March, and the one which has helped numerous coaches maximize their worth and discover their proper match within the sport.
A local of New Jersey and a graduate of Seton Corridor, Stanchak, 42, started his profession as an assistant coach in males’s and ladies’s faculty basketball with stops at Penn, Fairleigh Dickinson and his alma mater, piling up a decade’s value of expertise in teaching. Across the time he was 28, Stanchak says he felt “burnt out” by teaching and was trying to find extra of a work-life stability.
He was able to attempt one thing new, and he discovered it in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on the campus of Penn State Wilkes-Barre, the place he would develop into the athletic director of the tiny faculty in northeast Pennsylvania. He employed 4 coaches whereas he was there – together with one in ladies’s basketball – and oversaw applications that received 5 convention titles.
“Actually, I simply fell into it,” Stanchak says. “I knew nothing about being an athletic director, however I attempted to determine it out and it was nice.”
After studying that he had develop into an athletic director, Stanchak’s mates within the ladies’s basketball teaching neighborhood began asking him for favors. They wished perspective from somebody in athletic administration and requested for his assist in making ready for interviews, reviewing and negotiating their contracts, and dealing with distinctive conditions.
Following just a few of these casual consultations, one in every of Stanchak’s mates requested him level clean, “Do you need to be my agent?”
A bit stunned by the concept of turning into anybody’s agent at that time in his life, Stanchak initially stated no to his mates’ inquiries. However then they stored asking. And he gave it some actual thought and consideration. He was a former coach, now working as an athletic director, and he cared loads about ladies’s basketball and the individuals who labored within the sport.
“There’s actually nobody advocating for girls’s basketball coaches on the market, and I used to be one, and I’m invested in it, and my expertise on each side of the desk may very well be priceless,” Stanchack thought to himself. “Let’s give it a shot.”
Stanchak didn’t precisely know the place to start and he knew he couldn’t learn to develop into an agent by merely watching Jerry Maguire. He simply trusted his instincts, and used what he discovered from each his time as a coach and expertise as an athletic director. In that means, Stanchak is uniquely certified to be an agent in that he’s sat on each side of a negotiation.
“I simply discovered to be an agent by desirous about what I’d need from an agent if I used to be nonetheless teaching,” Stanchak stated.
He launched into the journey in 2013 and began BDS Company, signing just a few mates he knew from his teaching profession who wished to climb the ladder as purchasers. That first offseason, he had 5 purchasers develop into Division I head coaches, together with McCombs at Stony Brook. Stanchak’s fame unfold via phrase of mouth in teaching circles and extra potential purchasers got here calling. On the time, he was nonetheless working because the athletic director at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, however he felt like he had discovered his function, that being an agent for girls’s basketball coaches may very well be his full-time job. He resigned from Penn State Wilkes-Barre in February 2015, simply earlier than the teaching cycle began that yr. He then had 5 extra purchasers get Division I head teaching jobs, and a few of them nonetheless have these gigs at this time, like Jada Pierce at Niagra. Two years later, he helped one in every of his former gamers, Gayle Coats Fulks, get employed at Davidson.
“I haven’t appeared again since,” Stanchak says. “I’ve at all times been a greater networker than a coach. On the finish of the day, being an agent, you need to make individuals really feel comfy.”
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It’s all labored out fairly effectively for Stanchak and his purchasers. Lately, he’s helped a number of of them get some fairly excessive profile jobs. Maybe none had been extra stunning than Kim Caldwell – with only one yr of Division I teaching underneath her belt – touchdown the coveted posting at Tennessee final yr.
Caldwell, 36, spent seven seasons at her alma mater Glenville State in West Virginia, main the Pioneers to a Division II nationwide title in 2022. In 2023, she jumped to Division I by taking the reins at Marshall and coached the Herd to their first NCAA event look since 1997. And Caldwell wasn’t essentially seeking to go away Marshall, however when the Tennessee job opened, an individual working for the search agency that Tennessee athletic director Danny White used in fact requested Stanchak about her.
“Kim has been a winner at each degree she’s coached at. It’s not about Kim – it’s what’s finest for her program and her gamers. She’s the sort that simply places her head down and will get to work,” Stanchak stated. “She additionally runs an especially potent, high-powered offense. Kim having the ability to play that type, that’s simply entertaining, and that was a draw to Tennessee.”
Caldwell, to the shock of many, acquired the job that was as soon as held by the legendary Pat Summitt. She’s now tasked with restoring Tennessee to its standing as one of many sport’s signature applications. Yr One has gone effectively, because the Woman Vols are NCAA tournament-bound with the nation’s second-best scoring offense. A win over rival UConn in February felt like proof of idea that Caldwell was the proper rent.
“I believe it was interesting for (Tennessee) to go outdoors the household this time. And for those who have a look at Danny White’s observe file of hires, he’s taken some dangers. He’s form of at all times gone outdoors the field. This gave him the chance to try this on the ladies’s facet,” Stanchak stated. “For Kim, it’s a fantastic match. It’s not going to make sense for some individuals who don’t know her, however she will be able to actually thrive there.”
