Angie Cooksy: 0:11

Welcome back to another episode of the Bradley University Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Angie Cooksy. I serve as the Vice President for Enrollment Management, Marketing and Communications.

Ben Jedd: 0:20

And I am Ben Jedd. I am AVP of Marketing and Communications.

Angie Cooksy: 0:24

If you've not heard the show before, what the Bradley University Podcast is, is a place where we get to talk with the best people around Bradley's campus and who are doing awesome and amazing things and get to highlight just them as people and their involvement in and around Bradley and the Peoria community. We shoot in the lower level of the university hall in Hilltop Studios, which is an awesome space for our students and our faculty and our staff to have access to today's technology to shoot podcasts, to record podcasts, do music recordings, all sorts of things and really anything that they can imagine. It's a great space. Today, our guest is Craig Dahlquist, who is the Senior Associate Athletic Director Emeritus and uh works with athletic advancement these days. You might have the longest title on campus, I think. Craig Dahlquist, welcome to the show.

Craig Dalhquist: 1:13

Thank you so much.

Angie Cooksy: 1:14

Uh what we do on the show is give everybody an opportunity to learn to share a little bit about themselves and their journey to the seat that they sit in today. So can you talk a little bit about your history and how you landed in advancement and all the things in between?

Craig Dalhquist: 1:28

So I'm gonna go back 41 years ago. We got time. Actually, it goes back a little further than that. I actually started my graduate work here at Bradley and uh back in uh the fall of 78. Okay. And um did not complete my MBA here, went down to Western Illinois, finished my master's degree there, and through a bunch of different job changes. Once I got my master's, I ended up back at Bradley in August of 84 to become the assistant track coach. A year later, Jake Schoff uh retired and I became the head track and cross country coach. Uh pretty quickly. This was a time when we were changing some of our majors. We were dropping physical education as a major, so I got to pick up some classes and teach there. But as things evolved, we decided in the athletic department that it would be a good idea to add Vent Soccer, and they unfortunately downgraded the track-and-cross country program. So I had some decisions to make, and Bradley made a decision for me. They offered me an opportunity to stay in an administrative role, and so I worked in the ticket office and started doing some of the business manager at the time positions before I picked up an assistant AD title. And uh that that really was a pretty good turning point. We had a big family, still do. And so it was it was an important part for Trish and I to think, okay, do I really want to be out on the road recruiting and traveling and coaching or trying to raise what ended up being a family of seven children? So uh uh as things evolved, I I eventually picked up uh the compliance umbrella in the athletic department, which I always tell people today that was 11 years of purgatory. So I've got a I've got a fast track to the uh to the big seat in the sky. I've already I've already done my time. But uh th through through a lot of evolutions, different athletic directors, I I I really worked hard on the on the financial side and money in, money out, and so forth, and of course being a sport coordinator. And over the years, you learn a lot of things about Bradley, and so my relationships with all the different places on campus, including enrollment management, financial aid, the registrar, and of course the the uh the swords hall in the business office, I I got I got very, very well connected. And I feel like that's one of the things that I've been really proud of through the years is just being able to have all the all the bases touched and getting to know the folks in HR and so forth. So 38 years later, we can fast forward to a few years ago, it was time to retire. And at that time I was I was handling uh the the finances and other things that of course the athletic director needed done. And uh I retired and walked away but stayed on. We had upgraded our track and cross-country program to the program it is now. And I stayed on as a volunteer coach just mostly to keep my keys so I could keep my locker, right? But priorities.

Angie Cooksy: 4:18

Right.

