One Town, Three Rivals, and the AD Keeping It Together

Ask Mike Nunley what he does that nobody notices, and he goes straight to the least glamorous answer possible.

"I pay all the bills," he said. "Everything our teams buy, everything they use, goes through my office. The coaches and site people don't have to handle it."

That's the job of a district athletic director, and in Edmond, Oklahoma, it's a big one. Nunley oversees three high schools and, on his own, all six of the district's middle schools — soon to be seven.

"People think this job is mainly the business side," he said. "They're surprised I'm the one solely responsible for every seventh- and eighth-grade program in the district."

Edlam

Edmond is one town split into three rival high schools, and Nunley likes to describe what that does to a Friday night. "We work together all day, we might carpool somewhere, but our kids go to different schools," he said. 

"Friday night we're on opposite sides of the bleachers yelling at each other. Saturday morning we're playing golf. Sunday we're sitting next to each other in church." 

The ADs at those three schools call it “Edlam," a homage to the heated college rivalry between nearby Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. In Edmond, it’s a friendly civil war that makes every game across town feel like the center of the universe.

Holding three competitive schools together takes a shared rule, and Nunley's ADs can recite his. 
Andy Rasmussen, who's spent 30 years at Edmond Santa Fe and the last eight as its athletic director, learned it from Nunley years ago: there are no minimal sports. 

"There's no sports up here and sports down there," Rasmussen said. "They're all meaningful. Those kids are fighting and practicing and putting in the time just like everybody else." 

The second rule is even simpler, and the one he runs every decision through. "Is it good for kids? If it's good for kids, you can't go wrong."

The Bill Nobody Sees

This decision-making framework is how Nunley ended up making one that most of his coaches will never think about. For years, Edmond's booster clubs paid for Hudl. Nunley didn't think that was right. 

"I felt like it was such an important piece of our toolbox that we started covering the cost at the district level," he said, "and took that burden off our booster clubs." One district-wide package, every sport, every school — the bill no longer landing on a volunteer's desk.

Running every school in the district off one system is the whole trick: a coach at Santa Fe, a parent streaming a game at North, an athlete at a middle school all touch the same thing, and Nunley isn't stitching a different tool together at every building. It serves the whole district — coaches, parents and kids alike.

For the Edmond ADs, that decision shows up as time and reach they didn't have to fight for. Brent Hodges, in his first year running athletics at Edmond North, remembers the math from his coaching days. 

"Sending stats into Hudl Assist took four hours [less] of my time after every game," he said. "That's four hours you get back — time with your family, or scouting your next opponent, instead of spending your whole Sunday night on stats." 

The Hudl Focus cameras cover the sports that usually get overlooked, too. "We added angles for volleyball, we can record two wrestling mats at once," Hodges said. "Softball, baseball, soccer, programs that maybe hadn't used it before, and now they're getting their kids seen."

Everywhere at Once

The athletic department package matches the way Nunley works, which is everywhere at once. He is not a man who stays behind a desk. Hodges tells a story from his first weeks on the job: 

"Mike texted me, 'Don't worry, I sprayed for weeds at your football facility last night.' I was literally going to get up and do it the next day," said Hodges. 

On game nights, Nunley runs as many livestreams on screens as he can hold. "I'll have my iPhone, my iPad and the game I'm at," he said. "During basketball season I've had two iPads and a phone going. Hudl lets me be at those events and stay in them."

Rasmussen, who came up coaching football, watched Hudl go from a football luxury to a district necessity. "It's no longer a want, it's a need," he said. 

"Video breakdown is as much a piece of equipment as footballs or nets." And it does for every athlete what it once did only for the quarterback. "If you're on the field, you're getting recorded," Rasmussen said. "Every kid gets an opportunity to be evaluated, to make a highlight, to get seen at the next level."

3am in Germany

The reach runs well past Edmond. Nunley points to a softball parent stationed overseas who watched every one of their kid's games, and grandparents around the country who email him — sometimes, he jokes, to tell him what he did wrong. 

Hodges has a similar story that gets him every time: a dad stationed in Germany who woke in the middle of the night to watch his daughter's basketball games, live on Hudl. "It was such a cool thing for that family," he said.

Leaving a Legacy

Ask Nunley what he wants his ADs to say about him when he's gone, and it isn't about championships, or the middle schools, or the bills. 

"That he listened," he said. "That he helped us. That at the end of the day, he cared about our needs." 

Then, because he's still Mike Nunley, he added, "and maybe let me into the games for free and keep my Hudl subscription active."