Meet D1.relocation, a Company for Coaches on the Move

“I think my husband has bought almost all of our houses without me seeing them (in person),” says Meredith, who used to be a high school math teacher. “Being a teacher and having kids, finding time to go look at houses and things like that was really hard. It’s a lot of stress. You’re still unsure, even though people are telling you, oh, this is the school you want to go to. There are all kinds of worries. And then you have to find doctors and dentists and orthodontists and all the things. It’s really hard and a lot of research.”  

The frequency of those moves and the challenges they presented led Meredith to an idea: Why wasn’t there a relocation company dedicated specifically to helping the families of college coaches and administrators? Such services existed in the corporate sector, but not in the volatile and ever-changing industry of college sports.

Meredith took the concept to people with more experience in the business world, including veteran college athletics administrator Daniel Feig, who served as the Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics at the University of South Carolina Upstate for five years. Feig was passionate about the subject, having moved four times in a nine-year span during his career. His second son was born just three weeks after his family relocated from Birmingham to Jonesboro, where he had landed the position of Assistant Athletics Director for Compliance at Arkansas State. 

Partnering with Feig, a small team devised what it refers to as the “Director of Relocation Operations” model and launched D1.relocation. The company acts as a concierge service for relocating families within the NCAA’s ecosystem, managing every detail of their moves to make their transitions as smooth as possible.

While D1.relocation was founded in the pre-NIL era, the business has become even more essential given the monumental changes to the NCAA landscape in recent years. The college basketball coaching carousel has never spun more wildly than it has since the introduction of NIL in 2021 and the subsequent explosion of the transfer portal. With money involved, the pressure on coaches to win has increased while the patience from athletic departments and donors has decreased. There were more than 50 head coaching changes in Division I men’s basketball this offseason, including at major programs such as North Carolina, NC State, Cincinnati, Syracuse and Providence. Most of those coaches built new staffs or brought along assistants from their previous jobs, leading to even more movement.

The stress associated with those moves, particularly for coaches with families, often goes overlooked. To complicate matters further, basketball coaches who relocate during the spring have to get right to work reconstructing their rosters via the portal, often passing all other responsibilities to their partners. “They take a job, they look at their spouse and say, ‘I gotta go.’ And they’re gone,” says Nick Uhlenhopp, Director of Operations at D1.relocation. Uhlenhopp has spent more than two decades in college athletics, holding football operations positions at Western Kentucky, Western Michigan, Iowa State and Boston College. “And the spouse is sitting there, like, what do I do next? Well, the first call should be to D1.”

Back on Air with Doug Gottlieb: How to Build a Division-I Schedule

Green Bay coach and media personality Doug Gottlieb is back with hot takes on NCAA Tournament expansion, recruiting and Miami of Ohio’s scheduling gambit

D1.relocation provides each customer a single point of contact — a “relocation specialist,” often a former coach or coach’s spouse — to coordinate all aspects of their move. Services range from organizing the shipment of furniture and vehicles to helping clients buy homes, set up WiFi and utilities, find the best schools and doctors, build comprehensive financial plans and more. The specialist is a resource for any needs a customer might have throughout the process. “They’re not having to talk to seven different people. They can just always come to me,” says Meredith, the company’s Relocation Team Leader. “We’re just here as a concierge service, so any research you might need, we help with that. And they can use whatever services they want.”

The business is partnered with dozens of athletic departments across the conferences, from Miami and Illinois to Kansas State and Gonzaga. The institutions use D1.relocation to ensure their new hires are fully supported, onboarded smoothly and able to start working right away without any distractions. 

An increasing number of D1.relocation’s customers are from the hoops world. The company has assisted several men’s and women’s basketball coaches with relocations in the past few months. The carousel is not expected to slow down any time soon, as leeway for coaches appears to be diminishing every year. Athletic departments have also demonstrated a willingness to pay coaches’ buyout fees to start over and hopefully reinvigorate their donors. Of course, it only takes a few notable firings to trigger a domino effect. 

“At the time of the thought of (D1.relocation), NIL didn’t exist,” Meredith says. “This started a little bit before Covid, so those things were not factors at the time. But as we were growing, we’re like, oh my gosh. This really could take off.”

With thousands of college athletes relocating every offseason — close to 3,000 men’s basketball players entered the portal in the two weeks that it was open — there’s a clear opportunity for potential expansion. It was recently announced that College.town, a professional resources hub for leaders in college athletics, acquired a controlling interest in D1.relocation. The acquisition will expand D1.relocation’s services to include “NIL-related student-athlete transitions, team equipment trucking and facilities movement,” per the press release.

Amid the present college basketball offseason, the focus has been on helping coaches and administrators. The list of those who’ve needed to relocate is extensive.

As new staffs throughout the country have been frantically rebuilding their rosters in April and May, D1.relocation has been doing all the important work behind the scenes, allowing those coaches to concentrate on the recruiting tasks at hand.

“They’re (moving) and the first thing they have to do is, what’s my team look like?” says Uhlenhopp. “Who do I want to keep? Are they willing to stay? If they’re willing to stay, we have to get a contract in front of them. Now you have to negotiate that. You’re recruiting your own team. You have to start recruiting other players. You’re probably recruiting from your previous school. I mean, it’s go time. It’s wild. As a staff that’s transitioning, your first call should be to us, because we can take a ton off your plate.”