Craig Dalhquist: 4:18

But but uh I was glad to be involved and help out there whenever I could. And we we uh you know we had uh last fall we were uh we had bid for the NCAA Regional Cross Country Meet, which was the eighth time in my time here that we were fortunate to host. And so I told them I would stick around and help make that happen. And about the same time last year, I got approached by uh by Charlie Roy saying that we have a void, um, we need help in the basketball games. You know people, you know the constituents. Can can you come out and help and help us maybe turn over some stones, raise some money? And so that that's that's a fast track to where I am. But uh I had a wonderful winter uh doing some things that I didn't think I would ever do at Bradley, and that is starting to dig into some of our uh athletic alumni trying to get that database sorted out. There were some folks who weren't coded in sports that they belonged in, or even coded sometimes in the wrong sport. So we got that cleaned up, and uh things went very, very well, and we still have a bit of a void in the development area, so they asked me to stick around this year and continue to do the things that I'm doing. And uh that that's where I sit today, and it's it's just been great. Um the the the folks that I've reconnected with that I kind of walked away from, and I would say that being the the the you know a few thousand season ticket holders, that was really fun. What are you doing here? Well, I'm back working again. And uh and and I've had a lot of compliments, people saying, well, you're in the right place, what you need to do. And I I Trisha and I didn't really have uh a hard decision to make in terms of that. It was starting to sit around the house and I didn't want to be that guy that was just watching Netflix reruns all day long. And all the projects I could do in the house I'd pretty much done. The ones that I couldn't do, I'm either too old to do now, or it's better just to hire somebody else to do it and do it in the right way. So uh but we're we're a very connected Bradley family. Um a lot of people know my son Danny, who was here and played soccer, and then my daughter Carrie, Carrie Donlin now is uh over in the physical therapy department, and she helps run the pro bono clinic, and she's been been a professor now, or I guess I should say in a yeah, she's a professor. Uh just finished her PhD and is now in the tenure track track track. Really proud of that. Um I should have started with Trish.

Angie Cooksy: 6:38

I was gonna say we have to go backwards.

Craig Dalhquist: 6:39

Yeah, so Trish has been in the English department forever. She came here when we got married, finished her degree, got her master's degree, and has just marched her way through in the English department and is actually the chair right now. Uh with all the changes that have happened. She had the opportunity to step into that role. She's done study abroad as I just spoke with Joby Skaggs on her way at the door here about all the work that they're doing there. And uh it's Trisha's got a few more years yet to work. Um I'll go backwards. Our youngest is actually a sophomore in Illinois Wesleyan playing soccer over there and was fortunate to have the tuition exchange. And uh probably playing soccer there because we don't have varsity soccer here at Bradley, and maybe someday that'll happen, maybe not. We don't know.

Angie Cooksy: 7:22

But you and me have the same wishes for women's varsity soccer. Yeah.

Craig Dalhquist: 7:26

I'm with you. And then uh my my next youngest, Michael, graduated two years ago um from Bradley, and he did have an exchange opportunity because of COVID stuck around town. Yeah. And then uh uh Marty was a student who went away on exchange but came back to Bradley, and then uh uh Molly graduated and she's teaching high school down in down in St. Louis, and that's not too bad. And then uh then Amanda um probably the only one that doesn't have any touch base with Bradley at all. She went to St. Louis U in in nursing school and um had a really uh really good experience there, but she is back in town and getting married to a local person, so we're not gonna lose her to her town. Excuse me. So um I I don't know what you have in your itinerary, but I I I came in here with a small agenda and I just want to tell people I think Angie, you and I talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago, about some of the really cool things that I've been doing. And one of them, because I have a passion for track, but the other sports also, I've been just going through the database and looking people up and trying to find out who they are and where they are. So I got curious about it.

Ben Jedd: 8:35

Are you going to be calling people out like we need to get in touch with Kevin Smith right now?

Craig Dalhquist: 8:40

Well, I I the c I don't want to make them uncomfortable, but but this this particular gentleman uh is a 1954 grad. He's an all-American pole vaulter, so that's why I found his name. And I looked and I thought, this guy's a retired Air Force Colonel. So I thought I gotta I gotta email him. So I went to an olinaga, or what were they called back then, um the Polyscope, and I found a picture of him pole vaulting, all American pole vaulter, shot the picture to him, and he responded right away. And this was back late winter, early spring. And we ended up on the phone together, and boy, did he have some stories to tell me. They were just, they were fantastic. So think about this 1954 graduate, Robert Lawrence the astronaut, which we missed the timing on this gentleman because I would have loved, I don't think I can say his name, Paul Erickson. Paul, if we'd have started sooner, if I had, may have been able to get him somewhat involved in in the statue, although Paul's 93 years old now, so he's not traveling a lot. But he he gave me this story. Well, Bobby Lawrence was on the track team when I was a senior and he was a freshman. And then he explained that you know I didn't follow him much, but I he wasn't a real good track athlete. I didn't think he'd pursue it. And of course we all know the story. He went on and did great things academically and then and then on to his his astronaut world. Uh Paul also, um, when he left Bradley, went to aviation school. And he told me he went to aviation school with General Wayne Downing, our airport name, his brother.

Angie Cooksy: 10:16

Wow.

