Brian Polian Biography

Brian Polian has served in leadership roles in and around college athletics for over 25 years. His career began as a football coach at the NCAA Division I level with stops as an assistant at Michigan State, Buffalo, Baylor, UCF, Stanford, Texas A&M, Notre Dame, and LSU. He distinguished himself as a special teams coordinator and recruiting coordinator, developing a reputation as one of the finest coaches, recruiters, and roster-builders in the country. His units on the field appeared at or near the top of the national rankings regularly throughout his career. On the recruiting front, ESPN.com, Rivals, and 247 recognized him as one of the top recruiters in the country at the conclusion of multiple recruiting cycles.

Brian also has experience as a head coach, having guided the University of Nevada, Reno football program for four seasons. He led the Wolf Pack to two bowl games in four years and unprecedented academic success. Throughout his time as a coach, he also helped guide the future of college football by serving on the AFCA Ethics Committee and on the inaugural College Football Officials Competition Committee. In recent years, Brian shifted from leadership on the field to leadership in administration. He served as Associate Athletic Director/General Manager of Football at LSU, and most recently, has taken on the role of Director of Athletics at John Carroll University.

Brian grew up around the game of football at the highest levels. He is the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame and Super Bowl winning NFL executive, Bill Polian. His lessons in leadership have been drawn from legendary coaches like Marv Levy, Tony Dungy, and Nick Saban, to name just a few.

Reflecting on his time in coaching, Polian noticed a shift in the mental/emotional make-up of the young people with whom he was working and began to dive deeper on that subject. In 2020, he published the book Coaching and Teaching Generation Z: Honor the Relationships and a second edition was published in 2023. He has also used his more than two decades of experience to develop programming to help professionals grow in both the Responsibility of Leadership and in Effective Coaching. NFL franchises, collegiate athletic departments, school districts, and businesses of all kinds have invited him in to help their people get better.

Polian is a graduate of John Carroll University, where he was a student-athlete competing in football. He also has a master’s of science in education from Baylor University. Brian and his wife, Laura, have two children, Aidan and Charlotte and they currently reside in Solon, OH.

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