Lakeland Muskies - The Tackle Box

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Putting the student in student-athlete

We ask a lot out of our student-athletes at Lakeland. We ask them to put in an incredible amount of time each week in practices and game preparation, workouts, departmental community service programs and game days.  This is all on top of going to class, working on projects, homework and deciding what careers they would like to have for the rest of their lives.

Working alongside our student-athletes are incredible role models and mentors in our coaches and athletic staff.  Many times I joke with our coaches that I wished that they had more time to be a coach.  NCAA Division III coaches, in addition to their game day responsibilities of coaching, are counselors, tutors, recruiters, fundraisers and perform numerous other roles. We have a great coaching staff at Lakeland, and I'm honored to watch them prepare our students for wins on the field/court/mat, but also in life.

Head Men's Basketball Coach working with a student-athlete in a one-on-one setting.

All too often my job focuses on the next challenge facing the management of a highly competitive NCAA Division III athletic program, but it's times like the one captured in the photo above that reminds me of the importance of the work that I, and our coaches, perform.  We are blessed to be able to affect the trajectory of our student-athlete's lives, and the life victories are the most important victories we can accomplish.

We'll celebrate an academic victory on Tuesday, Oct. 14, with our women's volleyball team as we recognize the 2013-2014 squad for its American Volleyball Coaches Association team academic award from last year. 



The award is given out to teams that have a cumulative team grade point average of at least 3.30.  What a stunning display of hard work and dedication by our student-athletes in the program.  It will be an exciting night of volleyball, and a great way to celebrate academic success as well.  I hope to see you on campus Tuesday night at 7:00pm for our game against MSOE.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Biloxi, Miss. - 1965

One of the greatest parts about my job is the surprise drop-in visits, or notes that come in the mail from alumni and friends of muskie athletics. A few weeks ago, I received a great hand-written note from 1967 Lakeland graduate H. Malcom Richert that included an envelope that was sent to Mal's father from the 1965 Lakeland College baseball team from their spring baseball tour to Biloxi, Miss.  Here is a photo of the envelope.


 
What an awesome memento with so many great names from Lakeland College's athletic history. By my count, this envelope's signatures include seven Lakeland Hall-of-Fame members!  For a mere 6 cents, this envelope made its way from Biloxi, Miss., to Milwaukee, Wis., and will now live forever here on campus. 

Our alumni and friends are fantastic, and their support of Lakeland College is so important to our current and future successes.  I invite all alumni and friends of Lakeland College to make their way "home" next weekend, Oct. 3-5, for Lakeland homecoming 2014.  More information can be found on our alumni website.  If you can't make it next weekend, come back anytime.  I hope to join you in cheering on our Muskies!

Monday, September 15, 2014

Sponsorships = Success

One of the main focal points of my work is cultivating and exploring partnerships and sponsorships for the athletic department.  We've certainly seen the impact of sports sponsorships on Division I NCAA athletics. Take, for example, the $3.5 million sponsorship deal Adidas has with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  While Lakeland's sponsorships are bound to be a little smaller in total, they will become more and more important to the success of Lakeland athletics.

We've recently received gifts and/or formed partnerships with three local companies.



The first is a sports medicine partnership with Prevea Health. Prevea Health employs more than 250 physicians and mid-level providers in more than 50 medical specialties. Their total employee family is more than 1,400 strong. Prevea will become the preferred health care provider of Lakeland athletics providing all athletic training and sports medicine needs for our department. Prevea will also be working with all teams in strength and conditioning by providing the department with a strength and conditioning coach. This sponsorship will greatly enhance our health and nutrition for our student athletes.

Feldmann Sales and Service in Howards Grove has donated a Kubota RTV for our athletic training department for use during the fall season. 

 
This RTV is tremendously helpful to our staff and has even received a workout as the lead vehicle for the first cross country races on our new course.  The staff at Feldmann Sales and Service has been incredible to work with, and we are so very thankful for their newly formed friendship with Lakeland Athletics.
 
Finally, Quasius Construction has made a generous donation toward a new scoreboard for our soccer field.  We are anxious to get the board manufactured and installed before the end of this season.  Gifts like the one we received from Quasius makes great upgrades like this possible.
 
 
 
If you're interested in learning more about partnerships and sponsorships with Lakeland athletics, please let me know at dehnend@lakeland.edu.  I'd be happy to discuss how Lakeland can give your business exposure to thousands of visitors each year from all over the Midwest while you help our teams achieve success in the classroom and in competition.
 
I hope to see you at a game on campus soon!  



Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Let's get it started!

The start of the school year is an exciting time of the year. Our fall sports teams are hard at work preparing for the start of their seasons (first home game---Lakeland women's soccer vs. Ripon College on Friday, Aug. 29 - 5 p.m.), but we also welcome back the rest of the Muskies teams. It is amazing to me how much paperwork goes into getting a team ready to play in the NCAA, but the information we share is focused on aiding our student-athletes to be leaders inside and outside of athletics. We are emphasizing the need for our entire department to be focused on the goal of being one cohesive group this year. We have 18 NCAA sponsored sports this year, but we are one team! I can't wait to see what the 2014-2015 Lakeland Muskies accomplish this year!