Craig Dalhquist: 10:16

And so I don't know the whole story yet. I'm just getting into it. And so we went on and on. I said, so all these years have you been back to Bradley? Nope, only once. He's from Moline. He came here because a former Bradley track athlete was his high school coach and said, You have to go to Bradley. So he came down here and wasn't, you know, right at the end of the career, so didn't get drafted, but he was, you know, he knew he was going to go into the military and went through the ROTC program. So for some of the old timers, remember Nebraska football. When he retired, he ended up in Lincoln, Nebraska. And he was the commercial pilot for Coach Osborne at Nebraska on his recruiting trips. That's amazing. So now think about all this, plus a career in the Air Force. I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna get down to Dallas because we need to do this. We need to get a camera in front of him. I sent him a polo for his birthday, although I sent a black one. He said, that's not our school colors. So I'm gonna have to fix it. I like him already. I'm gonna have to fix that. But that's j that's just a story of of many, many people. Um one more quick one. Um 1971 grad, so I haven't just been looking at intercollegiate athletics, I've been looking at the clubs. So hockey is big for us. So I looked at club hockey and I looked at club soccer, and I saw a picture and I saw a name and I looked him up. And this gentleman, uh, he's very private. He just retired as a psychology professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He had taught at Eastern Illinois before that. Uh lives down in St. Louis now, so hopefully I'll see him when we do the the President Shadow reception down there later on in October. But he was one of Claire Etah's first students.

Angie Cooksy: 12:02

I saw her walking around campus today.

Craig Dalhquist: 12:04

He was a transfer from Knox, and she remembers him. So now I'm talking to Claire, I'm talking to David, but I have not put them together on the phone, on the Zoom, or anything, but I'm gonna make that happen. And he writes mystery murder novels, uh, and it just things like that. Now, where this takes us, I don't know, but our current faculty in the psychology department are fascinated with the fact that maybe they can have a dialogue with this gentleman. Maybe he's got some some connections and some ties that they can help them with perhaps some of their research, help some of our students move on in life. But that's just two stories of the kinds of things I've been doing in the last nine months now.

Angie Cooksy: 12:44

Because really the starting glad that you weren't good at being retired. Okay.

Craig Dalhquist: 12:47

Yeah. I I I I I honestly, as I say with Trish, I I honestly thought, well, okay, this is going to be different going in every day and getting in at eight, getting in at nine, and then staying late. Of course, I, you know, I worked volleyball this weekend in our little booster club room, making sure that those people got their free popcorn and they were happy and it was good. And uh, of course, I don't mind watching volleyball. And sure. So uh I you know I'll be helping with the cross-country meeting because that's my passion down the road. And um, you know, basketball games are coming up, but that's that's uh my story. I've got more details in my 38 years that I could spill, but I had four athletic directors, every one of them was a different type of person, but got on well with them and how many different presidents we have. But I I feel like Bradley's a great place to be.

Ben Jedd: 13:34

So 38 years long family ties. What in your opinion makes Bradley unique? In general, or or for me? Yes. No. Either either one, yeah.

Craig Dalhquist: 13:53

I what what I like about Bradley, so I went to a a small college, I went to Monmouth, much smaller than here. Sure. It's the next step where the where there's more people, more adventures to to get to get to know. There's a challenge. I'm not perfect with faces and names, but uh when you're in a small school and you graduate and you say, I don't know who that person is, I don't know who that person is, but I know the rest of them, that's one thing. But when you come to a Bradley, I think I think being connected, and this is a very, very, very friendly campus. And you walk around, if you see a student with their head down on the way to Bradley Hall and you say hi to them, 99% of them will lift their head and say hi and smile. And that's that's a real that's the cool place about this. It's a 65-acre campus. Then you add the the St. James apartments to make it a little bit bigger, but it's so easy to get from here to there. I left six minutes ago from the office over to walk over here to the studio and and we're basically the other side of campus here. And it it's it's just it's just a really cool place. And I think being able for me now personally to go from from office to office and know the Dave Bears and be able to sit in his office when he was police chief and sit with Nina Pepplo and sit with you know back in the day Michelle Ritchie and and and and Pratima and in the controller's office and be able to knock on Gary Anna's door and stick your head in and be have people say you know hi and not say, you know, who are you? What are you doing here? This is not that kind of place. And we have a president now who's they've all been that way. They have a president now who's you know accessible, he's busy, but you know, he'll he's done a good job of getting to know who who you are. And obviously he's a Bradley guy too, so it really helps a lot. But that the b the old Bradley family is something that's people criticize, it's all falling apart. I said maybe it's not what it was, but um you need to engage if you're on campus, engage yourself from people like me who've been here a long time. Because I think then then you'll you'll feel a little bit different than just trying to hang out with your colleagues that have only been here a couple, three years. I mean, it's just simple fact that you guys are doing this podcast, that you get to meet people. This is cool. And I'm getting to sit with you first time I we spent more than a handshake. Absolutely. And in um, you know, I Andy, I called you and you had time for me, and we spent a half an hour a couple weeks ago, and it w it was really neat. So that again, this the closest of Bradley. I think that's the biggest reason why Trish and I just live across the street in the uplands. We moved there thinking, all right, you know, a couple three years here and we'll move on. And we found out that walking to work and walking home for lunch and forgetting your keys and going back and your phone and it's just it's been great. And I'm neighbors with the Montgomery's and the Kelsos and down the street, uh, you know, Jim Irvin, God bless him, who passed a number of years ago is across the street, and Tony Herman and I I I'm gonna s miss people. Jason Zaborowski's on my street.

