Why Every Coach Should Own a LLC

Much like everyone else during the COVID-19 stay at home orders, I attended way more Zoom meetings than I would have liked. One of the semi-monthly meetings I was a part of included all the strength and conditioning professionals from the NCAA DII Conference I work in (NSIC). During one of the calls, Mike Silbernagel (University of Mary, NSIC, NCAA-DII), had asked if we were doing anything to help ensure our graduate assistants were getting a fair shake at potential employment opportunities. Because I had just brought my graduate assistant coach (Brody Myers) on as a full-time employee at my private company, Heilman's Performance, to continue helping us manage our contracts at Minot State University and the local high-school. I felt inclined in this moment to share the unique opportunity that entrepreneurship had provided me, my staff, and more specifically, Brody.

I know it's difficult to tell for sure whether or not you've fostered an awkward moment on a Zoom call, but the depth of silence that followed my advice was too intense for anyone to ignore. It was like the first time someone had broke wind in the middle of an exam in elementary school. Minus the laughter. 

The advice that I gave to all of the recent graduates seeking employment was to go get organized with the secretary of state's office as a Limited Liability Company (LLC). My point was that nobody really knew at the time when the lockdown was going to be lifted and even more unknown was the timeline for the return of college athletics. What I was sure of at the time, however, was that there was a market for youth athletes who were looking to maintain the progress they had worked hard to obtain before weight rooms were closed by executive order. I couldn't think of a better time to be self-employed and independent of larger entities that would assuredly be spending time and effort cutting through red tape before they were able to pay assistant strength and conditioning professionals a living wage. 

Now that most of our stay at home orders have been lifted in the state I realize how lucky I was to be self-employed while in quarantine. This leads me to believe that every coach, young and old, should be organized with the state they reside in as an LLC. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it should be that coaching is a volatile and unpredictable profession. If you're going to bet all of your earning potential on being employed by the University system you're not giving yourself much of a chance to provide financially for yourself and your family when that system isn't hiring. Much like the world of investing, entrepreneurship is akin to portfolio diversity and is a necessity if our goal is to limit risk.

If you believe in your ability to provide value in a market that is in desperate need of more value then I believe investing in articles of organization with your secretary of state's office and some basic strength training equipment to be a good move. I can't think of a single drawback from engaging in entrepreneurship. Working for yourself will provide you with an opportunity to:

• Keep your head above water if you ever end up in between jobs. 
• Create a supplemental revenue stream for you and your family. 
• Build real equity in something.
• Earn experience in a different training environment. 
• Build a reputation as an efficacious professional in your community. 
• Learn to critically think your way through problems and make decisions for yourself.
• Stay patient while searching for your next full-time position instead of jumping on the first opportunity available because of financial constraints.

The fact is that if you've just finished your graduate assistantship, you have a master's degree, at least 2 years of experience programming and coaching athletes at the collegiate level, and more than likely have earned an entry level certification. You are more than qualified to start helping youth athletes in your community learn how to properly prepare for their sport of choice. I understand why young people want to be in college and professional athletics, but the hard truth is that these jobs don't always pay well and are incredibly volatile. The beauty of entrepreneurship is that it costs you nothing after the initial registration fees. If you get organized with the state as a LLC and decide not to operate because you're holding down a stable position at University there's no harm done. In that scenario, entrepreneurship is simply a safety net. It saddens me to see good coaches leave the field because they can't find full-time employment or can't get an interview for the positions they think they need. If you're qualified and you believe in your ability to provide a service to those willing to compensate you for it, then you should get started. If the alternative is working at Wendy's until your dream college coaching job opens up I'm really not sure what you're waiting for. 

Old School vs. New School

The "stay in your lane" calling from older, more experienced professionals in the strength and conditioning world is growing pretty old and tired. I can't think of any better way to expose your professional insecurities than telling younger professionals in your field to slow their role.

Anyone paying attention can recognize this trend in just about every field. I've seen it play out in my dad's carpentry business, family run farming operations, and with my wife while she was in public education. The strength and conditioning industry feels as if it's entering a new era. The coaches who adopted the profession early and blazed trails for us younger coaches are finally starting to earn some recognition and a profession that was once notorious for being overworked and underpaid, now has six-figure earners. More strength and conditioning professionals are segueing into administrative roles at state universities and a profession that was once seen as a trade, is developing more established curriculums and certification processes that are being recognized as barriers for entry to the field.

This, of course, comes with the subsequent trend I previously mentioned: young people becoming interested in the field and a difference in education and practice between older and younger professionals. This gap in education inevitably leads to young and old professionals practicing different methods and many disagreements about how to best prepare the athletes we work with.

