Why I Cheer

Column: Rev. Brian Konkol shares his personal fandom in special contribution to The Victory Bell

The Rev. Brian E. Konkol, Ph.D., is the 20^th president of Valparaiso University. As Valparaiso is set to open the 2026-27 athletic season with Thursday’s soccer match at Eastern Illinois, Rev. Konkol penned a special contribution for The Victory Bell. This story is open to all readers. Please consider subscribing to support TVB for the upcoming season.

I have devoted much of my life to cheering.

I cheered for my basketball teammates at Viterbo University. I have cheered for my wife, Kristen, who successfully competed at the University of Toledo and also during our time in Guyana and South Africa. I continue to cheer for my brother, Eric, and the team he coaches at the University of Tulsa, and I cheer for my children and their respective school and club soccer teams. I have cheered in many places for many people, and now I am cheering in a new and exciting way:

I cheer for Valpo.

While I have loved Valparaiso University throughout my life, I now get to cheer from the stands, and I also have the honor and joy of cheering from sidewalks, hallways, classrooms, boardrooms, offices, and countless other sites, all of which provides a remarkably different perspective from anything I have previously experienced. While much has changed over the years, there is something about cheering that has become more meaningful as of late, as I am discovering that a significant portion of leadership is about cheering for others.

To be clear, leadership requires far more than cheering. There are decisions to make, a mission and vision to articulate and integrate, goals and expectations to set, values to embody, strategies to develop and implement, challenges to address, opportunities to pursue, organizational cultures to cultivate, observations to make, and critical opinions from various sources to receive and apply. Through it all, I have come to believe that cheering is critically important for leadership, as it means helping people to embrace what is possible, encouraging them when the path is difficult, celebrating their accomplishments, offering direction, receiving lessons, and reminding others that who they are and what they do truly matters.

I am increasingly convinced that various aspects of athletics have taught me a great deal, and the more I experience Valparaiso University, the more confident I am that one of the ways we build lives for good is by supporting learners through our longstanding commitment to athletics.

This is why I cheer.

I cheer because I believe in what our student-athletes are learning. When I was a college athlete, I certainly wanted to win (and for those wondering, yes, I still very much want to win)! Whether it is in sports or various other areas of life, there is something wonderful about preparing for a competition, stepping into the arena, and discovering what you and your teammates are capable of accomplishing together. Also, when I reflect upon it all, the most important lessons I learned had little to do with the final score, as I learned that winning is ultimately not about being better than someone else, as it is about bringing out the best in yourself.

As a student-athlete I learned how to prepare when no one was watching. I learned that talent only takes you so far, as discipline, perseverance, trust, and teamwork matter enormously. I learned how to receive and utilize criticism, how to respond to both public failure and public fanfare, how to be a good teammate, and how to keep moving forward, especially when life did not go according to plan. I learned that sometimes leadership requires speaking, while at other times it means listening. I learned that the person sitting next to me in the locker room could be different from me and still become someone I trust deeply.

These lessons have stayed with me far longer than the details of individual competitions.

This is why I cheer when I witness a Valpo student pursuing excellence in the classroom while also competing at the highest level of collegiate athletics. I cheer when I see a student-athlete discovering how the habits required to become an excellent teammate can also help make them to be an excellent nurse, engineer, teacher, scientist, entrepreneur, pastor, physician, or citizen. This is one of the characteristics that makes Valparaiso University special. We are, as I have heard others so aptly describe us, a one-of-a-kind “and university”.

At Valparaiso University a student can study nursing and compete in the national tournament. An engineering student can invest long hours in a laboratory and represent Valpo on the field. A future teacher can prepare for a classroom of their own and compete as a track and field athlete. A student can pursue rigorous scholarship and discover what it means to belong to a team.

We at Valpo do not pressure our student-athletes to choose between being excellent students and excellent athletes. While other universities force learners into an “either or”, we at Valpo encourage “both and”, as we believe that education is about the formation of the whole person. In striking contrast to other colleges and universities, athletics at Valpo is not separate from our educational mission, for at our best, athletics is one of the places where our mission comes alive.