Compliance paperwork meeting for softball and men's volleyball
Another thing that I am always impressed with as our athletic seasons begin is the mentoring and guidance provided by our coaching staffs to students. I am so proud of the work they do with our student-athletes in practices and game prep, but, more importantly, in academic monitoring and preparation.  We never bring our "C" game to competition, and we certainly don't bring it to the classroom either!

Coach Dreyer's famous player binders promoting academic and athletic focus and success
Finally, you know I love our athletic teams, but I also love all that Lakeland has to offer. This past Sunday night, as part of the college's welcome week activities, I was able to attend the magic show of Mat Franco with my daughter, Emma, and youngest son, Sam.  If you are a fan of America's Got Talent, you'll recognize Mat's name as he is a semi-finalist on this season's show. Mat was awesome to meet, and really gave our students a great show. Let's hope there is a little magic with the Muskies this year!!!

Mat Franco with Emma and Sam

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Getting Dirty!

I was 12 when I got my first job picking stones at Hoff Farms in neighboring Howards Grove. From there, I moved on to working on other family farms throughout my high school and college careers.  Those jobs taught me so many valuable lessons including rolling up your sleeves and getting dirty from time to time. As the following picture will attest, getting dirty, even as a vice president for athletics, is inevitable. I happened to find a little mud with our golf cart on our newly formed cross country course on campus today.


The results of a stuck golf cart on our XC course!

The ability to get out from behind my desk and work alongside our great coaching staff and student-athletes makes this job so incredibly rewarding.  Wrestling with a golf cart stuck in the mud on our cross country course was not necessarily the highlight of my day, but watching our women's soccer team practice on a dew covered field as a new day begins, or watching the men's team wrap up the day with practice in the evening makes all of the tough parts of the day melt away.


Women's Soccer



Men's Soccer
 
Finally, a thank you to the women's volleyball team for the ALS ice bucket challenge nomination this week.  For every Muskie win this year, I will be donating $1.00 to ALS research.  Many of our coaches and teams have been involved.  Here is the video link to my dousing!
 

 
 
The class of 2018 moves in today!  Here we go!!!  Go Muskies.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

They're back!

Vintage LC football helmet

Today, we welcomed back our 2014 Muskie football team, which begins training camp practice tomorrow. Reporting days are some of my favorite days of the year. I get the pleasure of welcoming back our returning student-athletes, and meeting a new group of Muskies that we will get to watch compete for the next four years. Later this week, we will welcome our women's volleyball, women's tennis, men's soccer and women's soccer teams. I can't wait to see them all again!

Another great part about reporting day is seeing the fields and facilities prepped for practices. There is a certain beauty to a green practice or game field with a crisp white line running down it. Every athlete in an outdoor sport can appreciate a prepped field like this.
From the football practice field

There is some other field prep work occurring with our baseball and softball fields that started today. Both our baseball and softball fields are receiving some much-overdue work that will completely revamp  both infields and improve the pitching mound and bullpens for baseball. The softball field will get a walkway for fans, an extended and completed warning track, improved fencing, and new sod. Both projects should be done by the end of next week, and be ready for fall practice. We still have many more improvements to go with our outdoor athletic facilities, but we will get better each and every day.  Here are a couple of photos of the work that has started on the baseball field (updated photos to come). Softball field work begins in the upcoming days.

Prepping the base material and trimming the infield grass

Laser grading the infield

I'm so excited to see the finished products! Let's hope the spring weather for our 2015 spring baseball and softball seasons is as beautiful as the past couple of weeks!

Go Muskies!

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Welcome to the Tackle Box

Greetings, Muskie Nation! 

Welcome to The Tackle Box - Muskie Athletics from the A.D.'s chair.  As Lakeland's vice president for athletics and wellness, I have the best job on campus...leading our athletic department and having a front-row seat to all of our 18 intercollegiate teams.  For those of you that do not know me, I am new to the A.D.'s chair, but I'm not new to Lakeland.  Here is a little bit about me, and my journey to the A.D.'s chair. 

I am a native of Howards Grove, and have fond memories of numerous trips to Lakeland's campus competing in UCC summer volleyball tournaments, refereeing youth wrestling tournaments and numerous fine arts events.  I even performed in my one and only theatrical production on the Bradley Theatre stage in high school.  After nearly a dozen years away from Sheboygan County, I found my way home in 2003 as Lakeland's admission director before becoming the vice president for student development in 2008.

I love NCAA Division III college athletics, and had the honor of being a three-sport athlete in high school before participating in football and wrestling at Carroll University.  Here is a photo from my sophomore year at Carroll.



My family and I share a passion for Muskie athletics and enjoy the successes of our student-athletes both in competition and in the classroom.  I hope this blog serves as your glimpse into those successes, but, most importantly, I hope it shares with you what I get to experience each day as the A.D. at the best school in the country.  GO MUSKIES!