Athletic Department Updates

I want to alert you regarding decisions about personnel changes that are taking place in the University of Dubuque's Athletic Department. I suspect that you will soon be reading about these changes in the newspaper, and I wanted to notify you before you discover these transitions while drinking your morning coffee.

Let me begin by saying what we all know to be true. Personnel changes are never easy, and they are made even more difficult by personal relationships, respect, and affection. Even though I have tremendous respect for our Head Football Coach, Vince Brautigam, and his staff, I am supportive of Athletic Director Dan Runkle's decision that we need to revamp our football program.

To their credit, over the course of nearly eight years, Vince and his staff have strengthened a program that had been weak in numbers, regard in the Iowa Conference, and performance. In two of those eight years, the staff and the student athletes achieved the first back-to-back winning seasons in over two decades. That accomplishment alone is worth noting, and is something for which everyone should be proud. I am grateful to Vince and his staff for doing their part to bring us this far, and wish them every success as they move forward in their lives and careers.

I look forward, as well, to bringing in a new staff who will challenge and support current student-athletes as well as recruit others to join them, form them as young men, help them to compete every week, graduate them to successful lives and careers and, ultimately, take our program to its next level of competitiveness.

It is with a similar perspective that I would like to thank Cole Tallman for his almost four years of service as our Head Volleyball coach. Cole has been an enthusiastic member of our University community, a strong advocate of the University's Mission, and a proponent of Division III's commitment to excellence in the classroom as well as on the court. I wish him well as he moves forward in his life and career, and thank him for his service to the University.

Given that both of these areas of our athletic department have such important contact with both students and prospective students, we will immediately begin searches for both positions. It is my expectation that we will attract the highest caliber of candidates who will understand and support our Mission, form young men and women on and off the field/court, and who will, in both sports, lead us to a competitive level of achievement.

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