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Anyone know who Patrick Fazio is?


Do you know where he played college football?












NBC 5 WMAQ Chicago TV news anchor/reporter

Valparaiso (as he says in his bio--NCAA Div 1 AA)

Patrick Fazio hired me at WVUR when I was a student. He, along with Karl Berner (who works for Valpo's ESPN streaming crew), are the reason I got my start in media.

There are a million jobs that don't require a college degree, many that pay very well, but by and large girls aren't willing to consider anything where they might get dirty, or hot and sweaty, or have an element of danger, or require manual dexterity, lifting, etc. They still act like girls when it serves their self interest. Then you have the dads like me and now my son who fall victim to all the nonsense and spend exorbitant sums of money on college so their little princess won't have to work as a checker at Stracks. Even then, they shy away from STEM and business where the real money is, because they're hardwired to prefer people over things. You hope to God they select nursing where they can engage with people and make money doing it, but it's just as likely that they will gravitate toward teaching, or non-profit work, or the grievance industry where they can live a life full of bitterness, and jealousy, because not only do they not want to work with their hands, they don't want to work around sick people either. So, there you have it - the real reason there are way more girls in college than guys.

Wtf?

Debating sharing this with my mom, who served in the Marines and worked in the automotive industry for 20 years before transitioning to a pharmacy technician and then spending 15 years at Harley-Davidson. I'd share this with her, but she's probably out working with her hands and too busy to sit in front of a computer screen living a life full of bitterness and jealously.

Matt Martin led with three catches for 49 yards. Cam Livingston had two catches for 13 yards. Quarterbacks finished 17-31 for 170 yards. Not a lot of time to throw.

The more I think about it, the more I think landing Ashton Williamson would be monumental for Valpo. From Paul's article this morning about Ajiboye, it sounds like Ola was really impressed by Powell on the visit, and I hope he was just as convincing when Ashton visited.

For starters, reestablishing the region as a recruiting target would have compounding benefits. We have missed out on too much talent close to home lately. Not only are we missing out on some really good players, but also the attendance boost that would come with them. If we want to establish ourselves as the regions team and have locals come out to the games, we have to have some region players (and win games). More good local players --> more region people coming out to the games --> more money to invest back into the program.

He's also just really good. Was ranked as an ESPN top 100 recruit at one point. Still ranked as a 3 star recruit, and even 4 stars by some sites. He plays hard on defense, distributes the ball, and can score. Perfect for a faced paced and defensively intense gameplan like Powell's. The fact we got him to come on a visit really boosts my hopes of him committing.

Wouldn't be shocked if Ashton ends up going prep this year. Valpo could be possibility in the future.

Spring game today. I completely get Brandon and Paul have been slammed with Powell hiring

But

I hope we get more than "game happened, both teams played hard, looking forward to fall" in the write up

Paul's primer was awesome last year

I'll be out there and will have coverage about the team. There will be more than the aforementioned.

I dreamed that our first recruit could be a home run instead of a bunt single but at least we now have a baserunner.   

This might be my favorite post I've ever seen on this site.

The staff is being built and recruiting is happening. It will be an entire turnover on the staff. In terms of any perceived holdup, I'm sure the school will announce when it has all the paperwork situated. Might be waiting for everything all at once. There are new people working. Who they are? Not confirmed on any of it yet.

Will sombody please ask Padilla for clarification on the new arena!!!!

I waited until my 1-on-1 with Padilla and I got a ton of info on this. It will be up on TheVictoryBell.com in the next day or so. Need to see how I'm spacing out stories.

I guess it's time to test the theory if people are willing to spend $50! Lol.

Very happy right now!!! Worst kept secret over the last day...muddled by the Chris Lowrey lie...did I mention how happy I am?!?

I was not a fan of Lowry to say the least. But we don't really know if he was considered, he may have been. Tough to prove it was a lie.

His name never came up in any conversations I had with anyone. Take that for what it is worth.

It's getting comical all these people in the know.  I really hope Paul gets to break the story.  It is the least the University can do for all he does for Valpo sports.

I'm more concerned about being right than being first. As much as I'm certain who it is, until that ink dries, it's not real.

Also notable that Paul Oren's post this morning did not mention Lowery.

My story only mentioned people that I have heard are candidates for the job. Much like Ed Schilling, the Valparaiso message board is the only place where I've seen Chris Lowery's name mentioned.

