Kevin Goll has spent the last several years as one of the more trusted names in Baylor's athletic department, most recently carrying the title of senior associate AD for strategic vision and innovation. Now he's cashing in that trust to bet on himself, launching a new consulting and search firm called Yorkshire Drive.
NEWS: Baylor senior associate athletic director Kevin Goll is leaving the school to start his own consulting/search company, Yorkshire Drive. Goll worked in the search space prior to returning to Baylor, his alma mater, in 2021. He’s already engaged with multiple power conference athletic departments.
Pete Thamel broke the news that Goll is already working with multiple power conference athletic departments before the company has even had time to hang a shingle, which tells you two things: this isn't a soft landing, it's a real business, and Goll's rolodex from over a decade in the industry is apparently as strong as advertised.
This isn't Goll's first rodeo in the search world, either. Before he came back to Baylor, his alma mater, in 2021, he spent 9 years in management consulting and executive search at Eastman & Beaudine, a firm that's long been one of the go-to names when college and pro sports organizations need to fill coaching or administrator openings. Going to Baylor was the detour; running his own search shop looks like the actual destination.
The timing matters. College athletics is in the middle of the most chaotic administrative stretch in its history, with realignment, revenue sharing, and coaching buyouts scrambling every athletic department's org chart at once. Programs need people who know how to find and vet candidates fast, and search firms are becoming as important to a school's front office as the agents are to its locker room.
That's the market Goll is stepping into with Yorkshire Drive, and having power conference clients lined up on day one suggests he didn't wait around to see if the phone would ring. Baylor now has to backfill a strategy role it clearly valued enough to promote him into just a few years ago, while Goll gets to find out if he can build a firm from scratch the same way he spent his career helping others build their staffs.