Dan Perlmutter | Turning Passion Into Professionalism: The Journey of a Sports Performance Coach

What defines true toughness in coaching? Dan Perlmutter presents an alternative to the “tough strength coach” stereotype, reframing success as adaptability, resilience, and relentless positivity. As Director of Sports Performance and Head Olympic Sports Performance Coach at Duke University, Perlmutter reflects on building a strong culture rooted in genuine relationships and longevity. He explains Duke’s structured approach to developing interns and coaching assistants, highlighting purposeful recruiting and intentional mentorship to transform passion into professionalism. Perlmutter emphasizes a gratitude lens and people-focused philosophy, always prioritizing the athlete in front of him. He also addresses how strength and conditioning coaches can navigate collegiate shifts, such as Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals and the transfer portal, by reinforcing the weight room environment and culture. If you are seeking practical strategies to build a sustainable career and a workplace you look forward to each day, this conversation is your blueprint.

Connect with Dan via email at dan.perlmutter@duke.edu and on Instagram: @theothercoachp | Meet the Duke University Sports Performance Staff on their website | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

“I think it's just making sure that we really, intentionally focus on helping each other out, taking care of each other, working together, filling each other's gaps as staff, right, so that if we really legitimately care about those things […] then it kind of blends into all the things that we do with our athletes. And they see us doing that and functioning that way. And it helps our teams function that way. So maybe it contributes to the team cultures for each sports program here, too.” 7:20

“It takes pretty tough, resilient people to do this work. And everybody finds that toughness and that resiliency in different ways. And I think maybe over the years, there's been a stereotype of what the tough strength coach looks like. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about somebody who is willing to stick it out in tough situations, willing to work really long hours, willing to pivot a million times a day, and adapt a million times a day, and be out in the cold, and then be inside, and then be out in the rain. And all the different challenges that are thrown at us as professionals in this field-- I look at every single one of those as positives. I'm annoyingly positive and optimistic. I'm sure some of the folks around here get sick of me talking this way, but I think there's opportunity in every one of those situations.” 14:45

“One of the big pieces of advice that I would give to young folks who are on the job search right now or figuring out what lane they want to go down is to not forget that this is a people-focused profession. And it's not just you leading or serving athletes. You've got to find a place that you really connect the people that you're-- connect with the people that you're going to work with every day.” 15:58

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]
[00:00:02.48] Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast, season nine, episode four.
[00:00:07.64] It takes pretty tough, resilient people to do this work. And everybody finds that toughness and that resiliency in different ways. And I think maybe over the years, there's been a stereotype of what the tough strength coach looks like. That's not what I'm talking about at all.
[00:00:25.43] I'm talking about somebody who is willing to stick it out in tough situations, willing to work really long hours, willing to pivot a million times a day and adapt a million times a day, and be out in the cold, and then be inside, and then be out in the rain. And all the different challenges that are thrown at us as professionals in this field-- I look at every single one of those as positives. I'm annoyingly positive and optimistic. I'm sure some of the folks around here get sick of me talking this way. But I think there's opportunity in every one of those situations.
[00:01:05.02] This is the NSCA's Coaching Podcast, where we talk to strength and conditioning coaches about what you really need to know but probably didn't learn in school. There's strength and conditioning, and then there's everything else.
[00:01:15.58] This is the NSCA Coaching Podcast. I'm Eric McMahon, NSCA's coaching and sports science program manager. And this year, I had the opportunity to be at the Duke Sports Performance Clinic in Durham, North Carolina. This is an annual clinic that the university's strength and conditioning staff puts on every year. But when I got there, there was a really special culture going on around the weight room and with the staff. Today to share with us, we have Duke's director of sport performance, Dan Perlmutter, with us. Dan, welcome.
[00:01:48.70] Thank you. Appreciate you having me on, Eric.
[00:01:51.43] Yeah, man. Going back through, I realized we had some Springfield College connections going back a few years. You were there a few years before I was, but really good community coming out of there and speaks to what you've built at Duke. Tell us about that Duke program. How many teams do you have training? And how have you built the staff there?
