2022 Institute for Athletic Directors | Speakers

Mike Ellson, CMAA-U is the athletic ambassador at Christ Presbyterian Academy (CPA). He began teaching and coaching at CPA in 1987 and served as the first coach and first athletic director for 34 years. Ellson currently serves in the Office of Advancement assisting the areas of admissions, development, and alumni relations. Transformational Coaching was the foundational centerpiece of the athletic program under Ellson’s direction, focusing on character development and personal growth.

Coach Ellson also serves as the executive director of the Tennessee Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (TIAAA) and continues to seek opportunities to mentor athletic administrators, coaches, and students alike. He will begin teaching as an adjunct professor for aspiring athletic administrators at Belmont University in the spring of 2022, and was recently hired as a new member of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Professional Development Academy Curriculum Team.

In his 35th year at CPA, Ellson has coached sports at the middle school and high school level including cross-country, baseball, soccer, track, and basketball. He was a varsity head boys basketball coach for 12 years and a varsity head girls basketball coach for three years with his teams winning over 250 games during his coaching career. Ellson was awarded the TSSAA Athletic Director of the Year twice, was a TSSAA Distinguished Service Award Recipient in 2020, and was named the 2020 Frank Kovaleski Professional Development National Award Winner by the NIAAA.

Andrew Reiner teaches men’s studies, cultural studies, and writing at Towson University where he offers the seminar The Changing Face of Masculinity. He is the author of Better Boys, Better Men: The New Masculinity That Creates Greater Courage and Emotional Resiliency (HarperOne Books, 2020). Reiner has written about contemporary and healthy masculinity extensively for the New York Times, as well as for the Washington Post. He has been interviewed about these topics on PBS NewsHour, CNN with Christiane Amanpour, Australia’s Today Show and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s show Tapestry.

Jen Brooks, CMAA, is the 20-21 Missouri Athletic Director of the Year and the 2021 NIAAA Bruce Whitehead Distinguished Service Award recipient. She is the athletic director at Ursuline Academy in St. Louis, MO, serving in this position for the past 26 years. Driven by a desire to encourage more women to get involved in the world of high school athletics, as well as to support these women and create an awareness piece for male allies, Jen founded the Global Community of Women in High School Sports. Recognition of her coaching, teaching, and leadership of the athletic programs, as well as her desire to help people to become better versions of themselves led to her appointment as the mentor program coordinator for the Missouri Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA). The success of the Global Community of Women in High School Sports inspired Jen to create the concept of “The Power of Being the Only Woman in the Room” through Jen Brooks, LLC. It is here where she provides leadership and conversation around the power to inspire, create, and claim space for everyone.

Dr. Tim Green has worked in the areas of athletics and athletic administration for over 30 years. Tim has served as a teacher, coach, department chair, university professor, and athletic director. Most recently, he served as athletic director at Kentucky Country Day School in Louisville, KY for 18 years. Tim is now serving as an athletic consultant for Southern Teachers Agency where he leads the mentoring, assessment, and placement services.

Gabriel Robison is the director of athletics at the Woodlynde School located in the Philadelphia suburbs. Woodlynde School serves a unique population of students who have learning differences, including dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, and executive function deficits. Originally a social studies teacher, he completed his masters degree in coaching and athletic administration from Concordia University in 2017. He has coached basketball, volleyball, golf, and bowling at the high school level and coached club volleyball. Stepping into the director of athletics role in July 2021, he has worked to rebuild an athletic department post-COVID that can serve the unique need of all his students.

Carolyn Sideco is the founder of CoachingKapwa Sports Consultants and loves being called coach! She is a trained kinesiologist, a Certified Athletic Administrator, credentialed physical educator, and sports relationship coach. Her competencies include radical nature framework personal coaching, ethnic studies pedagogy, DEI approaches, and restorative justice, critical consciousness development and social & racial equity practices. Coach Sideco embodies over 30 years of sports culture-informed professional experience into the human-centered aspects of how we do sports in America.