DRIVEN BY THE MISSION
Driven by the Mission highlights the hidden champions of the student-athlete experience. Hosts Raymond Harrison and Jean Boyd with nearly 60 years of experience in college athletics lead conversations with academic and student-athlete development professionals and other personnel central to the holistic development of student-athletes that provide insight rarely discussed related to empowering student-athletes. In a time of reinvention in college athletics, where the lead story publicly is revenue sharing, NIL, the transfer portal and the business of the college athletic industrial complex, we seem to be losing the truth. The truth that college athletics is the most ingenious system of comprehensive development for the young adults who participate therein. Driven by the Mission focuses on the core of what the student-athlete experience is about: creating leaders and champions in life, and the professionals who are blessed to be the custodians of this commitment to holistic development.
DRIVEN BY THE MISSION
Mission: Annoying Uncle
Episode 8 - Mission: Annoying Uncle
Courtney “Skip” Skipper has spent 19 years at Arizona State quietly changing lives—first as a GA who “just wanted to do development,” now as Assistant AD for Academic Services. In this episode, Skip, Jean, and Raymond unpack the power of language (“we’re products of expectations, not environments”), why authenticity beats authority with today’s athletes, and how a coach’s-kid childhood across three states became the perfect training ground to connect with anyone in the room. Skip breaks down the NIL/portal era’s new reality—transactional relationships, early money, and shrinking hunger—and shares how he stays effective by playing the “annoying uncle”: present, honest, relentlessly consistent.