[00:02:10.99] Yeah, so we have three facilities here. We've got a really big staff fortunately, which is awesome. And on the Olympic sports side of things, in our biggest facility, we have 24 sports programs. Our basketball facility has the men and women on the basketball side training together. And then football facility has the football team.
[00:02:32.47] I think we have 15 or 16 full-time coaches all together. Each area has assistants and interns. So you're a total staff of well over 20. And then you add in the sports science folks, who are embedded with us all the time. And it's a really, really special situation over here.
[00:02:50.12] To put it in perspective, when I got here in 2009, there were about 2 and 1/2 of us on the Olympic sports side. So we've been able to really build up and build out the kind of depth and breadth of the support that we can give to all of our different sports teams here. We end up having, on the Olympic sports side, about two to three teams per coach, which is a great ratio.
[00:03:16.01] And we're very thoughtful as we get new staff about assigning teams, where the coach can really get immersed in everything that each team does, whether it's traveling, or sidelines, or warmups, cooldowns, recovery work, all of the kind of auxiliary stuff around the main team activities. I think that's where some of our staff makes the biggest connections with their athletes and with their colleagues on the coaching side and the other support areas. So we're really fortunate that we're able to have been able to build up to a level where we're able to do that.
[00:03:54.97] You got to Duke in 2009. Is that right?
[00:03:58.50] Yep.
[00:03:59.18] Coming over from Harvard, another obviously very high academic school. Is there a unique nature when you're at institutions that are really known for their academics? Obviously, Duke has some big-time basketball and lacrosse, but maybe a unique layer to what you have to do?
[00:04:17.39] Sure, yeah. My experience has been that college athletes tend to be more similar from school to school than people would expect. I think especially at a really highly competitive tier of competition, I think it takes so much to be able to even get on the radar recruiting-wise that I think-- I've worked with "smart kids," in air quotes, for a long time, but I think they're very, very similar in how they operate and how they communicate to kids in schools all over the country, whether it's Division I, Division II, Division III, mid-major, Power 4, whatever.
[00:05:04.76] I think one of the things that I've found really specifically to Duke and Harvard-- in other words, just based on my experience over the years-- is that the athletes that I've had the opportunity to coach have been very inquisitive, very curious, in a super positive way about how and why we do things. And I think it's just because I've been around thoughtful young people.
[00:05:27.84] They really want to understand how it works. They want to know why what we choose to do is effective and how it's going to connect and transfer to their performance on the practice surface or the competitive surface. So I don't know whether I could trace that back to working with, again, quote unquote, "really smart kids" or just the places that I've been. That's been my experience.
[00:05:50.93] Yeah, that makes sense. And you mentioned your staff has grown from 2 and 1/2 to 20 plus over that many years. And maybe that inquisitive nature really allows for a lot of growth into the sports sciences and some of those areas. One thing I notice-- you've been there for a while. Some of your coaches-- you've created some longevity on your staff. And everybody just seemed really close, which was refreshing to see, just an awesome culture and close-knit group. How does that relationship with your staff members help the program develop?
[00:06:30.76] I think that we have created a workplace that people really want to be in, right? And I think that is a huge piece that maybe sometimes folks forget in our field, because we're very student-athlete-centered, which we should be, but we can't forget the actual people that fill the roles that support the student athletes. And I think if we try to create a space that people are excited to come to every day, then you get longevity, right?
[00:07:02.07] I'm in my dream job. I've been in my dream job for a long time. And I get the sense that a lot of the folks that work here with me and with our teams feel pretty similar. And I don't think there's a magic bullet. I don't think there's any kind of secret potion to it. I think it's just making sure that we really, intentionally focus on helping each other out, taking care of each other, working together, filling each other's gaps as staff, right, so that if we really legitimately care about those things, which I think we do, then it kind of blends into all the things that we do with our athletes.
[00:07:40.00] And they see us doing that and functioning that way. And it helps our teams function that way. So maybe it contributes to the team cultures for each sports program here, too. But I think you just have, at the end of the day, people that really love showing up for work here every day, which is awesome.
