032: The NIL Era – How College Athletes Are Monetizing and Redefining the Game

NIL is transforming college sports—driving brand deals, viral TikTok fame, and a new era of athlete empowerment. But beyond the million-dollar headlines, what does Name, Image, and Likeness really mean for everyday student-athletes? We sit down with Keri Becker, Athletic Director at Grand Valley State University, to unpack the biggest misconceptions about NIL, the boldest ways athletes are cashing in, and how schools walk the fine line of supporting players while staying within the rules. From juggling academics with brand-building to the future of NIL in college athletics, this episode dives into how NIL is reshaping the college experience—and rewriting the playbook for what comes next.

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Chapters

• 00:00 - NIL: Not Just a Buzzword
• 10:15 - Keri's Trophy Room Tour
• 20:30 - Mascot Dreams and Gear Galore
• 30:45 - The Secret Sauce of Winning
• 40:00 - From Intern to Influencer
• 50:15 - College Sports: The Pro Debate

Transcript

Speaker 3 (00:00.854)
I'm pretty sure in the last five minutes, I've learned 10x more about NIL than I did five minutes ago. This is so.

That's good because I learned so much. I've been in sports 30 years. Your guys' podcast. I learned something every single time. I'm like, I did not know that. So I'm glad I can return the favor.

Great!

Speaker 2 (00:22.936)
Have you ever wondered why people get so hyped about their favorite sports teams? Well, it turns out it's not just about the game. It's about the community. My name is Teryn.

And I'm Ambre. Welcome to Almost Fans, the sports podcast that's fun, a little bit educational, and will give you plenty to say when you're trying to keep up with those diehard sports fans in your life.

Speaker 2 (00:49.102)
All right, today's guest is someone I am especially excited to welcome, Carrie Becker, the powerhouse athletic director at Grand Valley State University, my alma mater, and buckle up for this intro. Okay, everybody, are you ready? Carrie has been leading Grand Valley State University athletics since 2016 and has become a trailblazer far beyond the campus. She was appointed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to the Michigan task force.

on women in sports. She's a current member of the NCAA division two membership committee. She serves as chair of the GLIAC management council. She sits on the board of directors for women leaders in college sports. In 2022, she was honored with the Michigan ACE distinguished women in higher education leadership award. And most recently GVSU athletics received the NCAA MOAA. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right.

Award for diversity and inclusion. And trust me, you guys, this is just the tip of the iceberg under Carrie's leadership. Grand Valley has continued its dominance in the division two level, winning its 30th GLIAC president's cup title as the league's top all sports program and winning the Learfield director's cup for the 16th time. These are phenomenal accomplishments, but on a very personal note, I had the chance to intern with Carrie back in, I think it was 2014.

when she was the associate athletic director at Grand Valley. She was an incredible mentor. She gave me lots of hands-on experience and let me work right alongside her on huge projects like the NCAA track and field national championship, which we crushed. And I learned so much then, and I continue to be inspired by the way she leads today. So Carrie, welcome. We're so happy to have you. And with all of that said, are you enjoying this journey as athletic director?

I cannot imagine doing anything different. Like I said, I've said in many rooms, and I remind my staff, we get to do this stuff and this is super fun. We just celebrated our 30th national championship with our women's basketball team, winning a national championship a couple of weeks ago. It was an epic evening in there. We've had some championships in cross country and track and swimming, individuals, which are awesome as well. But when a team wins, there's just...

Speaker 1 (03:11.432)
There's so many things that go into it and all those accolades that you gave, it's embarrassing and I'm humble, but it's all about the people around me. So, including my interns. You're an amazing intern, championship intern for sure.

Thank you, you're so kind.

The folks listening today can't see this, but I mean, it's hard to look at the video of Carrie and not be blinded by all of the trophies that are on the shelves in her office behind her. It is quite impressive.

Thank you. It's humbling.

Absolutely. So we're going to start today and talk about some stuff that I think people are really interested in. And it's a buzzword, NIL. So will you give a super fast definition of what this is and how, what's it like actually navigating NIL at the division two level at least?