I feel a sense of responsibility to the up and coming generation of coaches who are consistently being told to "slow you role," or "stay in your lane" because I've been there more than once. I was fortunate enough to start earning experience in the field before I ever graduated college at a local private performance center during my summer break from school. This was my first experience working for older, more experienced professionals, and I quickly became frustrated with the lack of consistency or structure to our methods. After college I was hired on as a full-time employee and I wanted to do and be better so I started asking questions, trying to change some things, implement operational systems, develop updated training protocols, and adopt better recording and publishing systems for the interventions we were prescribing. All of these things probably seem like reasonable requests, but I was met with a considerable amount of opposition. I quickly became the young, over-ambitious employee at the company who was trying to change the way we did everything. It became so difficult to get anything accomplished at a reasonable rate that I eventually decided to move on from the company and open my own, which ended up being the best decision of my life.

The most common way to discredit a young person who is trying to think outside the box is to tell them that they're trying to "re-invent the wheel." I think elder tradesmen could benefit from asking more questions that will help them determine whether or not a coach is trying to re-invent the wheel or simply trying to improve the wheel. As you can see, the wheel hasn't been re-invented, but it as been improved a lot over the years. I often wonder if anyone worked as hard to stymie those improvements as experienced S&C Coaches do to avoid having to accept change. Thank goodness wheel innovators persevered so now we can all get to work on time.

I don't believe that young coaches coming up in the S&C industry are ignoring the importance of fundamentals I just think a number of us are questioning what we believe fundamentals should be. Strength and conditioning for field sports has been so heavily influenced by powerlifting and olympic lifting circles that if you dare start training a youth athlete with anything but a barbell in a bilateral stance you'll be called a snake oil salesman. Personally I think all youth athletes should learn the fundamentals of great kettlebell training before they ever start loading up a barbell. Squatting, hinging, swinging, overhead pressing, carrying, can all be performed with kettlebells to help a young athlete learn proper bracing strategies and movement patterns before ever laying hands on a barbell. 

How many of the movements in the video below would you utilize with a developing athlete? How many would have an incoming freshman prepared to train on your program? If your answer to both of those questions is "zero", do you think it's fair for me to call you incompetent? Coaches need to get past the idea that it's the job of high school and private strength and conditioning professionals to prepare athletes for college strength and conditioning programs. It's not, it's our job to prepare athletes for their sport. If there's some crossover in program design, great, but 99% of the people I work with at my private facility and in our local high school weight room aren't going to a Division 1 University so I apologize if you have to spend more time teaching than you'd like. Just because my program doesn't prepare young people to take on yours doesn't make me bad at my job. It just means that you have to do yours.

https://youtu.be/Vqx87pr7Vg8

The fact of the matter is that the loads prescribed via kettlebell training would be more than sufficient to facilitate a beneficial adaptation in a novice lifter, are much safer, can be easily scaled to facilitate further adaptation, and are much less awkward to work with.

Below is a video that I think demonstrates what good youth training looks like. We sprint and load movements with implements that allow the athlete to be successful early and still learn to produce force and brace properly while preparing them for other implements. When they're ready for a barbell, a coach will know, but this shouldn't be rushed for the sake of tradition.

https://youtu.be/5C0VXCvv9Qk

Whether you agree or disagree with the methods a young coach is utilizing to prepare athletes for field sports, simply telling them they're in the wrong because they aren't copying and pasting your programs is doing absolutely nothing to push the profession forward. It's getting old, tired, and detracts from the efforts young people in this industry put forth to earn entry level positions. Most young coaches who have been hired in these positions have multiple years of experience in the field and have obtained Master's level degrees. Should we really be telling these people that they're incapable of developing their own methodologies? Do we really think that's good for the field? What kind of education and experience does someone need in order to to earn the right to start applying, testing, re-testing, adjusting, and re-applying? Is a decade of experience necessary before I take on that $35K per year position? Do I need a PhD?

For anyone who needs to hear it: Most young coaches are doing nothing different than you did when you were their age. They're trying to be better, that's it. Because of the information age, we just have access to more. We apologize for our privilege and if we misconstrue some things. We all know that nobody has ever earned long lasting recognition in the field without achieving great results so why get so hot and bothered when somebody tries to circumvent the process? We all know it won't last, so unless you're going to educate and assist, leave them be. Their success or failures have literally nothing to do with you. Your criticisms do nothing but showcase your own insecurities about people who think or feel differently than you. I like to live by Jay-Z's quote "Oh, you're not feeling me? Fine. It costs you nothing to pay me no mind."

Different doesn't equal wrong and when someone finds a method that works for them it doesn't disparage yours and suggesting so does little to help move the industry forward. Asking questions and listening rather than discrediting anyone who attempts to improve the standard operating procedures that have been passed down to them may actually serve you well. Who knows, you may even find yourself getting more comfortable with change.

Caleb Heilman, MS, CSCS, USA-W Owner, Heilman's Performance Director of Human Performance, Minot State University 701-340-3547 | calebjheilman02@gmail.com www.heilmansperformance.com 1928 2nd Avenue SW Minot, ND 58701