[On Ed Schilling:]

On Ed Schilling: I don't know anything more about the man than what folks have posted here and what a quick look at his Wikipedia page tells me. OK, so 20 years ago he left the HC job at Wright State with a very mediocre record. Since then, he's had a string of assistant jobs (from Wikipedia):

2003–2005   Memphis (assistant)
2013–2017   UCLA (assistant)
2017–2019   Indiana (assistant)
2020–present   Grand Canyon (assistant)

Maybe he was never cut out to be a head coach. Not everyone is right for the job. Or maybe he's got the right stuff to be an excellent HC, but his first opportunity didn't go well, and subsequent chances never materialized. In any event, I agree with everyone who says that someone can grow a lot professionally and personally over a 20-year period. (Indeed, let's be sad for those who do not.)

Schilling is not mentioned in this morning's Victory Bell report. So maybe he's not even in the conversation. But if he is, then I'm sure that Bryce's impressions of him will be taken very seriously, as they should be.

The Company We're In: Per Paul's Victory Bell update this morning, Valpo is not exactly in elite company among the schools that still have vacant head coaching positions: "There have been 54 openings on the coaching carousel this offseason and as of Tuesday morning, 43 of those have been filled. Valparaiso joins Cal State-Northridge, Coppin State, Kennesaw State, New Hampshire, NJIT, North Carolina A&T, Sam Houston State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Utah Valley as the other schools with openings."

It's possible, even likely, that we get someone who has been passed over, perhaps on multiple occasions, or not even noticed enough to be passed over. If he turns out to be the right guy for this school, that won't matter.

On Greg Tonagel: Also via Paul's update, I was disappointed to learn that Tonagel was never seriously in the mix. I'm guessing that he wasn't interested. In any event -- as an academic in a world where career ambition sometimes overcomes deeper meaning in one's work -- I admire this guy for staying at a place that's right for him. Maybe someday he goes D1. But I'm sure it won't be because of others' expectations of what constitutes success.

Ed Schilling's name has never came up in any conversation I've had with any person about the Valpo job. Not once.

Trust me on this one...you want no part of Chris Lowery. Yes, he had success early off of Weber/Painter players but he left the program a complete wreck.  At the end there were legal troubles all around and the program was facing academic sanctions. The parting words from the AD were that it was time for an adult to lead the program. Maybe he has grown in the 15 years since then, but I would stay well clear of that one.

Brandon Wood sprinted as fast as he could from SIU to get away from Lowery. Next, please.

So who is going to break the story first?   Come on PO don't let Norlander beat you to it!  A Victory Bell tweet breaking it helps exposure.   Let's go PO! 

I'm almost certain I won't get the story first. The only thing I beat Norlander in is our mutual love of Guster, even if he rocks the bumper sticker on national TV all the time.

At this level, when agents get involved, they go to the biggest microphone.

I mean, sure, call him but given that he reportedly did not want to be a candidate when Bryce left, I can't see why he'd want to come here now.

Is there anything you didn't do seven years ago that you would do now?

Good point about the social media making it very clear what sort of experience people at other institutions are having. Had not thought of that as a game changer, but it's probable true for both students and staff

As someone on the front lines of all this, I can absolutely state this is a huge part of everything that is happening.

This was a blast to put together.

https://www.thevictorybell.com/p/hard-to-believe-its-been-10-years

I hope PO gets out to Denver to report on the 25th anniversary of The Shot!  We need for TNT/TBS/CBS and Barkley to get PO as correspondent for the weekend in Denver!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The Victory Bell is credentialed for Denver! I'll be out there this week.

If finances are a concern, I see no reason why ML & Co. should be attending the Final 4 or the National Coaches Conference. If he's the coach for the next 1-2 years until his contract ends, it's not like there will be substantive changes gleaned from clinics that alter his coaching philosophy. The only reason Padilla or Small should attend is if they're in the market for a new HC! In that case, they should bring their bobbers and put some lines out there ... see what sorts of bites they can get! This would mean it must be made clear that ML is not being retained.

The contract for ML and Co. may include paying for annual trips to the Final four or the National Coaches Conference. Or the contract may include a discretionary annual travel budget. Not saying that the contract includes these terms, but I would not be surprised if they were included.

Pretty sure Valley holds coaches meetings at the F4 every year. I know most conferences do that from what I understand.

