Brad D. Smith at the 2025 Campbell Trophy Summit

Wow, thank you, Mark, for that kind introduction. I also want to thank you and the team for once again organizing what I believe is the most inspiring gathering of leaders anywhere in the country. I say this every year I have the opportunity to come and speak to you. For those who've been back in prior years, what makes this event distinctive and special is — you can't buy a ticket to get in; you have to earn your seat at the table. Every one of you who've been nominated for the William B. Campbell Trophy have done just that. It is my privilege to be here with you this morning because you are the best of the best. Elite student athletes. Purpose-driven leaders. It's my privilege because you carry the name of a man who not only coached and mentored and shaped my life, but did that for hundreds and thousands of others. It's a privilege because I have the opportunity to return that favor and give back by investing in you through shared learning, real conversations, and experiences you're going to have today and tomorrow that'll be a mix of inspiration and perspiration.

I've had the opportunity, as Mark said, to be with him, Mike, Mo, Diane over every year the Campbell Trophy Summit has been in existence. Over those years, I've shared my stories, my memories, the lessons I learned from Bill Campbell. Most recently, I codified that in a piece of work I shared a couple of years ago called 'The Five Principles of Leadership.' These are principles Bill led and lived his life by. The first was 'Potential.' When Bill saw someone, he saw two people: the person you are and the person you're capable of being. He made it his life's work to introduce those two people. After 'Potential,' he went to 'Purpose.' Bill understood that we're our best selves when we sign up for a cause greater than ourselves. So he challenged me and the company to define an ideal state, a grand challenge, a vision that got your heart beating fast and moved from individual ability to collective capability. Because if your dreams can be achieved alone, you're not dreaming big enough. The third 'P' was 'People.' Bill knew it was not about a team of all-stars; it is an all-star team. He tried to help us understand how to get the group playing collectively. He used to quote Coach John Wooden: 'A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player.'

The fourth principle was 'Playbook.' Bill was the master of simplifying the complex. He used to say, 'Put more wood behind fewer arrows. Do less, better.' He got down to the critical few. He didn't believe in David Letterman's Top 10. If you had more than five things on your sheet, he took his red marker and scratched off the ones he thought weren't important to help you get focused. The last was 'Pay It Forward.' Bill lived this example. There's an old Greek proverb: 'Society grows great when the current generation plants trees under whose shade they will never sit.' Bill Campbell did that. Today is an example of that. The lessons he taught, the way he lived his life, continues to inspire us almost a decade after his passing, and you carry forth his name. Those are things I've talked about in prior years. Today I want to talk about a topic that is both timely and timeless: 'How do you lead in periods of disruption and division?' There's no question today the pace of change is accelerating exponentially faster. Think of generative AI, geopolitical changes, technological changes, social changes, economic changes. At Marshall University, I feel like I'm dancing between raindrops just trying to stay dry. In periods like this, many people choose to armor up, defend, divide, or even worse, disengage. Leadership expects more of us, and Bill Campbell would demand more. So I'm going to share with you four pragmatic tips I learned through the decades I worked with Bill Campbell that I'm applying almost a decade after he passed because his message still resonates.

The first tip: 'How to handle hard better.' This past year, women's collegiate basketball was really exciting. The Duke women's basketball team was on a roll, then hit a trough. I was watching an interview with the coach, Kara Lawson. She said, 'I had a conversation with my team in the locker room. One of my players looked me in the eye and said, Coach, when's it going to get easier?' She said, 'We don't get to choose the adversity we face. Life's not going to get easier. What happens is, you learn to handle hard better.' We have an opportunity to choose how we respond to adversity and who we face it with. Bill often told me, 'Brad, you're going to become who you surround yourself with. Surround yourself with people who look at adversity as an opportunity to learn and grow, who sharpen your thinking, push you beyond your limits, and most importantly, help you laugh when life is getting hard.' So my first pragmatic lesson: surround yourself with people who've learned to handle hard better and be that person in someone else's life. Look for the silver lining in every crisis and challenge, because it is there.

The second lesson: 'Seek to understand before you seek to be understood.' When I hire new employees, whether at Intuit, on the university campus, or head coaches, I look for three things: intellectual curiosity, humility, and teamwork. If they bring those, they will navigate any stressful situation and preserve relationships. We're living in a world where people think shouting is more powerful than listening. But great leaders understand you don't build trust until you listen with humility and intention. I heard someone say about Martin Luther King that what made his life impactful is he learned to speak without being offensive and listen without being defensive, leaving even his adversary with their dignity at the end of a disagreement. That is the highest level of civil discourse, and it's becoming a lost art. We have an opportunity to bring that back into our daily lives. Because leadership isn't always about having the final word; it's about figuring out how to ask the better question.

My third lesson: 'Debate to discover the best idea, not to win the argument.' When we get into a debate, we have a position, but the real opportunity is to let new data shape your mindset and think differently. The goal is not getting your idea advanced, but getting to the best idea. The way we can do this in our companies, cultures, and teams is to create an environment like Bill Campbell did at Intuit, where the meritocracy of the idea is more powerful than PowerPoint, politics, and persuasion. Two techniques to create that environment: first, 'Evidence-Based Assertions.' Frame your point of view in a way that minimizes ego and invites discussion. The frame is, 'Because of blank, I believe blank.' 'Because of this data, experience, or another company doing it, I believe we should do this.' That grounds your idea in objective evidence and depersonalizes it so people can attack and improve the idea. Second, 'Perspective Switching.' During the 1960s, after the Bay of Pigs failure, President Kennedy faced Khrushchev and Castro. His younger brother Bobby Kennedy made the hawks argue the doves' point of view and the doves argue the hawks' point of view. It turned opposition into empathy. Forced them to walk in the other person's shoes. The nation made the right decision. President Kennedy heard all perspectives and made the best decision.

