Longtime Valparaiso director of athletics Mark LaBarbera announced his retirement last week. Now that the dust has settled, it’s time to start looking at a potential replacement. Valparaiso University President Jose Padilla has announced a national search that will include Parker Executive Search, one of the nation’s leading search firms in collegiate athletics. (Apologies for writing search three times in one sentence there. I was searching for a new word to use, but I got tired of searching for my thesaurus so I ended my search.)
At The Victory Bell, we don’t believe in paying someone else to search for someone that we can find ourselves. Much like I did with the mascot choice (Go Koalas!), I’m once again offering my services as an unpaid consultant. This will save the school a lot of time and money.
Padilla has stated that “he wants the next Athletic Director to be a former Division I athlete and that he or she have considerable sports management experience in an athletics department at a Division I university.” Those are pretty specific guidelines, so specific in fact that it could be there is already someone in mind.
Well, I have some people in mind. Five of them as a matter of fact. Unlike my five mascot choices, which bounced between logical and absurd (What is a Dunehawk anyway?), I’m dead serious with this list. These five people all have a connection to Valparaiso University and that matters. Spend enough time around the Athletics-Recreation Center and you’ll understand that Valpo is a unique place with unique challenges. Institutional memory matters. Or maybe I just like The West Wing.
Five potential Valparaiso Athletic Directors (presented in alphabetical order)