Angie Cooksy: 16:55

I I want to come live on their street. Yeah, yeah, sounds fun.

Craig Dalhquist: 16:58

It's a really cool place. And as I'm reading student newspapers from back in the day and finding out about how many faculty live so close. Of course, not a lot of people had cars in the in the teens and the twenties. And of course, I'm guessing they were working on Bradley's salaries, so there probably weren't a lot of cars for some but but it's it's this is a really close neighborhood, the West Bluff. And I'm excited to see some of the some of the subtle changes that we're going to be making to be to make Bradley's presence even more uh uh we're not dominant in the neighborhood, but the uplands and the West Bluff does not exist without Bradley. And uh I think a little bit the same. The the you know Bradley doesn't exist without without a lot of what's going on around here too. Good things.

Angie Cooksy: 17:41

Ben's heard me say this before. One of one of my biggest dreams about Bradley and Peoria is that when people come into this town, they know that this is our hometown and that Bradley is is all over, and there's no mistaking that this is this is where we've grown up and we've we've built a a pretty amazing thing. So I love that that part of that idea of community is so important to to Bradley's future, to Peoria's future, to the West Bluff and and the uplands, and it's all so interconnected in a way that um is is kind of really magical.

Craig Dalhquist: 18:09

I agree, I agree. And it's I mean it it is hard to put in words as you can tell. I mean, I might be rambling a little bit, but I y I I could throw out 25 adjectives to describe this place, and it wouldn't be wrong on any of them. It just fits. It fits so well.

Angie Cooksy: 18:26

So listening to to what you've been talking about today, I'm curious. You know, there's you mentioned a little bit, like people are like, oh, it's not the Bradley that I remember. It's not how and I think in in a lot of ways that's right, that should be. Times change, people change, technology changes, the world changes. Like it would be maybe weird if Bradley was the exact same place it was in 1985. Like that's probably an odd thing.

Ben Jedd: 18:48

And it's good. And it's good, right? Right.

Angie Cooksy: 18:50

It's good that like we've moved on and we make those changes. Um, what would you say you've had the last nine months to start to reconnect with some of our alumni and and some of those people that have that historical tie to Bradley? What would you say to our alumni and and how would you encourage them maybe to to reconnect in a way if they haven't?

Craig Dalhquist: 19:07

So what I've found is the so I can say older, because I'm a 78 grad, and these folks, a lot of them I've been talking to are early 70s, late 60s, down 1961 grads gonna drive over in October to help us with the cross-country meet. Nobody's been talking to us, nobody's been connecting. Tell me some stories. We read it, we see it, but my generation was transitional with cell phones and social media and so on, and I'm still working hard on it. That group uh i i is perhaps still a little bit more, I don't want to say resistant, but just not it's not in their it's not in their wheelhouse every day to grab their phone right away and take a look and see what kinds of messages or what what things are are happening. Did you did you sign up for the Bradley Connect email? No. Well do it. And you don't have to look at it, but once in a while it's gonna pop up. Up. Yeah. Something's going to grab your interest, just like the newspaper, something's going to grab your interest. And you're not going to look at the front page. You're going to flip to page three, flip to page five and see what it says. And sometimes you might go four months and not not bother. But to me, talking to some of these folks and then trying to connect them with their classmates I think is really important. We don't want to look backwards. We need history to move forward. We don't want to look backwards a lot. We have to look forward to where we're going to be, because if we get too dwell too much in the past, then we just we just spin our wheels. But um, you know, th there there's been a ton of changes at Bradley since I've been here, 41 years or so. There's been tons of changes in the 41 years before that. Right. And there's going to be more changes. And sometimes change is very uncomfortable and and it and it unfortunately hurts a few people. But for the most part, when you look at the institution as a whole, it it it moves on. So what do what do I tell those people? I just tell them to be positive because this is a huge institution with a very healthy endowment. Uh wrong things can happen, right? But no, this place is moving on, it's moving forward, and it's gonna be a different look. And like I said, back when I first started talking here, when I got here, they were dropping physical education, I forget the other two academic programs. It created a lot of strife. Some professors moved on, some moved into other departments, but they re- they moved on. They just moved along and and then and then things changed. And like nobody really remembers that we once had a physical education major, but it's it's it is not here in the world.