Speaker 1 (03:59.246)
Sure. Yeah, I think it's a super fast. Boy, that's a challenge right off the bat. image, likeness, right? Name, image, likeness. It gets put in a bucket with pay for play. It gets put in the pocket with revenue. But when a name, image, likeness legislation was passed from the NCAA, I know, like four years ago now, maybe five, it was far overdue. It's the ability for student athletes to use their name, their image and likeness to earn compensation for the work they can do.

So think of a trumpet player that comes on Grand Valley's campus and they're really good at playing the trumpet. They can go downtown, play the trumpet, get paid for something they're really good at. Student athletes could not do that. So what that allowed them to do in the true purpose of it is for them to benefit off of their own skills, abilities, and name image likeness. They can now run their own camps and clinics. So our quarterback can go run the Tarrin Malmstadt.

quarterback camp and make money off it. And that's how they're doing it. And they should. pitchers can give pitching lessons and make money from that. There was a lot of regulation around that that limited. So that was the main purpose, not just camps and clinics. if, had a, Teryn, you got a great smile. So if you were a student athlete here and the local dentist said, man, I want to put you on the billboard for the Becker family dentistry, student athlete couldn't do that. But now great smile, go up on that billboard. They can get paid for their image likeness for that.

So that's the easiest way and most brief way to explain it.

You mentioned this was a long overdue legal ruling. Why did it take so long?

Speaker 1 (05:32.3)
I think it was just holding on to the amateurs and then holding on to what they knew happened after it became legislated. Is the NIL now, there's this fair market. So paying the quarterback for his great smile on the billboard, a thousand bucks became a hundred thousand dollars or make it an appearance. So what you have seen happen with name image likeness and the idea that they're signing contracts.

with these companies or these donors that own the car dealership for an appearance that they're for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. That's what they were afraid of. And that's what's happened. Right. It's not the NCAA's fault. Everybody wants to villainize the NCAA, but it's it's it was really a lot of the state state laws started to become passed. And so that put it in conflict. So they had to do it. And unfortunately, now it's grown into the collectives, you know, the free market and

and what you see on TV is dominating it. But you ask about what we do at the Division II level. I think at Division II and a lot of the mid-major Division I's, a lot of student athletes have used this as an opportunity to do it for what it was intended to do and make it a small part-time job. If they have great social media following, to capitalize on that, get free stuff. Like I said, some of our student athletes are doing camps and clinics now.

or they're getting free smoothies because they'll do some social media, but that's real money to them, right? So that is, they're using at the division two level, there's not these huge numbers going up for that, but they are making a little bit of money. They could go make a couple grand on one day doing a camp or over the course of a couple months, a couple grand on doing social media posts and really hustling and if they have the right demographic and following that that particular company or organization or business is looking for.

You kind of hit on this a little bit, what are some challenges or just misconceptions around NIL that you wish more people would understand? Is there other things?

Speaker 1 (07:29.26)
Yeah, they put it in the same bucket of what you're seeing on TV where, or in the media, I shouldn't say just on TV, where these student athletes, they're recruiting inducements that are coming from collectives and things like that. And that's what it's, it's really, they're like, it's pay for play. Well, they do have to do something to earn that money. And again, it's supposed to be legitimate, what they call quid. I give you money, you do something. It's like,

it's compensation for their time to do something, whether it's an appearance, social media, et cetera. And so, but most people say it's pay for play. No, it's truly an NIL. it what you, know, look under it what you want, but people are making the leap to pay for play because what's happening with the house settlement, that, when and if I assume it's going to get approved, the judge is looking at it as we speak to approve it, there will be the opportunity for division one institutions to

share revenue and that's the pay that's more the pay for play and allow NIL to still happen between the institution and the student athlete. Right now the institution can't sign a deal with a student athlete to be on their schedule poster but now division on institutions can do NIL activity with the student athletes and they can give them money revenue sharing.

to do those things and they can go earn more NIL with outside companies with that car dealership, the dentistry. So everybody takes NIL and puts it into one bucket and really it's very, there is some differences there.

Speaker 2 (09:07.608)
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Speaking of the shades of gray you alluded to, will you talk about collectives? This blows my mind where that could go. Will you just kind give a quick definition and your take on it?

