25 years as a Division I basketball coach. A decade building AI-powered products for the sport ecosystem. The only person at the intersection of elite coaching credibility and operational technology — and the products to prove it.
Coaching college basketball is in my blood. From the days my late father Larry took me to games at Adelphi, then Seton Hall where I walked on under P.J. Carlesimo, through jobs at Appalachian State, Tulsa, Tennessee, and ultimately UCLA — where I was on the staff during back-to-back Final Four runs, working daily with Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook.
Those first years as head coach at Santa Clara showed me the full weight of what the job actually demands. I thought I understood it. I didn't. Eventually I became the CEO of my program — or so I believed. It wasn't until I stepped away that I realized how much I hadn't understood about what it means to truly lead an organization.
After Santa Clara, I spent a decade in the real world — working alongside founders and operators at the intersection of sport, technology, and investment. I stayed close to the game through radio work with the Golden State Warriors and NBA player evaluations, but the Silicon Valley relationships taught me something that changed how I see coaching entirely.
"Had I understood what I learned in the tech world when I was still coaching, I would have been a fundamentally different leader — for my players, my staff, and my program."
— Kerry KeatingWhen AI tools matured and college basketball was simultaneously upended by NIL, the portal, and revenue sharing, I saw the same problem everywhere: coaches managing unprecedented operational complexity with no infrastructure to support them. That realization — combined with everything I'd learned outside the game — became Layup, Skybox, The Confident Coach, and BSLA.
These aren't products built by outsiders looking in. They're built by someone who spent 25 years inside the exact rooms they're designed to serve.
When NIL, the transfer portal, and revenue sharing arrived simultaneously, college basketball changed faster than any staff could adapt. Head coaches and their assistants were suddenly expected to manage unprecedented roster complexity — evaluating thousands of portal players, negotiating deals, managing relationships — all while running the daily program.
Kerry heard the same thing from every coach he spoke with: the modern demands were impossible. No GM, no matter how talented, had the hours to evaluate thousands of transfer portal players in the window modern college basketball demands. The timeline is absurd. The volume is unmanageable. And the stakes — a wrong roster decision costs games, costs recruits, costs jobs — have never been higher.
"No one — even the best GM — had the resources, the hours, or the capability to study thousands of players in the portal and know if they'd be a good fit. And to do so in the timeline the portal demands to get top-flight players? Virtually impossible."
— Kerry KeatingThat realization — combined with the decade Kerry spent in Silicon Valley learning how the best operators in the world solve impossible problems — became the question that launched everything: how would the people who understand AI best solve for what coaches are living through right now? The answer is Layup.
Read the full origin story →Each venture was built to solve a problem Kerry experienced from the inside. Together they form a complete infrastructure for modern sport — operations, scouting, coaching education, and player development.
The platform isn't a product — it's a person. Kerry is the connective tissue across seven distinct development and revenue streams that compound on each other over time. BSLA is one of those streams: the educational curriculum at the center of the whole-athlete development model. With the platform active, seven streams build on each other — consulting, speaking, licensing, the summer academy, advisory, digital IP, and the coaching program itself.
"A former D1 head coach with 25 years inside the game, Kerry Keating spent the decade after the bench building AI-powered products for the exact programs, administrators, and coaches he once competed alongside — making him the only person in the market who carries both the credibility to open every door and the technology to deliver once he's through it."
Whether you're an athletic director, a coaching staff, a school, or a search firm — the first step is the same.