[00:07:57.53] Yeah, no. It's perfect. You had a ton of interns helping at the event when I was there-- like I mentioned, just the positive energy among that group. Speak to your philosophy when it comes to intern and coaching development. How do you progress staff members from year to year so that they're not just staying stagnant, as they want to be there for a number of years?
[00:08:21.68] Sure, yeah. Well, I mean, first off, 100% of the credit for the intern program goes to Megan Hattori, who's our director in that area. She develops our interns and our coaching assistants. And she's done a tremendous job building that program out.
[00:08:37.31] When I came to Duke from Harvard, that was one of my tasks because we didn't really have an established intern program here. And I kind of took the baby steps so that she could take the tremendous adult steps. She's built it out into this juggernaut of a development program for young coaches.
[00:08:58.21] And again, it's been very thoughtful. It's been very intentional. And we look for folks that want to do this for a living for a long time. And I think that seems very simple. But I think that's crucial to how successful the intern program has been.
[00:09:13.65] We have folks that-- younger folks that are kind of testing the waters in the different parts of allied health and support around athletics. And that's awesome. Folks that aren't sure yet-- maybe they're an undergrad or a grad student or in between. I'm not sure if I wanted to go athletic training or PT or sports science or strength and conditioning.
[00:09:33.93] I love working with folks in all those areas, but I think we've been very thoughtful, meaning Megan has been really thoughtful in the people that she recruits and then trains and develops here, folks that really want to do this. They're passionate about it before they even get here. And then she helps them turn that passion into really defined and refined professionalism. And so I think they get a leg up on folks that are early 20s, mid 20s, maybe at other areas.
[00:10:03.33] And that, I think, has been the foundation of our professional staff development, too, because our professional staff that have been here for anywhere from a couple years up to 16, 17 years, they see how much time and effort our younger staff members put into their own development. And it inspires them to continue the professional development as established coaches.
[00:10:29.57] I think you ask 100 strength coaches, every single one of them is going to say, hey, I'm a lifelong learner, and I want to keep learning, right? It's an industry buzz thing now, right? I feel like I'm surrounded by folks who really, genuinely are excited for new development, new ideas. Whether it's cutting edge or it's old school or whatever term we use, they want to continue to get better and grow. And I think that really starts with us being inspired by our interns.
[00:10:59.53] Yeah, man, that hit me when you said, we're looking for people that want to do this for a long time. And that really connected with me. I think there's a lot of coaches out there-- students, young coaches-- who have a really strong passion for this. But maybe, whether it's fears for this profession, some uncertainty of what it might expect, they don't know exactly what they're going to be.
[00:11:25.61] And I'll be the first to say to everyone, you don't know exactly where you're going to land in life, in your career. There's a lot of things ahead of you that are going to happen. But that passion can carry you through, that passion for taking care of your body, strength training, whatever it may be that draws you towards strength and conditioning. We do hear some themes on this episode of what motivates people towards this profession in their early years. What would you say it was for you, Dan? Like, why did you want to become a strength and conditioning coach?
[00:12:02.49] That's a really good question. And what's funny, we have our interns interview everyone on staff as part of the curriculum so they can learn everybody's background. And they always ask that question. And I'm good at asking those questions, and I'm much less good at answering them with one answer.
[00:12:19.90] But I think, honestly, what it boiled down for me-- I had a deep passion for sports and athletics and fitness and exercise. That was kind of underlying. For me, this was the perfect intersection of that passion and love with wanting to be a helper, just nothing more complicated than that. I wanted to do something where I helped people.
[00:12:44.02] It's cool as [MUTED] that I get to do that in a gym, right? There's a lot of other places in the world, a lot of other avenues, that I could have gone down to be a helper. But the fact that I to get up early and come into a gym every day and be a professional helper, I think it's easily the best job in the world. But I think the fact that we get to do that, to help people with established, individual goals in a collective setting as team members who are helping each other, is the perfect crossroads that I was looking for before I even knew what I was looking for.