Yeah, and a collective is it is a collection of individuals that invest money in and create an LLC or corporation. There can be a lot of mechanisms to do that. But basically at the big levels, all these donors got in a room and said, Hey, let's figure out how we can funnel the money directly to the student athletes. So they formed what was called a collective and it's just, could be called the Crimson, I shouldn't use words, but it could be called the Crimson, Crimson go red collective.

and people invest in it, and then they will hold dinners or appearances and they'll pay the student athletes for their appearance at their events. So the collective is just a group of people where it's different than the car dealership, right? They can both do NIL activities with student athletes, but it's more just a collection of people. Some set them up initially as nonprofits that you've seen a lot in the news about the IRS is saying, yeah, they're not really donating to an actual organization.

Speaker 1 (10:58.146)
but they set them up as nonprofits so they were tax deductible donations. I always say a collective is truly people that want to make an investment in a company, almost like an LLC. And then they utilize that money to pay student athletes to do what they want the collective to do. Sometimes there's connections between local agencies and local charities. So it's a little bit, it can flex a little bit depending on the purpose that the collective is set up to do. But ultimately it's set up to

funnel money to your student athletes.

I'm pretty sure in the last five minutes, I've learned 10x more about NIL than I did five minutes ago.

Well that's good because I learned so much. I've been in sports 30 years. Your guys' podcast, I learned something every single time. I'm like, I did not know that. So I'm glad I can return the favor.

Yeah. undoubtedly. But let's take it down into the GVSU level. What have you seen your student athletes doing? How are they getting creative with the, and I mean, are they putting their teeth on a billboard? Are they hanging out with the dealers? know, like what kind of stuff are they doing?

Speaker 1 (12:06.434)
I'd say when I think, know, cause they have to report it. The camps and clinics, they're getting the, of our golfers are getting free golf clubs for social media posts. What are some of other ones doing there? We have some of our national champion track athletes that have signed contracts, I believe with Mondo, which is a track company. And so they're getting some for utilizing again, their name image likeness promote, to promote their product.

So it is more traditional. wouldn't say there's any of these cutting edge, but they're just have the ability now to do that. We had a basketball player a few years ago that he made his own smoothies and we had to be, and he was trying to sell them. And so that's a little bit different, but until the NIL legislation came out, he couldn't really do that and earn money from selling his smoothies as a Grand Valley basketball player. Now he can. So it runs the gamut.

I really, you know, I think of how creative and intuitive and entrepreneurial some of these student athletes are.

Awesome. So you mentioned this a little bit that schools can't, as of how it's laid out right now, pay athletes with NAL. But how does Grand Valley support athletes, know, the ones that aren't making very much money and are working really hard? How do you support those athletes while staying in bounds with what you can do?

That's a great question. I think that's where most of the focus of a lot of them in majors and those that don't have a lot of the big collectives and big donors and those at the division two and division three is I think there's something our student athletes can gain here by giving them the tools and skills where they can capitalize on name image likeness, how to build a personal brand, financial literacy, learning about contracts, doing things like that. We have some workshops where we do the nuts and bolts of this is what it is. No.

Speaker 1 (14:00.418)
The big myth with a lot of the student athletes initially is, hey, where's my, hey, institution A, where's my NIL opportunity? At division two, which is, well, in division three, any done division one after house, we can't provide those opportunities. We can, if someone says, hey, I want, you know, I'm looking for this type of person, we can connect them through our platform, but we can't get involved in terms of providing those NIL opportunities.

by the legislation. So, but what we can do is give them the tools necessary where they can go out and secure them. And then we can help guide them along the way. Cause we have a reporting function where they have to report it they have to report the contract and what they're doing. We make sure that they're navigating this and try to not save them from ourselves. Cause we can't give them legal advice, but we do try to stay in the know and to support them in that way.

Speaker 3 (14:56.536)
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Speaker 3 (15:29.262)
When we have done with you, I by no means felt like you were going to trash NIL. But your positive tone, the extent to which you have a positive tone is surprising to me. Will you just maybe hop off of what you just said and talk more about what skills you see these athletes gaining as a result of these NIL opportunities, like running their own camps. You mentioned contractors. They're a student.

athlete. What are they learning from all these changes?

