How one agent keeps the coaching carousel spinning in women’s college basketball

Three of Brian Stanchak’s clients landed Power 4 head coaching positions in the past year. He represents more than 80 women’s basketball coaches and has become one of the sport’s super agents.

The women’s basketball program at Stony Brook has become something of a clearing house and stepping stone for coaches trying to move up to the next level in the sport. Beginning with Beth O’Boyle’s final year, the 2013-14 campaign where the Seawolves went 24-9, Stony Brook has had just two seasons with a losing record since and they’ve gone to the postseason six times — including the NCAA tournament in 2021.

In that decade-plus stretch, bigger programs have come calling for the Seawolves’ coaches, offering larger paydays. O’Boyle went to VCU, Caroline McCombs departed for George Washington, and last year Ashley Langford took her talents to Tulane after guiding the Seawolves to a program record-tying 28 wins.

Through each of those changes, Shawn Heilbron has been the athletic director at Stony Brook. And every time he’s had an opening, he’s called – and then hired – one of Brian Stanchak’s clients. When Langford left last spring, he hired his third consecutive coach represented by Stanchak in former Tennessee assistant coach Joy McCorvey.

“Working with Brian is like working with a teammate,” Heilbron told SB Nation. “Even though I know that his job is to represent the best interests of his clients, my experience working with him has always felt like a partnership.”

Stanchak is an agent who represents women’s college basketball coaches almost exclusively. The roster for his agency he founded — BDS Agency — features 51 current Division I head coaches, eight former head coaches, nine Division II and III head coaches, and 15 Division I assistant coaches.

When the coaching carousel in women’s college basketball gets going, Stanchak is one of the people at the control board with the power to make it stop or spin even faster. Put more simply, when any athletic director has an opening for a head women’s basketball coach, chances are that they – or the search firm they’re using – are going to have a conversation with Stanchak about who might fill it.

In the past calendar year, three of Stanchak’s clients landed their first head coaching jobs in the Power 4 ranks: Megan Duffy at Virginia Tech, Gavin Petersen at Utah and Kim Caldwell at Tennessee. His other clients include a wide range of coaches, from Michigan State’s Robyn Fralick to North Carolina A&T’s Tarrell Robinson to Division II Ashland’s Kari Pickens to Texas assistant Elena Lovato.

“I don’t know how other agents operate because I’ve never worked for another agent. Contract negotiations and promoting them, that stuff is critical. But I’m also a sounding board. I’m able to kind of give people peace of mind,” Stanchak told SB Nation. “There’s a lot of agencies that don’t prioritize women’s basketball. That’s part of the reason why I’ve stayed focused on this niche.”

Stanchak’s road to becoming an agent wasn’t a straight and easy one though. There were some twists and turns along the way before he became the man whose phone never stops buzzing in March, and the one that has helped countless coaches maximize their value and find their right fit in the sport.

A native of New Jersey and a graduate of Seton Hall, Stanchak, 42, began his career as an assistant coach in men’s and women’s college basketball with stops at Penn, Fairleigh Dickinson and his alma mater, piling up a decade’s worth of experience in coaching. Around the time he was 28, Stanchak says he felt “burnt out” by coaching and was searching for more of a work-life balance.

He was ready to try something new, and he found it in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on the campus of Penn State Wilkes-Barre, where he would become the athletic director of the tiny school in northeast Pennsylvania. He hired four coaches while he was there – including one in women’s basketball – and oversaw programs that won five conference titles.

“Honestly, I just fell into it,” Stanchak says. “I knew nothing about being an athletic director, but I tried to figure it out and it was great.”

After learning that he had become an athletic director, Stanchak’s friends in the women’s basketball coaching community started asking him for favors. They wanted perspective from someone in athletic administration and asked for his help in preparing for interviews, reviewing and negotiating their contracts, and handling unique situations.

Following a few of those informal consultations, one of Stanchak’s friends asked him point blank, “Do you want to be my agent?”