[00:13:23.66] I think our listeners hearing you speak about the profession, you come across really positive. I mean, you have a great situation at Duke. And I think that's one thing that we all hope to find ourselves in. There's probably some coaches out there that have experienced some hardships, have lost a job, or have bounced around maybe a little more than you have. Maybe going back to the early stages, where you didn't quite know where you were going to land, what advice do you have for coaches so that they can find that dream job, as you mentioned, for themselves?
[00:13:57.38] Yeah, it may be starting to become kind of a cliché at this point when we talk about looking through a gratitude lens and functioning around gratitude. We talk to our athletes here a lot about that and certainly staff as well. And I think that if you can fall back on that sense of gratitude for what you have going for you at any given moment, regardless of whether you're not in the job you want, or you're looking for the job that you want, or you've been removed from a job that you liked, I think you can always go back to that as a foundational lens to look through when you wake up every morning, right? So I think that's the first part.
[00:14:44.84] I think the second part is it takes pretty tough, resilient people to do this work. And everybody finds that toughness and that resiliency in different ways. And I think maybe over the years, there's been a stereotype of what the tough strength coach looks like. That's not what I'm talking about at all.
[00:15:04.54] I'm talking about somebody who is willing to stick it out in tough situations, willing to work really long hours, willing to pivot a million times a day, and adapt a million times a day, and be out in the cold, and then be inside, and then be out in the rain. And all the different challenges that are thrown at us as professionals in this field-- I look at every single one of those as positives.
[00:15:29.78] I'm annoyingly positive and optimistic. I'm sure some of the folks around here get sick of me talking this way, but I think there's opportunity in every one of those situations. So if you bring it back to a younger coach who's trying to figure it out, trying to find the path, I think if you look at every experience that you have as an opportunity to learn and grow, then that helps refine and shape where you want to end up.
[00:15:58.38] One of the big pieces of advice that I would give to young folks who are on the job search right now or figuring out what lane they want to go down is to not forget that this is a people-focused profession. And it's not just you leading or serving athletes. You've got to find a place that you really connect the people that you're-- connect with the people that you're going to work with every day.
[00:16:24.72] I've never been somebody that's been kind of chasing a brand, chasing a big-brand school or a big-brand organization or a big-brand sport. When people ask me who are my favorite athletes to coach, I just tell them, the people that are in front of me. Like, it doesn't matter, whoever's in front of me.
[00:16:41.43] So I think sometimes folks get a little bit blinded by big-brand stuff, big conference stuff, certainly by big money offers, if somebody's lucky enough to find a big money offer. But I think you really got to be careful about is not forgetting that you're going to need to work really well with people lots and lots of hours every week all year. So part of what you should be looking for is a place that you're going to really want to show up to work excited every day.
[00:17:15.80] I love that advice. I think it's-- I mean, there's a lot of value to reframing the negative into positive in this profession. You mentioned some of the simple things. I say hardships in the profession, a lot of coaches would go right to salaries or something like that. But you're like, hey, we're standing out on the field in a rainstorm. And there's a lot of places I'd rather be at that moment. But hey, I'm with the team, or we're wrapping up or whatever it may be, and that's just part of the position.
[00:17:46.92] So there's so much there. And I do-- I appreciate your positivity, Dan. I think it's really refreshing to hear a passion that you developed for sport, really, in general, led you to strength and conditioning. You found a path. I think we're getting better as a profession of formalizing education pathways and different things that provide resources to coaches. But maybe all those weren't developed as much back when you were going through.
[00:18:22.91] There's so much going on in college athletics right now. It's a lot of change, a lot of articles in the news. Do you feel like this is a time that strength and conditioning coaches really need to pay attention to these things? Do you feel like NIL and transfer portal and all these areas, do you think it's important, or should we just focus on what we do best and stay in the weight room?
[00:18:49.58] I think we are in such an important role in these young people's lives that we work with that we have to be aware of the 50,000-foot view of things that are happening. And we have to be just as aware and just as focused on the boots-on-the-ground, in-the-moment, ground-level view of things. I think we spend-- we should be spending the vast majority of our time with our feet on the ground and being in the moment with our athletes. But I think we can't afford to be unaware of some of these title changes that are happening around athletics, certainly at the college level, but just athletics in general.