Well, think of running the own camp. The idea of the whole run, that's a business in and of itself. To me, that's a great opportunity. You have to manage registration, the collection of money, the, then you got to actually not just show up and shoot. You have to actually, supervise kids and provide a meaningful experience. So you're doing, you're creating a whole program, program development. Then at the end of it, you're cultivating and the follow-up, right? Waivers, understanding insurance and risk and.

covered liability. And then at the end of it, understand you gotta pay taxes, right? And so it gets them a skillset that a lot of them, they don't really recognize until they get that first W-2 in tax sharing, like, what do I do with this? So I think those are the things they can gain. Again, and it's also using social media to build their own personal brand. Instead of it's just a swipe, a mindless swipe and getting grained.

They can use social media, not just that's a brain suck, what I call the brain suck of social media, to actually build their brand for the professional job that they're going to have at the end of this. I was just talking to a student athlete. I'm like, what's your LinkedIn profile look like? Well, I have one. How much time do you spend on Instagram or Twitter? Well, you should be spending your senior, you're getting ready to graduate. Your new social media should be LinkedIn. so getting them to...

Speaker 1 (17:29.666)
to look at that, that's going to set them up. But also when it comes to NIL activities, the ones that do that, that's where they're going to have more following, more influence, and really be desirable to those businesses that may say, wow, I really like the following you have. And more businesses are spending money on targeted demographics. So when they look at the demographic of a particular student athlete that has LinkedIn, that has Instagram and Twitter, they don't have to have Taylor Swift following.

to have value for a business. And that's the big thing that a lot of them had aha moments is it doesn't, don't have to be a division one quarterback with the following to have value. Matter of fact, businesses, especially local businesses, they want people that are here, not across the country. So it, and that was eyeopening for a lot of them. And that's when they started to almost take this on as a full-time job to develop their own brand.

and become desirable and marketable, if you will, for these opportunities. and by the way, it helps them for when they graduate and they have this professional appearance.

Yeah, when we had talked a little while back and this just popped into my head and I was wondering, have you seen a shift in, because Division Two is so different than Division One, right? Like, are you losing recruits? Are you gaining recruits because of this? Is this affecting, like recruiting at the Division Two level?

We were talking a lot about NIL, but the perfect storm that was created was also when the transfer portal met up. It was all at the same time. So when you have the opening of the ability for student athletes to transfer freely without playing, coupled with NIL, where now you have, it wasn't supposed to be recruiting inducements, but I'm going to call it that. were being, they're getting recruited and signing these NIL deals that created the perfect storm where it was like, wow.

Speaker 1 (19:21.74)
What that did to me, think it created an opportunity for two and three because division one started shopping in the recruiting store in the transfer portal before they were going to the high schools. So I think it opened up the ability for us to get a higher quality high school athlete that they used to be recruiting. It's still challenging because we have experienced some of our best players getting picked off, if you will, to go and gain lured to the division one level.

Whether they do it themselves, they put them in there because they're in search of their paycheck, their opportunity, or they get lured away because there's some NIL money for them to gain. The good news at Grand Valley, haven't lost a ton. We've lost a few, but we've had enough where they've had success and gone and got some nice money that's life-changing for some of these kids. We were like, go, you got to take it. You got to take it. But then we've had some that'll go and they're not in the field. Their dreams get crushed.

for that next level so that it's good over time that you see not only successes to go to the next level, but also, I don't wanna call them the failures, but maybe it's not getting the return on investment. They would have been better off staying here, being on the field and have an opportunity at that next level. And I'm talking football to make it to that next level. So I think kids are more discerning. But if you were to look at the transfer portal, when it opens up, they flood into it, a lot will come back out of it.

when they realize there's not the opportunity out there. So it can be challenging, but I think it has opened up a higher level recruit for us. And then we're in the transfer portal as well. We'll get some kids that maybe we would have gotten, but they wanted to pursue their Division I dream. So we'll get some kids too. The real thing to watch is if the house settlement gets passed and people opt in and it's roster limits.

