After obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree (2006) in history and classical studies from Indiana University, Dr. Raidbard decided to pursue his dream of being a college basketball coach. His first college basketball coaching job was at Western New Mexico University where in addition to gaining experience as a college basketball coach, he completed his Master of Arts degree (2008) in Educational Leadership. During his twelve years as a college basketball coach, and two and a half years as a college athletics administrator, Dr. Raidbard has dedicated his life to serving student-athletes by helping them grow and develop during their time in college. The foundation of his leadership style is predicated on building a strong relationship with his student-athletes that is based on trust and mutual respect. Dr. Raidbard believes that fostering the leadership traits and abilities of student-athletes is integral to their development into mature and exceptional members of society. He is currently working on developing a leadership training program for men’s college basketball coaches that teaches them about leadership practice. Dr. Raidbard is dedicated to improving the leadership understanding and abilities of college athletic coaches, so that they can be the best and most effective leaders for the student-athletes that they are entrusted to coach. Dr. Raidbard is also currently working on a program that would help athletics administrators hire the right head coach for their athletic programs based primarily on candidates' practicing the best leadership style and behaviors.

My dissertation was on athletic coach leadership practice, and my study was designed to understand how men’s college basketball head coaches perceived themselves as leaders. The study was also designed to determine the best leadership style and leadership behaviors for coaches to practice in order to lead their teams and develop the leadership abilities of their student-athletes. It is my plan to continue to research athletic coach leadership by replicating my dissertation research design on women’s college basketball head coaches to determine if the best leadership style and leadership behaviors for coaches to practice is different for coaching women or men. Based on these and other studies I would like to conduct in the future, such as one that focused on coaches who coach individual sports such as swimming or track and field, my research plan also includes the development of a leadership program for athletic coaches, and eventually a pretest-posttest study with my leadership program as a midpoint intervention. I believe that this research is not only important for the development of athletic coaches and student-athletes, but could also be replicated on other populations within a college campus.