Coach's Corner: Nik Rule

College athletics is changing fast. Realignment, new rules, rising expectations from students and families, and the sudden power of AI have shifted the ground under everyone’s feet. For Heart of America Commissioner Nik Rule, this moment isn’t one to fear. It’s one to use.

He came up in the profession quickly. He was a head coach at 23 and an athletic director at 29. Today, he’s still grateful for the people that took those early bets on his potential. That perspective now shapes how he builds a conference office, how he evaluates talent, and how he thinks about technology.

Here’s what we took away when we sat down with Nik Rule: hire for hunger, not for history; respect tradition, but don’t be bound by it; and use AI to give people time back to do what only people can do.

The courage to innovate (and the trap of “least-risk” thinking)

Rule sees a recurring mistake in leadership: following what he calls the “manual of least risk.” It shows up in hiring when people default to the safest résumé, and in operations when teams cling to the way it’s always been done. Playing not to lose may lower short-term risk, but it also caps upside.

He likes to ask a different question: what would it look like if we optimized for potential? That lens changes how you interview, how you design workflows, and how you sequence priorities. It invites experimentation and, importantly, creates room for people to grow.

That mindset helped push conversations years ago about digitizing eligibility, integrating calendars, and building conference-wide workflows that reduce manual work. It’s now core to how the Heart approaches change: challenge assumptions, test quickly, and standardize what works.

Hire for hunger, not for history

Ask Rule what he listens for in an interview and he won’t start with titles or trophies. He listens for future tense.

If a candidate talks only about what they did and never about what they want to build next, he sees a red flag. Past experience matters, but it’s not a proxy for drive. He’s hired people with unconventional backgrounds who were deeply curious, relentlessly proactive, and eager to learn. That hunger became a multiplier for innovation.

Hunger also shows up in how people handle feedback. Rule and his team have a practice of naming blind spots out loud—monthly. “Tell me three things I need to be better at. I’ll tell you yours. Then we acknowledge three wins.” It’s structured, direct, and generous. Hungry people lean into it. They don’t defend their past; they chase their next level.

The outcome is a culture that promotes potential. People who bring energy, ideas, and ownership move quickly. And when leaders hire that way—at the conference office, in an athletic department, or on a team—innovation stops being a project and becomes a habit.

AI and the “no-excuses” era

Expectations are higher now. SIDs juggle content, creative, and comms. Coaches are expected to recruit, develop, and communicate at a pace that didn’t exist a decade ago. ADs are asked to see around corners while budgets tighten. In that world, AI isn’t a novelty—it’s a force multiplier.

Rule’s view is clear: AI should elevate people, not replace them. Use it to remove manual drudgery and give humans more time for the work only humans can do—relationship building, storytelling, judgment, and leadership.

Concrete examples help:

• Coaches: Drafting outreach, organizing notes, checking rules, and prepping film context can be accelerated with AI. That doesn’t excuse sloppy communication; it removes the “I didn’t have time” barrier so messages can be timely and thoughtful.

• ADs and administrators: Snapshot dashboards and eligibility planning bring clarity. Instead of digging through spreadsheets, leaders can see risks at a glance and spend time coaching their teams through solutions.

• Conference offices: Policy memos, governance updates, handbooks, and routine correspondence benefit from AI-assisted drafting and consistency checks. Clarity reduces misinterpretation. Consistency reduces risk.

Eligibility is a telling case. Historically, it’s been manual and reactive—a perfect setup for preventable mistakes that often hit the 15th player on the roster harder than the star. When eligibility is digitized and guided by clear rules, planning gets proactive and fair. The point isn’t to replace staff. It’s to make sure every student gets a consistent process and fewer fall through the cracks.

In short: we are in a no-excuses era. The tools exist. The standard is rising. The leaders who embrace AI to increase clarity, consistency, and capacity will create better experiences for their people.

People first, with higher standards

Rule is quick to add that rising standards do not mean less humanity. “It’s not about eliminating people, it’s about elevating them.” When technology handles the repetitive parts, humans can do the work that earns trust: being present on game day, telling real student stories, building stronger networks with alumni and recruits, and investing in staff development.

That people-first lens also shows up at home. Nik talks openly about harmony over “balance.” Life rarely fits into tidy 9–5 blocks in athletics. Flexibility, earned with results and trust, is healthier and more realistic. Sometimes that means picking up your kids at three and logging back in later. Sometimes it means bringing them to campus or championships and letting them see what you do up close. It’s good for families, and it’s good for student-athletes to see staff as full people.

Standards and flexibility can coexist. The key is being explicit. Write down expectations. Communicate changes clearly. Use technology to remove ambiguity. Then measure outcomes, not hours. When leaders model that—protecting sleep, protecting family time, and still shipping excellent work—teams learn that high performance and a full life are not contradictions.

Small-college advantage: agility and agency

Small-college athletics has an edge: agility. Fewer layers mean faster cycles from idea to action. Conference offices can act like startups—pilot a tool, learn quickly, and standardize the wins.

That agility matters as the industry evolves. The educational model in college sports—progress toward a degree, a lifelong network, and growth beyond the scoreboard—needs champions. Conferences like the Heart have a real say in that conversation, especially when they use data and technology to prove out better processes and outcomes.

Partnerships help. Rule calls out the importance of vendors who design for small-college realities, not just as a downstream afterthought. When partners roll up their sleeves, ask how people actually work, and build around those workflows, campuses feel seen. That’s when software stops being another login and starts being part of the culture.

Practical ways to elevate the standard (today)

Leaders don’t need to wait for a perfect plan. A few simple moves start the flywheel:

• Rewrite one recurring process for clarity.

Pick a policy that causes confusion—roster changes, facility requests, media approvals—and write the “one-pager” you wish you’d had a year ago. Use AI to draft, but make the decisions human. Publish it. Ask for feedback. Iterate once.

• Adopt a monthly blind-spot review.

With your deputy or trusted peer, exchange “three to get better” and “three we’re doing well.” Keep notes. Close the loop next month. You’ll grow faster, and your team will see you modeling the behavior you ask of them.

• Digitize one area that creates preventable pain.

Eligibility planning, signing workflows, or travel approvals—pick the highest-friction area that affects student outcomes. Measure before and after: time saved, errors reduced, satisfaction improved.

• Interview for hunger explicitly.

Ask candidates to walk you through what they want to build in their first 90 days, how they handle feedback, and a time they admitted “I didn’t know that” and learned fast. Listen for curiosity, ownership, and future tense.

• Use AI to protect people time.

Decide as a leadership team which tasks must be done by a human (coaching conversations, sensitive parent calls, complex judgment) and which must never again steal an afternoon (formatting, first-draft emails, copy/paste reporting). Write it down. Hold each other to it.

None of these require a new budget cycle. They require intent, a few hours of focused work, and a willingness to test and learn.

The future belongs to the hungry

If there’s a through-line in Nik Rule’s leadership, it’s that hunger drives everything: the courage to change, the humility to learn, and the stamina to lead through messy transitions. Technology can amplify that hunger by removing friction and inviting people to do more of the work that matters.

Small-college athletics is ready for that kind of leadership. It has the agility. It has the purpose. And with the right habits—clear writing, honest feedback, smart tools, and value-driven hiring—it can set the pace for the rest of the industry.

“We’re not just keeping up,” Rule says when we talk about what’s next. “We’re setting the pace.” That’s the goal inside WinWon, too. Keep raising the standard. Keep choosing people who want the ball in the fourth quarter. And keep using AI to give those people more time to be exactly what they were hired to be: leaders.

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