That means rosters are going to shrink in some sports and that'll open up some kids that will come our way too. But it also could take some kids that maybe we were getting because now the roster limits, everybody gets a full ride. Soccer is a perfect example. Their roster limit is 29. They used to Division 1 would carry 35, 36. 29 through 36 could probably be a quality Division 2 or Division 3 student athlete, right? But number 29 now is getting a full ride instead of coming to Grand Valley. So they might do that. So that's a wait and see.

Speaker 1 (21:41.644)
Stay tuned for that.

Yeah, no kidding.

Speaking of staying tuned, we're gonna plan a transfer portal episode and have you back to dive more into that, because that sounds really fascinating. But let's go back to the lots of trophies and the, think, 30 championships that you mentioned initially. So GVSU is basically winning all of the time or very, very often we'll say. I know you're so humble, but how do you keep things fresh when excellence is like basically the baseline?

You know, I could ask that a lot. You know, they want to know our secret sauce and I'm not going to give it to them. But the secret sauce is the secret. Yeah, I know. Right. Our coaches want the secret and special. So our coaches are competitive at their core and they're driven year in, year out. Right. And it's not because there's an expectation. I don't place expectations that you must win.

For a reason.

Speaker 1 (22:41.794)
but they have a standard that comes from intrinsic motivation and this drive to absolutely not only wanna be their best, but always explore what they're capable of, which I think is that next level. think we all have this, I'm reading a book, Beyond High Performance, and they talk about we're a dot in the middle of a circle. In the circle is what's possible. And some of that can be a little bit a stretch, but nobody, sometimes we always say, well, that's impossible. And we put it outside the fence. It's called the intuitive fence to what's possible.

We put what's impossible outside the fence. I think what's key is you stretch that fence and you make what's impossible possible. And so you really ask yourself, so what are we capable of? So it's always wanting to stretch and always, and then recruiting quality student athletes, they have that same drive to be at the absolute top of their game and want to be pushed and want to be part of that culture that has that drive.

The president hosted the national champions at a dinner. When you win a national championship, you get this cool dinner with the president. But she expanded this year to our all Americans and individual national champions. We had 104 people get invited. That's a lot of people that are, that are excelling at the highest level. And they might not win a national champion, but to be an all American in a particular sports swimming track are the big ones. It's really hard. And so to celebrate them and celebrate those kids that want to have the grit, want to put in the time, make the sacrifices.

That's a testament to when you say keep it fresh, it's a constant trying to find those recruits that fit that mold and have that fit for what they want to get out of their athletic career. And then what we're trying to do and ultimately you play the game to win, play the game to win. Yeah, it's not all about winning. There's so much more than that, but this is a game we get to do and we play it to win. there, mean, Teryn, you don't play a game.

I don't play anything to lose. I don't do anything to lose.

Speaker 1 (24:31.566)
It's not for fun, right? Winning's fun. Winning's fun, right? So, but yeah, so I think when you say, do they do to keep it fresh? I just think it's a constant, they have constant inner drive that is they're always, I think a great coach and a great professional are constantly always willing to evolve. Cause guess what? The only thing that remains the same is these kids are 18 to 23 year olds.

Not fun.

Speaker 1 (24:59.79)
They are always 18 to 23. We're the ones that change and get older. And so you have to be willing to evolve and shift to what your student athletes need from you. It's not so much about who I am as a coach or a leader, even as staff and professional staff. It's what they need in order to, for me to get the best and create an environment where they want to be their best and explore not just how to be the best, but what they're capable of.

Speaking of the best, I just had like a total flashback to, well not flashback, but just made me think that I was wondering about Matt Judon. He's my favorite GVSU former athlete who, you know, I'm a Patriots fan. I love Tom Brady and the Patriots. I know and should never have gotten rid of Matt Judon either because that broke my heart when they got rid of him. He's like the best linebacker. Always knew which one was him. He always wore red sleeves.

got rid of them.

Speaker 2 (25:52.248)
So could find him out on the field really easily. Does he ever come back and do any like camps or things with you all?