While students are at the center of our educational mission, there is another reason why I cheer, and it has less to do with the people competing and more to do with the people who are spectating.

I cheer because I believe fans are learners, too.

There are few experiences in contemporary life that bring people together quite like live sports. When you attend a swimming or track and field meet, or when you witness a volleyball, tennis, or soccer match, or when you take in golf, softball, bowling, baseball, basketball, football, or cross-country, in such places you will find people who might otherwise have very little reason to be together. Students sit next to alumni. Parents come across strangers. Faculty and staff visit with various members of the Valparaiso community. Children sit beside grandparents. People who disagree about many things find themselves being together when a Valpo student-athlete makes the play they have been waiting for. For a few treasured hours, we become a community, and such belonging is increasingly valuable.

We live in a time when many of our institutions struggle to create places where people with different backgrounds and beliefs can gather around something they share. I believe Valpo athletics cannot solve all of such challenges, yet we can offer something increasingly rare: a reason to show up together, an opportunity for encounter, and the possibility of becoming something greater.

I cheer because the bleachers are also classrooms.

I cheer because a game can become an introduction to a person, a team, a university, or even a community that someone might otherwise not have met, which leads to another reason why I cheer: athletics can be an entry point for people to learn about the larger life of our university.

Someone may first discover Valparaiso University because of basketball. Someone else may visit because their child has been recruited to play soccer. Another family may come to our campus because they want to watch a football game or see a student compete in track and field. They may arrive here because of athletics, but they stay here because they discover something much larger.

Those who are introduced to Valpo because of sports can eventually discover the Chapel of the Resurrection, or they can encounter a remarkable professor who electrifies the way they think. They can walk through the Christopher Center Library and meet a dedicated staff person, or they can visit with students who are studying together or making music. They can experience the beauty of our campus and the warmth of our community, and they can learn about Lutheran heritage and our enduring commitment to scholarship, freedom, and faith.

I believe most importantly, those who learn of Valparaiso University through sports can eventually discover that the student wearing a number has a name, and they are far more than a student or an athlete, and beyond the statistics is a story. My hope and prayer are that those in the bleachers come to see our student-athletes as Children of God within a sacred story, and they are all being formed within a lifelong ecosystem of faith and learning that is helping them to become who they are meant to be.

Athletics can open the door. The university invites people to enter through it and be blessed because of it.

This is all worth cheering for.

As we begin another academic year, I am excited about the future of Valpo athletics, and I dearly want our teams to compete with ambition and confidence. I also hope for our coaches to be recognized not only for what happens on the scoreboard, but also for the lives they help to build. I yearn for our student-athletes to experience the joy of competition, the discipline of excellence, and the importance of relationships, all while discovering lessons that will serve them long after their final season wearing the Brown and Gold.

And, to be clear, I want our fans to show up!

I would love for our bleachers to be full of students, families, alumni, faculty, staff, neighbors, and friends. I seek to witness an increasing number of young children visiting campus and imagining themselves someday wearing the Brown and Gold. I long for alumni to return and enrich the next generation. I encourage members of our community who have never thought of themselves as “sports people” to discover the power and possibility of being a part of something special.

As the 2026–27 season of Valparaiso University begins, here is my request: I hope you will join in and cheer alongside me.

Please, join in and cheer because you love the matches and games, and because you love Valpo. Please, join in because someone you care about is wearing the Brown and Gold. Please, join in because you want to help our student-athletes to become who God is calling them to be, and also because you believe that communities are built when people choose to show up for one another.

And, yes, please join in because we want to win, and your cheering helps us to win!

I will be cheering for all of this to happen, and I will also be cheering for something larger and lasting: for the student who discovers confidence, for the teammate who learns to lead, for the fan who finds a new sense of togetherness, for the family that discovers a university they did not know before, and for the community that gathers around those who are giving their very best.

I have spent a good portion of my life cheering, and thanks be to God, I hope to spend a good portion of the years ahead cheering alongside you.

I am grateful for the honor and joying of cheering for Valpo.

Please, join in and cheer alongside me.

(Photos courtesy of Valpo Athletics and Rev. Brian Konkol)