A bit taken aback by the idea of becoming anyone’s agent at that point in his life, Stanchak initially said no to his friends’ inquiries. But then they kept asking. And he gave it some real thought and consideration. He was a former coach, now working as an athletic director, and he cared a lot about women’s basketball and the people who worked in the sport.

“There’s really no one advocating for women’s basketball coaches out there, and I was one, and I’m invested in it, and my experience on both sides of the table could be valuable,” Stanchack thought to himself. “Let’s give it a shot.”

Stanchak didn’t exactly know where to begin and he knew he couldn’t learn how to become an agent by simply watching Jerry Maguire. He just trusted his instincts, and used what he learned from both his time as a coach and experience as an athletic director. In that way, Stanchak is uniquely qualified to be an agent in that he’s sat on both sides of a negotiation.

“I just learned to be an agent by thinking about what I would want from an agent if I was still coaching,” Stanchak said.

He embarked on the journey in 2013 and started BDS Agency, signing a few friends he knew from his coaching career who wanted to climb the ladder as clients. That first offseason, he had five clients become Division I head coaches, including McCombs at Stony Brook. Stanchak’s reputation spread through word of mouth in coaching circles and more prospective clients came calling. At the time, he was still working as the athletic director at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, but he felt like he had found his purpose, that being an agent for women’s basketball coaches could be his full-time job. He resigned from Penn State Wilkes-Barre in February 2015, just before the coaching cycle started that year. He then had five more clients get Division I head coaching jobs, and some of them still have those gigs today, like Jada Pierce at Niagra. Two years later, he helped one of his former players, Gayle Coats Fulks, get hired at Davidson.

“I haven’t looked back since,” Stanchak says. “I’ve always been a better networker than a coach. At the end of the day, being an agent, you want to make people feel comfortable.”

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It’s all worked out pretty well for Stanchak and his clients. In recent years, he’s helped several of them get some pretty high profile jobs. Perhaps none were more surprising than Kim Caldwell – with just one year of Division I coaching under her belt – landing the coveted posting at Tennessee last year.

Caldwell, 36, spent seven seasons at her alma mater Glenville State in West Virginia, leading the Pioneers to a Division II national title in 2022. In 2023, she jumped to Division I by taking the reins at Marshall and coached the Herd to their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1997. And Caldwell wasn’t necessarily looking to leave Marshall, but when the Tennessee job opened, a person working for the search firm that Tennessee athletic director Danny White used of course asked Stanchak about her.

“Kim has been a winner at every level she’s coached at. It’s not about Kim – it’s what’s best for her program and her players. She’s the type that just puts her head down and gets to work,” Stanchak said. “She also runs an extremely potent, high-powered offense. Kim being able to play that style, that’s just entertaining, and that was a draw to Tennessee.”

Caldwell, to the shock of many, got the job that was once held by the legendary Pat Summitt. She’s now tasked with restoring Tennessee to its status as one of the sport’s signature programs. Year One has gone well, as the Lady Vols are NCAA tournament-bound with the nation’s second-best scoring offense. A win over rival UConn in February felt like proof of concept that Caldwell was the right hire.

“I think it was appealing for (Tennessee) to go outside the family this time. And if you look at Danny White’s track record of hires, he’s taken some risks. He’s kind of always gone outside the box. This gave him the opportunity to do that on the women’s side,” Stanchak said. “For Kim, it’s a great fit. It’s not going to make sense for some people who don’t know her, but she can really thrive there.”

The second high-profile opening filled by a Stanchak client last year had a very different process. There was no search firm. Stanchak dealt directly with the athletic director whom he had previously never met before.

In Kenny Brooks’ seven seasons leading Virginia Tech’s women’s basketball team, the Hokies reached heights in the sport that they had never seen before. With players like Elizabeth Kitley and Georgia Amoore, Brooks led Virginia Tech to an ACC Tournament title and a Final Four appearance in 2023 – both of which were firsts for the program. Last year, the Hokies won the ACC regular season title and sold out seven home games, averaging a program-high in attendance in Cassell Coliseum.