He hasn't done any camps, but he's come back. Like this weekend is our spring football game and they do a fundraiser. He's come back the last two years. I haven't heard if he's coming back this year, but yes, he does. He stays connected. He's a great brand ambassador. Cause if you've seen him on TV, he'll wear the GV gear. And you want to talk about building a brand, the red sleeves. Wow. Genius, right? Super genius. then obviously he's a great testament. And we have him talk to the guys.

about what it means that you can get to where you want to go. You can chase that dream from Grand Valley. And I think that's always super helpful, especially for our football team and anybody that is thinking about leaving, thinking they can get it from another place. You can do it from here.

Yeah, ugh, I love him.

Speaker 2 (26:43.118)
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So Carrie, you made history as the first woman AD at GVSU. What is one moment during your time in that role that maybe stands out as memorable, meaningful?

I think the moment I was named in 2016, I looked out into the room at the back of the room. I saw a person standing there, Dr. Dana Monk. She is a faculty, she's still a faculty member here at Grand Valley, but she was the assistant basketball coach at Saginaw Valley when I was a student. And I was in my fifth and a half year. was, I was getting ready, long story on my journey. I wanted to be a copper firefighter.

That didn't work out. Thank goodness. But she had left Saginaw, became the basketball coach at rival institution, Ferris State University. The head softball coach position came open there. She talked me into putting my resume in. I'm like, I never thought sports was a career path and sport management wasn't a thing. She talked me into it. I'm like, well, you know, there was no guarantees. I was halfway through the process to be a state police officer. I was a finalist to be a firefighter, but still didn't have a J.O.B. Talked me into it. Long story short.

Speaker 1 (28:33.91)
A week later, they offered me the job and I thought, she saw something in me that I didn't know was possible because I was a student assistant. And I took the job and I thought, well, I can go do this three to five years and then always go be a cop. seems like it'll be fun. I'm pretty good at it, playing softball, wearing shorts and t-shirts to work every day. I'm in. Fast forward though, had she not done that, I would not be sitting in this seat. And so that moment...

I'm almost getting a little emotional. When I was named, I looked back and I thought, it's because of you that I'm here. And so when I think about my responsibility, I stood on her shoulders, she hit me up on them, the people at the shoulders I've stood on and honoring them, I need to give in a certain way that I can continue that and keep women. And even, I wanna bring as many people into sports and athletics, because too many people are leaving, but women in general, specifically.

Dedicated that was that moment also that I knew it wasn't just about me making history, but making history become the norm when they're no longer talk about how special it is then we've arrived. So that I think that was the biggest moment. I think that hit me that well, there's a big responsibility here, not just in the job, but just in what this means for women continuing to be in sports.

For the record, I think you would have been a stellar police officer. For sure. I would not speed knowing you were in my county.

Thank

Speaker 2 (29:56.076)
She would have.

Speaker 1 (30:04.27)
I would let you off the ticket.

thanks. Thanks, Carrie.

I'm not gonna be a cop.

I've gotten so many tickets. finally got my first ticket in a long time. I was on my phone and I said to the cop, I'm like, yeah, I deserve that one. He laughed. He nobody says that to me. They're usually mad. like, no, I deserve that one.

Yeah. You caught me. But also another thought I had when you were answering that question, is it safe to say, Teryn, that you got into sports and continued to pursue sports as a career because of Carrie? I mean, are you somebody who's standing on her shoulder?

Speaker 2 (30:42.598)
100%. I mean, there was, I had no business doing some of the things that Carrie let me do while I was working for her.

So.

Yeah, we would, I tell this all the time and people think it's like not that funny, but to us it was hilarious. So she was the associate athletic director. We would go into meetings and things and she'd be like, hi, I'm Carrie. And the associate athletic director, do all the things that Tim, the athletic director at the time, I do all the things he doesn't want to do. And then she'd look at me and I'd go, hi, I'm Teryn. I'm the intern. I do all the things Carrie doesn't want to do.

