Five potential hires for Valparaiso

Move over Parker Executive, I've got your list right here

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)