[00:19:33.74] And I've said this for a long time. In my experience, student athletes gravitate towards people that they're in the closest proximity to the most often to lean on for support, right? So they're going to come to if you spend a lot of time with them. And they're going to come to you with concerns and questions and ideas about all these things that are changing, maybe for things that you have no expertise in, right, that are outside your purview as a strength and conditioning professional. But it doesn't mean that you're not an important person as a listener and a helper for them.
[00:20:07.86] And if they are coming to you with something in an area that doesn't specifically connect to a workout or a recovery session or getting ready for a game, that's awesome because it means they trust you to be a listener, give them advice, help them, right? You almost become a surrogate parent. I mean, in a way, you really are a surrogate parent when they're away from home and at school with you.
[00:20:31.27] So I think we can't afford to not be thinking about these things and not be aware of those things that are happening. But I think if you bring it back full circle to what we do every day, it makes what we do even more important. We're fortunate enough at a place like Duke, where Duke is a destination school for students, not just athletes. So it's kind of like the-- again, that perfect cross-section of the student athlete identity, right-- high-level athletics, high-level academics, really high-performing post-graduate jobs and continuing education beyond the undergrad world.
[00:21:08.11] So we don't maybe have as many people that are jumping into the portal as some other places are, whether it's an NIL attraction or another type of magnet that's pulling somebody away from their current school. I think we're just fortunate just because Duke as an academic institution tends to keep people, right? But it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.
[00:21:28.15] And as NIL and the power behind that gets bigger and bigger, what I've talked to our staff about is, hey, if you're doing a great job making the weight room and the spaces that you function in every day be a place that your athletes are excited to come to, then you don't really have to worry about much, right?
[00:21:48.27] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:21:49.58] If that's part of what you focus on-- and they're excited for the right reasons to come work with us. They're not just excited to come to us because they like us just because we're nice to them. It's because they value the development. They value the relationship. They see the connection between the work that we're doing with them, and success on the field, and success in life, and their health, and all that stuff. So I think we can't miss the forest for the trees, but we can't miss the trees for the forest either.
[00:22:15.26] Yeah. No, that makes sense. I mean, as a strength and conditioning coach-- running a staff, running teams-- we can create a weight room environment and culture that is just one more thing that's harder for student athletes to leave behind. And that's not a bad mindset to go into this with because there's a lot of uncertainty, right, of, Is this player going to be here the next year? from year to year. And things can happen.
[00:22:44.77] And it goes back we need to support what's best for these student athletes. That might be, for some of them, going on to another institution. But like you said, Duke has a really good thing going on. So maybe you've been a little insulated from that.
[00:22:59.81] But it's refreshing to hear that. I love that you can relate to the outside influences, but you always pull it back. You pull it back to your staff, and probably why you've been able to build such a impactful group, a really positive group.
[00:23:15.67] I was impressed by the event you put on, the Duke Winter Sport Performance Clinic-- huge staff involvement. Everybody had a role. This is above and beyond. You don't have to do this every year. A lot of programs do. Some don't have clinics for the community and other areas. Why do you do this? Why do you feel like it's important?
[00:23:39.97] Yeah, I think-- first of all, thanks. I appreciate you coming and speaking. And it was a huge, huge addition to this year's event, having you there, not just representing the NSCA, but you, who you are. I mean, you're really important to us. And you're really important to the field.
[00:23:58.84] The quality of the event-- I'll give credit to Josh Jirgal, who is our clinic lead. And then several of us are on a clinic committee. And then all the tentacles from the clinic committee involve everybody on staff. So I think it's just well organized. And if it's well organized and well prepared, then hopefully it shows up as a good event on the day of.
[00:24:20.68] I thought the staff was stellar prepping for that and rolling it out. And I think it's just because they showed who they really are. I think we're not trying to be anybody different than who we are on the day that we put the face of Duke forward to the public. Whether it's in our field or hosting recruits or going out and speaking or whatever, it's just we want people to see who we genuinely are.
[00:24:52.68] And I think if you're well organized going into it, and you care about each other, and you're very genuine about that stuff, I think people feel that, right? Maybe it's just kind of an it factor, where you can't quite put your finger on it.