Well - assuming we hear confirmation one way or the other concerning ML's future at Valpo after Arch Madness comes to a close - at least we'll be able to put the speculation to rest. I'll hop on a few more times to gripe about it for cathartic fandom purposes. Then, I'll enjoy March Madness in all its glory, pulling for the upsets, & playing the bracket games. All the while, Valpo basketball will fade into a repressed memory. I'll blow the dust off my Valpo fandom once the college football season fleshes itself out. I'll restore some hope again - at least for a few months. Season ticket? Certainly not. Attend a game or two? Most likely. Financially contribute? Hard pass.

Subscribe to TheVictoryBell.com?

Well. Hard to beat a team 3 times in one season.

It's been totally proven that this is not true and it does happen more often than you think. It just doesn't stick out in your memory.

This will be explored on The Victory Bell this week.

Tweet from Roger Powell


https://twitter.com/RogerPowellJr/status/1629741470667411456/photo/1

Future Valpo Coach?

We'll know if University is moving on from Lottich probably in the next few weeks.

Paul O, once Valpo gets bounced from Arch Madness you have to ask the question, if he thinks he's coming back next season.

The University needs to give a response with a few days, even if it's "sources close to the Athletics Department" confirm Lottich will be coming back next season. The follow up question needs to be asked if Lottich is on the hot seat and in jeopardy of losing his job. Even if it's a "no comment" the question needs to be asked.

Without question.

Just thought I'd check in here for a second to say this...

1) I have truly no idea what is going to happen a week or so from now.
2) I don't believe anything that happens on the court in the next week will change anything. Lose on Thursday. Make it to Saturday/Sunday. I'm guessing whatever is going to happen has already been decided. Stay. Gone. Staff shake up.

Interesting times to be sure.

The spin for 2022/2023 season:
1.) We were very close in 5 or 6 games. If we would have won those...
2.) It is tough with transfers. Takes time for them to gel and learn D1 basketball.

These things can be true and also frustrating/annoying to hear. The season would have a completely different feel had Valpo won those six games. Bryce Drew's career would have a completely different feel if his shot doesn't go in against Ole Miss, or Ryan Broekhoff's shot doesn't go in against Green Bay. Or Matthew Fisher-Davis doesn't foul Northwestern. We can spin these things until we're dizzy.

I've gone back and forth as to whether or not I wanted to post here. As many of you know, I wear a lot of hats around Valpo. Alum. Professor. Reporter. Rarely do they ever combine and it's always been easy for me to separate those roles in my life.

Today I'll come at this post as an alum, and then as a professor. I'll attempt David81's bullet points. (TL:DR: subscribe to TheVictoryBell.com)

-I went to Lutheran schools from PreK-12, not because I'm Lutheran, but because the Milwaukee Public Schools weren't great. My divorced parents wanted to give me some stability in education.

-Because I went to Lutheran schools, I got into Valpo's database early. I had a Valparaiso pennant in my room from the time I was in fifth grade. I didn't know where the school was or really know anything substantial about it, but I liked the color scheme.

-When it came time to picking a school, I went to Concordia Mequon. Not because I was Lutheran, but because they gave me $10,000 off tuition because I told them I'd become a Lutheran High School History teacher.

-The truth is I went to a Methodist church when I was at my Dad's house and occasionally a Lutheran church when I was at my Mom's house. I always felt much more comfortable in the Methodist church. My dad then became a methodist pastor when I was 19. He's since become a UCC pastor.

-Concordia wasn't the right place for me. It was way too Lutheran. There were crosses and Missouri Synod flags in every classroom. It felt like every classroom discussion had to revolve around the church. I took a Public Speaking class that really felt geared toward teachers and pastors. Any other vocation was overlooked. Socially, the school was a bit off for me. I dated a woman for a month before she took me into the Chapel and broke up with me, telling me that she felt like she was going to hell because we made out and we weren't married. I repeat, she broke up with me in the Chapel.

-So, I got out of there.

-I visited Valpo in the spring of my freshman year and fell in love with the place. I loved it was 140 miles from home. Close enough to get back if I needed to, but far enough away that I could live my own life. Three things stood out to me in 1999 when I visited. WVUR (which I eventually joined), fraternities (which I eventually passed on) and Division I athletics.