And so, mean, yeah, and she just like, and she not only did she let me like manage like a group of people in like a massive tournament and like get things set up and do a bunch of stuff with that. She just like shared so much with me about, you know, what she was investigating. And we talked a lot about Title IX. I know what I know about Title IX because of Carrie. Like I truly saw like how you can be a woman in sports, but not like

an overbearing woman, not someone who's like overly proud of herself, overly like, you know, any of these things. She's so humble and so easy to work with. Everybody loves Carrie. There's not a human being out there that doesn't love Carrie. when I saw that she was named athletic director, I was like, finally, not finally, but like, finally we get something right in the world, right? Cause that was.

Speaker 2 (32:11.456)
like well well deserved not that you know there were other great people and that Tim wasn't a great athletic director as well he was but yeah i mean it was just so well deserved so yes thank you for letting me share that

That's the other thing is when you think about your tree, as your tree starts to go and you see where people end up and you're like, wow, you know, it's like, okay, that's cool. And what it does is it motivates you because you know the impact that maybe just maybe you can have a little bit of impact on their success or being a resource for them. So now that I've been doing this for so long, you know, I have someone I hired as the associate AD to replace me, she's now an AD. And it's like, wow, cool.

Maybe that her experience here helped her prepare later. And so there's a sense of responsibility. I want my tree roots to be out there. And so that's the investment in all of our staff, but certainly women.

Yeah, you really do that very, very well. You take the time and put in the effort to make sure everybody feels welcomed and they're learning a lot from you. So thank you for that. Okay, I'm gonna go to a fun question, which is what is the most glam part about your job? And then also what is the like, what nobody told me? Nobody told me I was gonna be doing this part of the job.

Well, I've been in athletics a long time, so there wasn't anything I wasn't prepared or hadn't done. I'm not above setting up tables and chairs. I remember the teardown for the championships. We stayed up to one or two in the morning and we just rocked it out. I wouldn't say I'm surprised, but I have to do that. That part, it's just a little bit harder because there's nothing new that's come across my desk that I haven't seen before. The glam, I love all the gear.

Speaker 2 (33:58.314)
yeah, the gear. You bought me this sweatshirt when I worked for you.

Yeah.

Be the gear- I noticed!

Speaker 1 (34:05.932)
Awesome, and you still got it! Awesome! I need to send you guys updated gear. I'll do that.

I it.

Please do. We will take it. We are size small, medium, whichever you have.

But you know, the glam is also like, I reflect back on a national championship women's basketball just won. The glam is being a part of that and sitting back and you'll notice I'm not in any national championship pictures. I don't get in pictures because this is their moment and I want to observe that moment. Right? That's not my moment. That's theirs, but I want to take it all in and just seeing them. And we took a picture of all the people that came in the bus and the band and the cheer. That's their moment. So the glamorous part is riding the shirt tails.

of these successful coaches. So I think it's that specific to Grand Valley in terms of getting to do that and the support we get from administration and the ability to do that. that's glamorous to me in that you can do all this work, put in all this time that everybody does everywhere. The return on investment happens and you can experience that.

Speaker 2 (35:09.454)
So you've never had to jump into Louie the Laker costume and done that.

I've always wanted to, but no.

You and Ambre both.

totally want to be a mascot. I don't want to smell it on the inside, but I totally want to be a mascot. Just act like an idiot. Nobody knows.

I it. I know it. That is my goal before I retire is to get in that mascot outfit. Cool. I'll let you know if that happens.

Speaker 2 (35:34.734)
Please.

Don't tell us before. No.

No. Secret. You guys will be the only ones that know because I can see them all. Louis head falls off and I traumatize every kid.

He's got a big head. Ambre, he looks like Popeye, basically.

Okay. I'll Google him after we log out here.

Speaker 1 (35:56.11)
We got asked to maybe bring a Louise. Oh, a female mascot, yeah.

That would be cool. Louie and Louise. I love it.

I never know.

never know where the future is headed of looking ahead and future. We just want to close down with a couple last NIL questions for you kind of looking at what's coming next. And the first one is some people say NIL is turning college sports into the pros. What's your take? As this moves forward, is there still room for the college experience side of being a student athlete?

This

Speaker 1 (36:37.134)
I'm an optimist and I'm gonna say a strong yes. I do believe so because I think.