[00:25:07.41] But I really appreciate how passionate everyone on this staff was to get involved from the event planning side, but then also how excited they were to learn from everybody that came to speak and interact with everybody that came to meet and network and play together and hang out together.
[00:25:31.23] There's always a buzz that weekend around here in Durham for that event from our staff and on campus. I think we had something like 40 or 50 people from the Duke community at the event. And that didn't include 12 or 15 of our PT doctoral students that came.
[00:25:51.59] So I think there's value that's been shown for learning and community and development. And I think I mentioned it at the event at one point-- just kind of pushing the field forward, pushing everybody forward a little bit, nudging everybody forward a little bit in all those different ways that I mentioned. But I think it just comes back to being genuine, right? I mean, I think we've got awesome people. And if we're genuine when we show that to the world, then I think people will see it.
[00:26:19.49] Yeah. No, it comes through loud and clear. You care about Duke. You care about your program. You care about this profession. And going above and beyond is something that is important. It's important for the NSCA. And we try to do as much as we can. But everyone at your institution at the individual level-- hopefully, you get inspired, or hopefully we can inspire you to take the next step of how you get involved, how you do something that takes us forward as a profession. That's really what we need.
[00:26:54.65] What we're doing today as a profession is credit to many people, years and years before I was in the profession, before Dan was in the profession. And it's something that-- that's something I'm really passionate about is carrying it forward, making it better than I found it, making it a more sustainable profession as a whole than maybe I entered. And it's something that if we can do that, it will mean a lot to a lot of people. It will help our athletes. It will help our institutions. It'll grow our reputation as a profession.
[00:27:31.56] And Dan, I really like-- you speak to having passion for this profession that comes through and what I just said. You talked a little bit about what toughness means in this profession. And I liked your alternative take on that that is much different than maybe we've considered it in the past.
[00:27:53.50] I know some people are going to want to reach out. I'm going to include the link to the Duke sport performance staff website in the show notes. But what's the best way to contact you if someone wants to talk?
[00:28:06.19] Yeah, I'm on Instagram. And I'm in touch with folks a lot on Instagram through the messaging part of that. I'm at theothercoachp, all lowercase, very easy to find. And I've actually connected with a lot of folks from the clinic post event that just reached out and wanted to chat. And the most exciting folks that I've talked to since then have been all the students that attended that all wanted to do follow-ups and learn more and talk about shadowing our staff and just asking questions and picking people's brains. And that was awesome. That's what that kind of event should do, right?
[00:28:44.35] Totally.
[00:28:44.92] It should spark passion in other people. That's probably the easiest way. I'm also-- my email is Dan.Perlmutter-- P-E-R-L-M-U-T-T-E-R-- @duke.edu. Welcome to send an email. I'm happy to chat that way. And I've set up a lot of one-on-one Zooms and even group stuff with folks from Springfield and other schools just to chat, talk shop, answer questions, ask questions, learn from each other.
[00:29:13.51] Awesome. Dan, thanks so much for being with us. Really great episode. Hopefully, it was a pick-me-up for someone on the way to work today. If you're in the pits about anything in this profession, as always, you can reach out to me, and I'll try to help you out. But this episode has a lot to be positive about.
[00:29:31.73] There are some really great, as you mentioned, destinations in this profession that, from person to person, can take you to a really positive place and make you the coach you want to be. So we hope you take this episode forward into your coaching path. Also, special thanks to Sorinex Exercise Equipment. We appreciate their support.
[00:29:51.18] Hey, this is Justin Lovett from the Los Angeles Rams. Honored to be the 2024 Professional Coach of the Year for the National Strength and Conditioning Association. It's been a great experience to be on the NSCA Coaching Podcast. Learn more about the NSCA at NSCA.com.
[00:30:10.86] [MUSIC PLAYING]
[00:30:13.08] This was the NSCA's Coaching Podcast. The National Strength and Conditioning Association was founded in 1978 by strength and conditioning coaches to share information, resources, and help advance the profession. Serving coaches for over 40 years, the NSCA is the trusted source for strength and conditioning professionals. Be sure to join us next time.

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