Ep #716 - Cory Adland, CMAA

·1 hr 13 min·5 clips

Corey Odland never taught or coached before becoming an athletic director in Mitchell, South Dakota.

The sponsor reads come first. The host talks about Sideline Interactive and Huddle as school tools that coaches, student-athletes, parents, and athletic offices can actually use. Then the conversation settles into the job itself. Corey remembers getting the activities director role after being known around the community, even though some people may have questioned the hire. He does not dress up the leap. He gives credit to the superintendent who put him in the office and trusted him to start doing the work. Ten years later, something clearly stuck. The best part is the early stretch, when Corey had the title but did not yet know the full weight of it. Day one put him in the office with a simple question from his superintendent and the reality that he would have to learn while doing. Day two brought the first real lesson. Someone asked when homecoming was, and Corey realized the football schedule was only one piece of the answer. That lands because every AD knows that feeling. He laughs at how obvious it seems now, but the point is bigger: this job is full of details people outside the office rarely see. People notice who is there on game night. They miss all the work underneath a school activities program. The host keeps it easy and conversational, asking about the early surprises and letting the story breathe. The close stays warm: thanks for the tips, a nod to the podcast's YouTube interview recordings, and a hope to connect at a state or national conference.

As heard by us

A calm look at how an AD learns the job one surprise at a time.

Cory Adland's conversation with the Educational AD Podcast stays close to the work, and that is where it lands best. The opening stretch leans into office reality: a superintendent walking him into the job, a second-day question about homecoming, and the slow realization that…

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Why you'd press play

You get the AD origin story where day two means someone asks about homecoming and the job starts in real time.

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