Opportunity delivered the interview. Circumstances dictated an all-time memorable experience.
And in the middle of it all?
Chad Chatlos.
That’s among the first memories when Ohio State’s athletics director, Ross Bjork, is asked to reflect on the sphere of influence that is Chatlos, managing partner in Turnkey ZRG.
It’s the firm that handled the searches for the head coaches that captured two biggest national championships in college sports decided in the 2026 calendar year; Chatlos helped place Curt Cignetti at Indiana football and Dusty May with Michigan basketball.
The Hoosiers won the College Football Playoff title in January and Michigan basketball followed with the men’s basketball championship in April.
Still, Bjork laughs about a baseball coaching
interview.
“It's a pretty volatile environment, definitely a lot of airport interviews,” Bjork tells USA TODAY Sports. “I remember we were doing a baseball search and interviewing coaches during a conference tournament and one of the coaches we talked to was so nervous about what he was going to wear, because he told us he literally only brought his baseball uniform and coaches shorts and T-shirts.
“So. he shows up in workout shorts and a T-shirt repping his institution. He was kind of embarrassed, and we were like, ‘So what, we called the meeting?’. But, you’d be surprised the random airports you can fly into that are off the radar, so to speak, to make sure it’s done in confidence.”
In his climb onto the USA TODAY Sports list of 25 most power people in college football, Chatlos has worked for in pro golf in helping run the Korn Ferry Tour, worked Super Bowls, the Masters and the U.S. Open – golf and tennis – for marketing agencies along the way.
The first call for college sports officials
Founding Venture Partners more than a decade ago and merging in 2020 with ZRG, Chatlos has gone from “stretched too thin” across multiple to fronts to oftentimes the first call for athletics directors, university presidents and chancellors and, in recent years, multiple NFL franchises, including the recent Atlanta Falcons coaching search.
The former Naval Academy defensive back and team captain also has emerged as the top option for searches for power conference leadership.
“Shortly after being hired, we won the ACC commissioner search, and then we did all the other Power-Four commissioner searches,” Chatlos, flanked by his wall of helmets from his dozens of football coaches placed, tells USA TODAY Sports. “And just about every major football, basketball, and AD job over the last six years.
“I’ll definitely tell you, it wasn’t my vision board to be doing this, I just wanted to work in sports, but this has been a perfect melding of my business and commercial experience with my love of sports. It’s never boring. Every day I wake up and I’m just like, all right, what exploded?”
While the parameters of searches have exploded, particularly in the 2020s, what has stayed steady has been Chatlos’ approach.
Agents from four prominent firms across the collegiate and coaching landscape each separately praised Chatlos but declined to be quoted publicly as to not project an attempt of potentially swaying any such future search.
“Chad’s the best, love him, don’t want to speak on the record for obvious reasons,” an agent who represents multiple football coaches in the Top 25 rankings told USA TODAY Sports. “He’s always fair. He doesn’t pull punches. You always know what you’re going to get.”
How military background shaped Chad Chatlos
Maybe some of that originates from Chatlos’ roots near Arnold Palmer’s Latrobe, Pennsylvania, home and plenty likely from his six-plus years in active military service following his playing career at Navy.
A former aviation supply officer in the United States Marine Corps, Chatlos assisted in the U.S. Embassy evacuation in Liberia in 1990 and also served missions in Bosnia, as well as being stationed in locales from Athens, Georgia, to North Carolina to San Diego.
Dean Pees, who coached Chatlos at Navy and won Super Bowls as a defensive assistant with both the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots, remembers the devotion to tasks.
Dedication, as expected, is prerequisite for the Naval Academy. Chatlos took it further.
“The biggest thing is what’s crazy about the Naval Academy, normally say that on a normal college football team, a couple dudes are more dedicated than everybody else,” Pees told USA TODAY Sports. “but at the Naval Academy, they’re all dedicated. Special dudes."
Those experiences remain bedrock to Chatlos’ foundational approach in conducting searches.
“The Naval Academy and the Marine Corps — it’s discipline, time management; the things they throw at you at the Naval Academy,” Chatlos said. “We had 120 hours or credits we had to do in four years. Varsity sport, military obligation. It’s just you go for four years, not a lot of downtime. Went through adversity, having our coaching staff fired freshman year. But I would say the discipline, the time management piece, the hard work, communication, leadership.”
Coaching searches go from airports to Zoom
Searches, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic and amidst the greatest half-decade of seismic change in collegiate athletics, have morphed into an all-new realm.
There are fewer airport capers – hidden candidates, hidden clients, Jason Bourne-style subterfuge still has its place, just less frequently – and more video conferences.
Zooms didn’t just take over workplace meetings at the onset of this decade, the video technology merged front-and-center with collegiate athletics and Chatlos’ quest to help Turnkey ZRG find the best candidates for its clients and allow them to make the choice.
“They (Korn Ferry) were doing the SEC commissioner search back in 2015, and they wanted to hear perspective from every A.D. in the league,” Bjork told USA TODAY Sports. “What stood out was that they listened, didn’t come in and think they had all the answers. At Ole Miss, we hired him to do our men’s and women’s basketball searches (2018).”
Now, Bjork regularly hears from Chatlos. Maybe to talk ball. Maybe to talk life. Always before there’s any notion of a search on the horizon.
“Really, since then, Chad’s been the go-to person that I’ve used in the search business because he has a great feel for the industry, a lot of trust he’s built up when doesn’t need anything,” Bjork said.
Coaching search landscape is changing
Every deployable skill is required of Chatlos to conduct a modern search, be it for a head football or basketball coach, an athletics director or a conference commissioner.
The paradigm shift is real. College athletics now has professional coaches, paid players and “roster-acquisition” specialists.
Chatlos saw it in the searches he led to find NCAA President Charlie Baker and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, both in 2022, as well as Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti in 2023.
Building the candidate pool for an executive administrative position, be it an athletics director or commissioner-level job?
“Finding those people in the other lanes, whether it’s pro sports or the public and private sector or business, that have the skill set needed for the modern-day job, but also have that affinity, the IQ-EQ blend of (knowing) I can’t come in and run it like the CEO of Goldman,” Chatlos said. “I understand this is higher education, and I have a lot of stakeholders, and there’s boards, and there’s a president, and coaches and student athletes and Title IX, and college athletics isn’t just for profit. If that was the case, we’d have only a handful of sports."
Revenue generation is at the epicenter of virtually every collegiate search, be it for an administrator or a coach, Chatlos has found over recent cycles.
Colleges not only must pay the coaches’ salaries but those coaches must in turn help generate the revenues that fund rosters in the onset of the House Settlement era, which could take another turn in the coming months pending whether the Protect College Sports Act passes or withers in the House.
College sports transition to pro sports model
Chatlos loves college sports; he knows it must incorporate pro-sports financial models.
“I think we have to monetize our assets on campus better. I think there’s a lot of schools where athletics is over here and universities over here,” said Chatlos, referencing the campus divide oftentimes between academics and athletics. “We have to get together because if I’m a sponsor and I want access not to 500 student athletes, I want access to the 30,000 undergrads, the alumni. What are we doing to take the university and athletic assets and go to market stronger?
“Finding partners that will pay and see the value in it. The pro sports market has done it extremely well. You got bottom-level NFL teams generating $130 million a year, and you got top level college teams generating $75 million. There’s a gap there. We got to get there.”
It’s getting there, Chatlos emphasizes, that is key for college athletics. Whether it’s in a business suit, or shorts and a T-shirt, chances are Chatlos will be right in the middle of it.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Art of the Search: Meet Chad Chatlos, the man inside college coaching searches