The second high-profile opening crammed by a Stanchak consumer final yr had a really totally different course of. There was no search agency. Stanchak dealt immediately with the athletic director whom he had beforehand by no means met earlier than.
In Kenny Brooks’ seven seasons main Virginia Tech’s ladies’s basketball crew, the Hokies reached heights within the sport that they’d by no means seen earlier than. With gamers like Elizabeth Kitley and Georgia Amoore, Brooks led Virginia Tech to an ACC Match title and a Remaining 4 look in 2023 – each of which had been firsts for this system. Final yr, the Hokies received the ACC common season title and bought out seven residence video games, averaging a program-high in attendance in Cassell Coliseum.
When Brooks left Virginia Tech for the riches of the SEC at Kentucky, athletic director Whit Babcock solid a large web in his seek for this system’s subsequent chief, looking out fastidiously for the proper rent that might maintain the momentum rolling in Blacksburg. He had by no means heard of Stanchak, however shortly grew to become acquainted with him throughout the search course of and admired his forthrightness and thoroughness.
“Brian definitely represented his consumer effectively. He was agency but truthful,” Babcock informed SB Nation. “He appeared to care deeply for his purchasers, and to seek out the very best faculty or match for them. He was very skilled and approachable – a straight shooter.”
Babcock’s search ended with him hiring one in every of Stanchak’s purchasers, Megan Duffy. A former Notre Dame participant, Duffy climbed the teaching ranks with three stops as an assistant coach, a two-season cease as the top coach of Miami Ohio, after which 5 seasons at Marquette the place she received 110 video games and made three NCAA event appearances. Whereas Brooks took a few of his prime gamers with him to Kentucky – together with Amoore and middle Clara Strack – Duffy assembled a aggressive roster and went 18-12. The Hokies now discover themselves on the bubble of the NCAA event.
“We’re thrilled with Coach Duffy and her work,” Babcock stated. “I can see why Brian has had such a excessive degree of success with purchasers and placement.”
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Stanchak is as soon as once more within the thick of his busy season. At the moment, there are openings at seven Energy 4 applications: Missouri, Auburn, Arkansas, BYU, Houston, Arizona State and Wisconsin. Chances are high {that a} Stanchak consumer shall be within the combine for many of them.
“Due to my relationships and my observe file, I’ll get a variety of calls earlier than issues begin shifting,” he says.
Lately when Stanchak talks to his purchasers, the No. 1 factor on most of their minds when discussing new jobs or inking long-term extensions at their present one is how the Home v. NCAA settlement will impression their capability to win at a excessive degree. The settlement, anticipated to cross later this yr, will pave the best way for establishments to share income immediately with gamers for the primary time ever.
Stanchak is working together with his purchasers in ladies’s basketball to determine how massive of a chunk of the income sharing pie their program is getting.
“Simply because a job is strong paying doesn’t imply it’s a fantastic job within the panorama. What issues now’s what they’re doing in NIL or in income sharing. There’s simply much more off-the-court areas which have develop into a part of the dialogue,” Stanchak says. “These conversations (across the Home settlement) are taking place every day, by way of what the quantity goes to be, how they’re going to allocate, and is that quantity going to be truthful in comparison with the convention panorama. In Yr One, everyone seems to be flying blind. There isn’t a baseline, apart from the Large Ten and SEC are going to be forward of everybody else. In Yr Two, we’ll have the ability to see a baseline.”
In Could, Stanchak’s BDS Company will as soon as once more host the Head Coach Coaching Heart, a multi-day occasion in Orlando, Florida meant to offer up-and-coming coaches with the information and expertise they should land the job they need. It’s a training convention of types, however one the place attendees received’t discover something about recruiting or drawing up baseline-out-of-bounds performs.
“It focuses completely on off-the-court skilled improvement. And so what which means is there’s nothing there by way of X’s and O’s,” Stanchak stated. “You possibly can go to YouTube and get X’s and O’s and technique, however you may’t go someplace and listen to how one can thrive throughout the interview course of, or what coaches have to do by way of having the ability to delegate and handle their workers, or the best way to handle their first 30 days on the job.”
Stanchak will host the occasion for the ninth time this yr in Orlando, Florida. Erin Batth attended it in 2018 when she was an assistant coach at N.C. State. She’s now in her second season as the top coach at Windfall.
“If you need actual solutions to what it takes to develop into a head coach, the HCTC is the place for you. I left with a lot information,” Batth stated. “I discovered loads about myself and the place I actually was at that time in my teaching profession.”
“I discovered greater than I ever thought I may in two days,” added Chandler McCabe, who attended the 2019 HCTC and is now the top coach at Robert Morris.
Till then, for the following two months, Stanchak shall be doing what he does finest: networking, constructing relationships and advocating for his purchasers in ladies’s faculty basketball. Anticipate quite a lot of of them to land greater – and higher paying – jobs because the spin pace picks up on this teaching cycle.
