You expect me to coach millennial student athletes?

This college student generation is unlike any before. Whether you admire their independence and idealism, or deplore their lack of a conventional work ethic, dealing with "millennials" is a whole new ballgame.

If faculty and administrators think it's impossible, they're getting off easy compared to athletics coaches.

Dr. Jim Hundrieser has done research on the millennials and worked with the NCAA Coaches Academy and NACWAA/HERS to train coaches on recruiting and training them. An executive consultant with Noel-Levitz in Centennial CO, he was previously student affairs VP at Lynn University FL and Marymount Manhattan College NY He spoke at the October 2009 convention of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators.

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His employees under 30 find their own pace. Instead of the traditional 9-to-5 work days, they come in at 9:30 and leave at 4:00 to avoid the rush hour. That doesn't make them slackers. They got up at 6:15 am to get the kids off to school, checked email in the morning and will check it again before bedtime. Both moms and dads are personalizing schedules around the kids as well as the boss.

They won't quit working at age 65. They've watched their parents be loyal to one employer and get shafted, so their loyalty is to family, ideals and personal wellbeing. New York University sociologist Dr. Dalton Conley coined the term weisure for the blurring of lines between leisure and work.

Digital interaction

Today's students expect a more personalized Web connection. But university officials go blank when he asks what interactive initiatives they're putting into their Web sites.

"Web 2.0" is the buzzword for the new interactive web since the dot-com bubble burst back in 2001. The old web of the …