There is the professionalization of college sports at the highest level, the power four. Five used to be five, now it's four, four, 4.2, right? Pack two or whatever is. Right, so it's called power four. They've always had separation. So it's just the same separation, right? I do think there's some downside. if my gut, my crystal ball says that you're going to see very few Cinderella teams,

you

Speaker 1 (37:13.07)
You guys talked about them, St. Peter's, UMBC, University of Maryland, Butler, remember the Butler story? I think you're going to see less of them because you can buy players. think that's real. They're reloading their rosters. You're seeing it right now. But I still think that doesn't diminish the maybe, just maybe that it'll flatten out a little bit. It'll calm down. It'll calm down a little bit, but you have to recognize there's always been separation with Power Fort and everybody else.

there's still going to be a great product in the rest of division one. And there's always been a great product in vision two and division three that will remain. And I think there's an opportunity for division two to separate itself and still have a great product, get lead athletes and, and, and, and have a great product. So there's always going to be a place for people to play. That's not going to go away. And so the amateurism that they think is going away will still exist in probably 95 % of NCAA sports. People forget that.

What you see on TV only represents 3 % of what the NCAA has to offer. So there's still a great opportunity for that. Will there be more opportunities for student athletes? And, you know, a lot remains to be seen with, you know, how it will work itself out in the next two or three, maybe four years. Will there be donor fatigue? Because all this money coming in is ridiculous. Will the donors stay? So my sense is there's going to be some donor fatigue. We may not have as much as what you're seeing.

It's my gut, I could be wrong. Two, think it'll calm down in the mid-majors. People are gonna figure out how much extra they have to pay student athletes anyway. I think there will be a new structure. I don't think division one will look like it looks right now. Maybe even the NCAA may not look like it looks right now. That will be more in alignment with how they're operating. And so I think right now it's in conflict and that's what confuses people. They think, it's gonna ruin it. No, not necessarily, change is good.

It happens all the time when you look back in the history of even when the meteorites changed and got into the school's hands from the NCAA, that was a big uproar. it was going to lead to the end of college sports. And here we are. I think, I think it's, I still think NIL is a good thing at its core. And, you know, I have, I'm an optimist and I just believe that change is always good and we'll figure it out. There's some mistakes being made. We'll figure it out and we'll pivot and do something different.

Speaker 2 (39:39.638)
I love that you are so optimistic about that because I don't think everybody is. I think people are like, but change happens slowly. And so you just don't notice it usually as quickly.

pendulum swings way over and it's swung way over and it'll come back. Yeah. Come back to where it's supposed to be. Yeah. It'll swing again. Yeah.

Yeah, There'll be something new. AI will step in and do something.

No officials, just AI. Nope. Just AI. Or call your own, what the heck?

Specials.

Speaker 2 (40:09.598)
Yeah, call your own fouls. Sure.

You get so mad at officials anyway. Good luck, do it yourself.

Seriously, I, you know, you know how we feel about that. We get we get on people for hating on officials here.

I think about it after that episode. I think about it a little bit

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Well, Carrie, this has been so fun for me, especially, and Ambre too, but a certain delight for myself to be able to see you live and to hear from you. And you're still as wise as I remember, probably even a little bit more, still as beautiful as ever. So thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1 (40:49.094)
Aw, appreciate you. Appreciate you. Nice to meet you, Ambre. And it's been, it's been a pleasure to do this and fun. I love your podcast. I listen to it every Monday.

You're going have to get us connected with some more of your contacts there too.

list one. Perfect. me thinking about who can be next and she got game series. Love that. I got a lot of list of there's all kinds of women. got a game.

Send them over to me. Send them over. We'll chat. All right. Well, thank you again. I know you've got a busy day because you are a busy, busy lady. So thank you again and talk soon.

Speaker 3 (41:26.638)
That's it for today's episode and wow, what a conversation. Huge thanks to our guest for sharing her story and giving us a real look at life behind the scenes in college sports. If Carrie's story moved you like it did us, share this episode in your Instagram story and tag us at AlmostFansPodcast. It's free, it takes two seconds, and honestly, it means the world to us. Until next time, stay curious and stay sporty and we'll catch you next week.