Ben Jedd: 21:49

People aren't complaining that we're not watchmakers anymore.

Craig Dalhquist: 21:52

You know? Yeah, but but but yeah, they they don't have and this is what we have no one. I've got a garment on my arm here.

Angie Cooksy: 22:01

Um do you want to grab okay? Uh this is how this goes usually. Um we always end with sort of the same question for everybody, and it puts people on the spot a little bit. One of the things that's so exceptional about this place and having the show is getting to hear people's experiences at Bradley and the stories that they've had at Bradley. Um, and often because we find that many of our people here are are wildly humble, they don't tell us a lot about themselves. And so the question that we ask at the end of every show is Craig Dahlqvist, what are you unapologetically exceptional at?

Craig Dalhquist: 22:38

And that's the response we get from the Yeah. Oh boy. So I would say I try to get myself involved in too much, in too much, and and and realizing that sometimes when you're your involvement may not be your specific responsibilities, and you could create somebody else a little bit more work. And like I talked, you know, what you and I were talking about some club sports concepts the other day, and and I've spoken with some other uh some other VPs, and like, well, if this happens, if it how how important is it and how much how much is work is that gonna create? And so I think that that sometimes you you know you need to stay in your lane, because you got a job to do and get those things done. But I just feel like sometimes something needs to be said over here, and you've got to be tactful about it, or you have to whisper to somebody else to say, hey, I saw this, and it's not like you're ratting anybody else, it's just it's just certain things you know need to be done. You walk through campus, and here's a good example. I walk on the east side of the arena. I say the new arena, it's in its 16th year now.

Angie Cooksy: 23:52

That's a wild. Like I remember when it got built.

Craig Dalhquist: 23:54

So I I walked on the east side and I'll pick up five to six scraps of paper every single day that blew or were dropped or whatever. And so I actually saw the grounds guy out here uh running the hoses right outside where we're at with by the new uh the new cafeteria. And I just mentioned to him that and he said, keep doing it because we just can't get it done all the time. And that's where families pass when they're on campus visits, and so it's just little things like that. And I and I so I said it to him thinking maybe his staff was not doing their job, not passing by, because we used to always see people with the you know, picking up with buckets and things, but I think that's all of our responsibilities.

Angie Cooksy: 24:37

Yeah.

Craig Dalhquist: 24:38

So that's just a small little example of uh other things that you know that that you do.

Angie Cooksy: 24:43

And um it's the ripple effect though, right? Like you picking that up means that somebody else who walked past it later had a better experience in that moment because it wasn't.

Craig Dalhquist: 24:51

Or they saw me do it and maybe they'll do it. But that's just me, me maybe a little bit of my self-righteousness too. But no, I think I think sometimes I I I I I will step out of my my silo, out of my lane a little bit, but again, we at Bradley all have that extra line in our responsibilities, as says other duties as well. Other duties as assigned. Yeah. So you just you just get used to doing that and cut it off now before it gets assigned to you. And and just take care of it, right?

Ben Jedd: 25:21

Thank you so much, Craig, for joining us today. It was great to learn more about you and hear some of these just amazing stories that need to be told.

Craig Dalhquist: 25:28

Appreciate it. This this was a lot of fun. Thank you.

Angie Cooksy: 25:31

That wraps up another episode of the Bradley University Podcast. Uh, if you haven't noticed, we have a lot of fun down here in Hilltop Studios, and we would love to have you on the show so we can learn about your stories, your experiences, and the ripple effects that you have here on Bradley's campus. So see everybody later. Bye.