When Brooks left Virginia Tech for the riches of the SEC at Kentucky, athletic director Whit Babcock cast a wide net in his search for the program’s next leader, searching carefully for the right hire that could keep the momentum rolling in Blacksburg. He had never heard of Stanchak, but quickly became acquainted with him during the search process and admired his forthrightness and thoroughness.

“Brian certainly represented his client well. He was firm yet fair,” Babcock told SB Nation. “He seemed to care deeply for his clients, and to find the best school or fit for them. He was very professional and approachable – a straight shooter.”

Babcock’s search ended with him hiring one of Stanchak’s clients, Megan Duffy. A former Notre Dame player, Duffy climbed the coaching ranks with three stops as an assistant coach, a two-season stop as the head coach of Miami Ohio, and then five seasons at Marquette where she won 110 games and made three NCAA tournament appearances. While Brooks took some of his top players with him to Kentucky – including Amoore and center Clara Strack – Duffy assembled a competitive roster and went 18-12. The Hokies now find themselves on the bubble of the NCAA tournament.

“We are thrilled with Coach Duffy and her work,” Babcock said. “I can see why Brian has had such a high level of success with clients and placement.”

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Stanchak is once again in the thick of his busy season. Currently, there are openings at seven Power 4 programs: Missouri, Auburn, Arkansas, BYU, Houston, Arizona State and Wisconsin. Chances are that a Stanchak client will be in the mix for most of them.

“Because of my relationships and my track record, I’ll get a lot of calls before things start moving,” he says.

These days when Stanchak talks to his clients, the No. 1 thing on most of their minds when discussing new jobs or inking long-term extensions at their current one is how the House v. NCAA settlement will impact their ability to win at a high level. The settlement, expected to pass later this year, will pave the way for institutions to share revenue directly with players for the first time ever.

Stanchak is working with his clients in women’s basketball to figure out how big of a piece of the revenue sharing pie their program is getting.

“Just because a job is solid paying doesn’t mean it’s a great job in the landscape. What matters now is what they’re doing in NIL or in revenue sharing. There’s just a lot more off-the-court areas that have become part of the discussion,” Stanchak says. “These conversations (around the House settlement) are happening daily, in terms of what the number is going to be, how they’re going to allocate, and is that number going to be fair compared to the conference landscape. In Year One, everyone is flying blind. There is no baseline, other than the Big Ten and SEC are going to be ahead of everyone else. In Year Two, we’ll be able to see a baseline.”

In May, Stanchak’s BDS Agency will once again host the Head Coach Training Center, a multi-day event in Orlando, Florida meant to provide up-and-coming coaches with the knowledge and experience they need to land the job they want. It’s a coaching conference of sorts, but one where attendees won’t find anything about recruiting or drawing up baseline-out-of-bounds plays.

“It focuses exclusively on off-the-court professional development. And so what that means is there’s nothing there in terms of X’s and O’s,” Stanchak said. “You can go to YouTube and get X’s and O’s and strategy, but you can’t go somewhere and hear how you can thrive during the interview process, or what coaches need to do in terms of being able to delegate and manage their staff, or how to manage their first 30 days on the job.”

Stanchak will host the event for the ninth time this year in Orlando, Florida. Erin Batth attended it in 2018 when she was an assistant coach at N.C. State. She’s now in her second season as the head coach at Providence.

“If you want real answers to what it takes to become a head coach, the HCTC is the place for you. I left with so much knowledge,” Batth said. “I learned a lot about myself and where I truly was at that point in my coaching career.”

“I learned more than I ever thought I could in two days,” added Chandler McCabe, who attended the 2019 HCTC and is now the head coach at Robert Morris.

Until then, for the next two months, Stanchak will be doing what he does best: networking, building relationships and advocating for his clients in women’s college basketball. Expect more than a few of them to land bigger – and better paying – jobs as the spin speed picks up in this coaching cycle.