-Those things got me to Valpo. What caused me to truly fall in love were the people. The diversity of the student body. Not diversity as a buzzword, but Valpo being a place where people from all walks of life gathered. Concordia was a fifth year of high school to me. Sure, there were plenty of people from all across the country, but they were mostly all Lutheran High School kids who had the same experiences that I had. Valpo was different. The basketball team was the perfect reflection of that. I cherished getting to know Lubos Barton, Milo Stovall, Jared Nuness and Greg Tonagel. Four different people with four different backgrounds.

-Another thing that I loved at Valpo was the bubble. We joked about it. The Valpo Bubble. When you came to Valpo, you stayed on campus. I didn't know if our dorms were better or worse than anywhere else because I didn't compare them. It's what we had. Could the food have been better? Sure, but it's what we had. I never left campus unless it was to travel with the basketball team. I never went to downtown Valpo. Merrillville was a treat to see a movie or go to the mall maybe once a month.

-Valpo was home and nothing else mattered. The school prepared me for a good career in broadcast journalism. It wasn't easy to get hired in sports journalism following 9/11. I had a few interviews, but jobs were few and far between. My friends who focused on news got scooped up immediately. I ended up taking a job in Milwaukee at a rock radio station that I landed through some Valpo networking.

-I went to Valpo to have a great social experience during my undergraduate days and to gain experience to enter the work force. I got both. I wouldn't trade my time at Valpo for anything as an undergrad.

-I didn't go to Valpo for the religious connection, although I'm glad it was there. I rarely went to Chapel Break. I went to Celebrate here and there. We didn't talk about God in any of my classes other than Theology, of which we had healthy debate. I had a sports talk radio show my senior year and the guy after me had a Christian rock radio show. I enjoyed there was room for both.

-I had straight classmates, gay classmates, white classmates, black classmates. Classmates who dressed in suits for class. Classmates who dressed in sweats for class. Classmates who dressed in drag for class. There were probably people who would break up with you in the Chapel and there were probably people who would do other things to you in the Chapel.

-I don't know what our "identity" was when I was in undergrad. All I can say is I loved that so many people found a home away from home.

-The draw to Valpo brought me back in 2005 to start teaching and I've been in this role for 18 years. I won't go into as much detail as I did for my undergrad days, but I'll say this. The students today are vastly different than they were in 1999. Social media has rearranged what it means for people, particularly 18-22 year olds, to exist in the world. Everything is a comparable now. Mental health has taken a nose dive for these kids who have a tangible metric for every emotion they feel. The Valpo Bubble burst long ago and it's never coming back. It used to be the biggest thing on campus to go support the basketball team. Now kids can stay back in their dorms and watch their hometown team on television. The internet has made the world a much smaller place and our students feel that every day.

-I ask my students every semester what brought them to Valpo. It's an exercise I do when discussing Public Relations in my Intro to Mass Media course. I started doing this exercise in 2006 and back then about 40 percent of the students would say religion. Then it was 25, then 15, then 5. Then zero. Now, it's not like I'm conducting a scientific survey here, but the religious aspect just isn't what it used to be. We used to tout ourselves as "The National Lutheran University." We would do that at the same time that schools like Concordia would criticize Valpo for being too inclusive, as if taking "we are all brothers and sisters in Christ" and putting it into practice was a bad thing?

-I'll end on that note of thinking. Like I said earlier, I didn't pick Valpo because of religion, but I loved that Valpo was a place where we could all be brothers and sisters in Christ. I struggle when I hear today that people criticize Valpo for being inclusive to all. I don't view being inclusive (or woke as some would say) as a political issue. I view it as a fundamental part of Christ's teaching.

-All that being said, in my role as a professor, it is not my job to tell people what to think. It's my job to get them to think. I'd greatly prefer a classroom with half Democrats and half Republicans over a classroom with all on the left or all on the right. What I'd really enjoy is a classroom full of people who are prepared to learn from one another and are open to accepting more than one point of view. Maybe someday I'll be able to learn why I got dumped in the Chapel.

-Finally to usc4Valpo, think about the role of the mascots. They're not for adults. They're for kids. People complain about the brown and gold color scheme all the time, but for a fifth-grader, I loved the pennant I got in the mail. It was so different than anything else I'd seen that I put it up in my room immediately. You often make cracks that the mascots look like something out of a book you've read to your granddaughter. Sounds like they're doing their job then. If a little kid loves them, then that's the first introduction to Valpo, just like the pennant was to me back in fifth grade.