The Rising Coaches Podcast

Cooper Neimand is a former NCAA coach and current Owner of Coach Coop LLC . Cooper formerly coached at various places such as Wesleyan Christian Academy, Lander University and most recently Lincoln Memorial University. Cooper now runs his own company to help coaches best achieve their own personal goals in the coaching profession. Check him out at cooperneimand.com.

Mike Bobinski is the current Athletic Director of Purdue University. Mike has been an athletic director for 25+ years and has made various stops such as Navy, Akron, Xavier, Georgia Tech and where he currently resides at Purdue University, since 2016. We are excited to get to learn more about the interview process and athletic director side of things during this podcast.

Kevin Eastman is a coach who has 35+ years of experience at a variety of different levels including NCAA all the way to the NBA. Coach Eastman has been an assistant coach in the NCAA at places such as Richmond, Colorado State, VCU and Tulsa, while also holding head coaching stints at Belmont Abbey, UNC-Wilmington and Washington State. Following his NCAA coaching career Eastman found himself in the NBA for the Boston Celtics and LA Clippers as an assistant coach for 10+ years combined.

Tyler Slick is a current member and pivotal coach in the Rising Coaches industry and also current Coach at Lincoln Memorial University. Coach Slick has made various coaching stops from the high school to the Division 1 ranks at schools such as Minneapolis North High School, Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton High School, Bethany Lutheran College, North Dakota State College, Minnesota State University, the University of Memphis and currently, Lincoln Memorial University.

Cuonzo Martin is a former NBA player and Division 1 coach who is currently a motivational speaker and podcast host of his show “It All Counts”. Cuonzo started his coaching career after his NBA stint where he would play for various teams including the Hawks, Bucks and various teams in the CBA, then continued his basketball career on the other side of the lines, first as a coach in high school, which led him into a position at Purdue. He then grew in his role to be an associate head coach, leading him into head coaching positions at numerous schools including Missouri State,Tennessee, California and most recently Missouri.

Jake Alburtus is the current Recruiting and Operations coordinator at Georgia Tech University. Coach Alburtus is a new face to the Georgia Tech staff, while recently coming from a coaching stint with the Arkansas Razorbacks and spending numerous years with Western Michigan as a student manager and graduate assistant.

Archie Miller is the Head Coach at the University of Rhode Island. Coach Miller is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Native and went on to move south to continue his playing career at NC State. Upon graduation, Miller would carry on his basketball career on the other side of the lines as he would coach at a variety of places in various assistant roles including Western Kentucky, NC State, Arizona State, Ohio State and Arizona. He started his Head coaching career at Dayton University for 6 years which led him into another head role at Indiana for 4 and then currently where he resides now, University of Rhode Island.

Orlando Vandross is a graduate from American International College in Springfield (Mass.), He ranks 13th in scoring at AIC and is third on the career assist list for the school. Coach Vandross enters his fifth season as an assistant coach and eighth overall with the Virginia Men’s Basketball program. He served his first three seasons as UVA’s director of recruiting/player development. He also spent five seasons as an assistant coach for the Charlotte 49ers from 2011-2015 after 13 seasons at Boston University as an assistant, including three as associate head coach.

Karen Aston is a strong Division 1 Head Coach with 15+ years of head coaching experience and almost 30 years of coaching experience overall. Coach Aston is the current head coach at UTSA while also having previous head coaching roles at Charlotte, North Texas and Texas. Prior to her head coaching career she held multiple assistant roles at Baylor, North Texas and Texas.

Kenny Blakeney is a former Duke Blue Devil and a 2 time NCAA Champion Blakeney took a wide range of coaching stops including James Madison, La Salle, Delaware, Seton Hall, Marshall, Harvard and Columbia all in assistant positions and currently rounding things out where he currently stands as the current Head Coach of Howard University.