My last point: 'How to remain grounded without losing your roots, but bend when change requires you to bend.' This is based on a Buddhist principle: 'In the face of a fierce storm, the mighty oak stands tall and rigid, only to be snapped by the wind. But the reed, deeply rooted in the ground, bends until the storm has passed and remains standing.' Leadership is not about being immovable; it is about knowing when to stand firm and when to bend, knowing what grounds you — your values and principles. Which brings me to you. You are the change we need. You represent a trophy about character. The world needs more of what you do every day. I ask you to seize these next two days, get your confidence, and go out in the world to be the beacon Bill Campbell was. Show people what it's like to handle hard better, speak without being offensive, listen without being defensive, build a culture where ideas matter more than egos, and bend without losing who you are in times of change. Be bold, be curious, be kind — but please, be you. You are William V. Campbell Trophy nominees. You carry the name of the greatest man I've ever known. The world needs Bill, so the world needs you. Thank you, have a great summer, God bless.

I think I have a couple of minutes for questions. I'm looking at the clock. These questions don't have to be about these four principles. In prior years, people have asked questions. Am I good to 8:30? I can filibuster. Steve Young? I thought he ran a hurry-up offense. That dude's not here? All right, I'm calling an audible. Honestly, questions about anything around leadership, anything about Bill Campbell, anything about higher ed, the fun of NIL and Transfer Portal that I live every day. Yeah.

I can. I'll give you an example. I stepped into an academic setting. I never planned to do it. I don't have a PhD. I'm a non-traditional president, but I'm the first alumnus to serve Marshall in 188 years. My mom and dad had GEDs. They got me and my two brothers through college, so I was first-gen. They bought me these rings because they kept their promise, and I've never taken this ring off because my mom and dad sacrificed for me. This is my purpose, a promise kept. When I show up at Harvard the first year for the Presidents' Forum, there was a new discussion around DEI, woke, anti-DEI, and we're going to have to change these things. We had an amazing president from the University of Baltimore, Maryland. He was a renowned leader who marched with Martin Luther King. I raised my hand and said, 'Sir, I'm living in a state with a lot of concern about language used and things in place. I don't mean this as a political statement. From a values perspective, I came from humble beginnings where people made fun of my accent. I've tried to be a champion for the overlooked and underserved. How can I be a university president when things I think are important may not be viewed as acceptable because of language?' He looked at me and said, 'Bless your heart.' I was waiting for him to say, 'Yeah, I marched for that.' But he said, 'Do you think the students care what words or language you use? They care about whether you love them, support them, and if you're with them every day. Create the environment you know is important and forget about the words.' In that situation, I had to get past my ego wanting to be mighty or an oak, and instead realize this was about empathy — getting in the ditch with someone and saying, 'We're going to walk out of this together.' Find what allows you to stay grounded, and separate the rest, saying, 'It's OK to bend.' Storms pass, and you'll still be grounded, able to thrive. This is not intended to be a political discussion. It's a real-life example. I got trained for years to use certain words, and then those words weren't the ones I was supposed to use, and I was completely confused and vulnerable. I got tough love. I'm a reed now.

There are five characteristics I think about in leadership: strategic thinking, drive for results, building a high-performance organization or culture, innovate for impact, and inspire through action. For me, building a high-performance culture was a skill I had to learn and develop. It's an environment where you go from having all the answers to asking the right questions. How do you empower people? Bill used to say, 'The job of a leader is not to put greatness in somebody. God already did that. The job of a leader is to create an environment where their greatness can shine.' You have to move people into positions and help them develop. That was hard. The hard part was sometimes you have to let people go. Bill was the first to tell you when your team wasn't performing. He always thought he could coach people to greatness. I have that same gene. I tend to stay too long with an individual because I believe in my heart they're capable. The hardest thing for me is knowing when to say, 'I've given it everything, they've given it everything, and we have to move on.' That's still hard for me.

I did a listening tour my first 100 days. I met with faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, Board of Governors, political officials, other university presidents. I asked them three questions. First: 'What's the greatest untapped opportunity at Marshall University that you can't figure out why we haven't gone after?' Second: 'What is the biggest risk you see facing Marshall that we have blinders on and no action plan?' Third: 'What's the one thing I could do to screw it up?' That's where you get the gold. Sometimes I alter that to, 'What's the one thing you think no one has had the confidence to tell me that I should know?' It's always, 'Speaking for a friend...' but you get really good stuff like, 'Dude, you talk too much.'

Yeah. Others? Is Steve Young here yet? One minute. We got time for another question. One more question.

It's a great question. We just did this at Marshall Monday and Tuesday of this week. We had a strategy retreat. We do it once a year. You build an operating rhythm. This is when we think strategy, put dashboards together, welcome students back. You build a time to pull up the nose of the plane and look out the windshield, not at the dashboard. We come up with a framework we all agree to adopt. If everyone has their own definition of leadership or innovation, you get the Tower of Babel. We agree on a philosophy, train on it, give feedback with a tool like SBI: Situation, Behavior, Impact. 'In this situation, I saw you say these things, the behavior was you had a stern look and didn't take a breath, the impact was the person on the other side began to shrivel. Here's a coaching tip.' We do that with our leadership model. 'Love you like a brother, love you like a sister, but in this situation, I saw this behavior, this is the impact, and I think this is the opportunity to do something differently.'

We're good? We're good. We're great. Filibuster is over. Appreciate ya. Take care.