 Okay, good morning. Let me properly introduce myself. My name is Corey Glasper and I'm in following a new state ambassador for some 4-H, well 4-H general. I'm a sophomore in high school and I chose you because I know I have a lot of sports and I would like to kind of ask you about your job and stuff and properly interview you. That would be great, Corey. Thank you. So why did you choose this profession? Yeah, so I'm an athletics director, right? The athletics director at Auburn University. And I chose the profession because I can help people like you. I can help our student athletes grow and help develop them to be contributing members to their respective societies. Okay, so how long have you been doing this job as an athletic director at Auburn? Yep, I've been an athletic director at Auburn for about two and a half years, just over two and a half years. Prior to that, I was the athletic director at a school in New York, the university at Buffalo. And prior to that, I was back down south at the University of Mississippi where I was a fundraiser. So I asked people for money is the simple way to put it. And before that, I was at the University of Notre Dame as a fundraiser as well. And I did compliance, which is making sure that people were educated about the rules and making sure that people were following the rules. Oh, okay. So how did you overcome certain obstacles during your time in this job? Well, I will say there's obstacles every day in my job. And there's challenges and what we call fires. There's fires every day. Someone always has an issue. We have 550 student athletes and we have nearly 300 employees, which includes our coaches and administrative staff. So someone has an issue every single day. And we have a staff and a structure that tries to prevent issues from getting to my desk. But there are issues that rise to that occasion where I need to get involved. I think the important thing to realize is you're not alone. There are people who can help you learn more about a situation or help you make decisions on the situation. The ultimate decision is mine and my responsibility as the leader. But as a leader, it's also my responsibility and my obligation to get input from others, to get feedback from others, to ask people questions about how they would handle a situation. And then ultimately try to make a decision that's in the best interest of our athletics department. So was this necessarily your dream job or did you have something else in hand besides this job? That's a great question, Corey. My dream job, if you will, was to be a Major League Baseball player. Oh. Yeah, so like you as a budding basketball player, I had dreams to play professionally. And I worked really hard when I was in high school. I worked really hard when I was in college. I got a chance to play professional baseball, minor league baseball. That lasted for three years until I guess I got fired. That was the first job I got fired from. But what it did is it helped me find this path. And so no, being an athletics director, even in working in college athletics was not something that I had on my radar until I was about 20, about 22 years old, maybe 23. So I was, I was a late bloomer. So what is the best thing about your job? Like, I know you told me you need to help people. What could, what would you say is the best thing about your job? The absolute best thing about my job is interacting with our student athletes. That is hands down the best. I tell people, I'll deal with 264 days of problems on my desk to have that one day where you can see a positive impact on a young person's life. Coming up and looking at colleges, what is the best advice that you would give to youth interested in your job? Study and get good grades. I'm serious. Pay attention to your academics. You know, sport only lasts but for so long. Even, even the best athletes may not be able to achieve the high standard that they set for themselves applying professionally or even playing in college. And your education is something that no one can take away from you. And I know it may be hard at times to focus on a particular class, particularly when a subject is not adventurous to you. It's easier to focus on classes that you enjoy. But your education is something that is a foundation that can help build to help you in college and then help you afterward. Let me, let me tell you a story that, that I remember that still sticks with me to this day, Corey. It was my sophomore or junior year in high school. So I was, I was about your age. And I had to do a presentation on, I think it was OPEC and I have, I can't remember the acronym now, but it was about oil in the Middle East and some governmental policies. And I spent, you know, all week writing down on note cards without exactly what I was going to say. And so I had it all scripted out. Well, I forgot to put page numbers on my note cards. And so right before my presentation, my note cards got all mixed up and I had a very poor presentation. And ever since then, I realized, I can't use no, well, of course I can, but I'm better if I actually know the information can recite it and present on it with my own personal inflections. And so I use that to this day, I use that experience of a very bad presentation to help guide me through my job right now where I have to speak to a lot of different people. And I have to know what are the messages that I want to share. The tone of delivery that I'm going to give is need to be lighthearted, funny, serious. How much detail do I need to provide all those things I've been able to improve on because of that experience I had when I was about your age in high school. Nice. So I know what your job you have to do a lot of sacrificing with your job. What is the biggest sacrifice that you had to take during this job? Time with my wife and my kids. I have a sophomore, your age I have a sophomore in high school. I have an eighth grader. And I have a third grader. And I've been married for 15, 16 years. And I don't get a chance to see my family a lot. I'm at work all day. When I get home, I see the kids, I try to get home for dinner, and I work some more. My phone is always ringing. Someone's always texting me or emailing me or someone always wants a piece of my time. Even this morning I went to exercise, not frequently but I do from time to time. And I have my headphones on. I'm in a space. I'm trying to work out and try to stay healthy. And someone wants to talk to me about football season. And so I'm always giving up a piece of myself so that others can have a piece of me. And more often than not, it's the Auburn family who gets more of my time and energy and mental capacity than my wife and my kids. So that is a sacrifice that my wife understands and that my kids understand. And it's part of our lifestyle. So I bet you told me that you're pretty busy on a daily. So what is your day kind of like in your job? So I have my phone right here. Let me pull up. Yesterday was a busy day. So let me tell you what happened on Tuesday. We had a head coaches meeting at eight. It was a Zoom. We had a department wide mandatory compliance meeting to learn about rules education. That was at nine o'clock. I then had an SEC athletic directors meeting at 1030. That went until just after 12. I had grabbed a quick lunch. I had do I am a mentor for a rising athletic director. And so I had zoom meeting with that person. Then had another meeting added to talk about the diversity and inclusion task force in our athletics department that was at three at 330 I had an executive team meeting which is the senior leadership in the athletics department. So I was on that meeting I got in my car and drove to the high school to watch my daughter's volleyball game. After that game, I then took my son to his soccer game and got home around 745 and then had an 8 o'clock zoom call with student athletes to talk about race in America. So that's a that that's not an unusual day. But that's busy. So if you do the math right in theory I had 45. I had an hour and 45 minutes where I did not have something scheduled throughout the course of the day from eight o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night. That's a pretty busy schedule. And that does not include in the inquiry that does not include the phone calls and text messages I got before 8am, nor nor the text messages I send after 8am. That's pretty busy. It's pretty busy. So that's all the questions I do have for you. And it was nice talking to you. It was nice interviewing you. Thank you very much. Well, I appreciate it's nice to see that you have taken charge and that you are supporting 4h and that you're doing these types of interviews. It is a it's a great skill set to be able to interview someone and you are I'm going to share I'm going to share with my daughter how good you are in hopes that that she can achieve some of the professionalism that you've shown this shown today. Oh, thank you so much. You're welcome. So the last thing I'll say to close out is, and you had asked this quite or my answer a little bit earlier was focus on education. Right. Read more that I know lots of people are on tick tock or Instagram or whatever other social media aspect there is. Everybody's doing these dances and tick tock songs and stuff. But there's a wealth of knowledge out there to be consumed. And it's not all via phone. It's not all video. There's something to be said for picking up a book and reading. There's something to be said about learning, learning about things that that you didn't really know about before and being curious. For all the kids out there listening to this, continue to be curious, continue to want to learn more, expand your horizons, and know that you have the capability to truly do whatever you want, whatever you dream. You may have to work harder for it. You may have to sacrifice a little bit more for it, but it is all possible and make sure that you surround yourself with good people. Surround yourself with people who are going to make you better. We're going to help pull you up instead of instead of push you down. So that's all I have to say, Corey. Thank you so much once again.