Episode 45: Tom Lamonica
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Music.
John Twork 0:09
Welcome to Redbird buzz. I'm John Twork from University Marketing and Communications. Our guest today is Tom Lamonica, an instructional assistant professor in the School of Communication since 2006 who previously served as the Director of Sports Information at Illinois State for 26 years. If you've engaged with Redbird athletics or the school of COM over the past 40 years, you probably know Tom. at Homecoming this fall, he's joining the 2024 Illinois State Athletics Percy Hall of Fame class as the Campbell Stretch Miller award winner and recognition of his decades of contributions to Redbird athletics.
And it's my pleasure to welcome Tom Lamonica to Redbird buzz. What's the word Redbird? let's start at the beginning. Tom, how did you end up at Illinois State University way back in 1980?
Tom Lamonica 1:09
Well it took some Redbird legends to help me with that. The first one was Duffy Bass, the baseball coach who called and told me that the job was coming open. And then I got a lot of help from two other legends, Roger Cushman and Art Kimball, who I had gotten to meet before, and they recommended me and rich Godfrey, who was the 1980 equivalent to the VP for advancement today, he decided to take a risk on a --26 year old with Without much experience over some older candidates with a longer track record, so I appreciate all four of them.
John Twork 1:46
Yeah, so tell me you graduated from the University of Missouri, correct? Yes. So what steps did you take between then and arriving in Normal?
Tom Lamonica 1:54
My first job out of undergraduate school was at College of DuPage in Glen Ellen and sports was supposed to be about 20% of the job, I have to confess, I probably made it 50% of the job, but I worked on publications, I worked on other projects, and I learned a lot. It was a great post graduate experience because of all the different things I got to do, I learned some things about advertising and marketing, and then I went from there to the University of Evansville in 1978 they had had a plane crash. They lost their their basketball team to a plane crash in December of 1977 the sports information director was one of the people on the plane, and a few months later I was, I guess, fortunate enough to succeed him. Yeah, it was an interesting couple of years, and a very busy couple of years, our, our, our first home basketball game that year of the first home game after the plane crash was with number two, DePaul, which had three NBA first round players on it. And then the second home game was Indiana State, who had a guy named Larry Bird. [I've heard it.] Yeah, everybody has so and that's those. Those are the two jobs that I had before I came to Illinois State.
John Twork 3:11
And so you arrived in Normal, Illinois, and what were the responsibilities that you took on when you arrived on campus in 1980? Well, when
Tom Lamonica 3:21
Well, when I came to the job Sports Information directors, which is what we were called in those days, media relations and publications were pretty much the entire thing. In my early days at Illinois State, that role expanded to include live TV because we started to have more of that, supporting live TV, providing strategic communication for the department and for areas like student athlete recruitment, marketing, development and even academic support. All of these programs were developing in the 80s, and we tried to provide some some some information services and and communication support for them. So providing that support, I succeeded Roger Cushman, who was a one man army, and I knew as soon as I got here that I wasn't the one man army. I needed lots of help. And so we started the undergraduate intern program, and we also started the Graduate Assistant program that brought people here and gave me lots of extra hands. Yeah,
John Twork 4:26
so were you working with every sport at that point?
Tom Lamonica 4:30
Well, I had, I had all the men's sports. The first couple of years we had a women's sports information director, Christy Price, the jobs were kind of different because, of course, in those days, the the exposure imbalance was was enormous. It was heavily weighted to men's sports, and women's sports were just getting started, yeah, so that's the way it was at the start. And there was all kind of evolution over, you know, 26 almost 27 years,
John Twork 4:57
yeah, I would imagine the job changed significant. Significantly during that time, just as technology did, as college athletics did, how was the job different by the end of your time in athletics compared to when you first started?
Tom Lamonica 5:09
Well, the end of my time was about the start of yours. Yeah, you know what it was like then? And it was tremendously different because we had the internet, we had devices that people could carry around and and the urgency with which things had to happen was was very different. I was fortunate that Todd Kober had a philosophy, a management philosophy that really helped me a lot in my latter years in athletics. He said, we're going to put people in positions where they can succeed. So in other words, the social media and technology stuff you'd see, you know, Tom, you don't have to worry about that, but we want to put out the best writing product that we can, sure,
John Twork 5:50
and that was your, that was your cream of the crop, right? There was, was the writing and the storytelling, right?
Tom Lamonica 5:57
Yes, that was, that was it. And, you know, the storytelling you you mentioned that in Sheahon Zenger, who you know, we both work for, he had the best answer to what my job was, unfortunately this. He gave me this answer just a couple of years before I I retired, but he said that my job was to tell our story better than anyone else. I still use that in classrooms now, yeah, uh, kind of to define public relations really is to tell your client's story better than anyone else, and you do that right here in in University Marketing Communications, and I just went by that table with dozens of awards on it. So it's good that we have such a great group here well,
John Twork 6:42
and as sports information director, you have such a unique insight into the teams, the players, the coaches, the personalities, so you really are equipped to tell the stories better than anyone else. Perhaps I'd love to hear a few of your great stories from your time as an SID, and unfortunately, we don't have four hours, because I think we could probably chat for that more longer. But Tom, what are some of the highlights when you look back your time with Redbird athletics?
Tom Lamonica 7:12
Well, you know, looking back, two of the biggest things that happened happened very early in my time on campus. The first one was gaining membership in the Missouri Valley Conference, and the second one was the rollout of Reggie Redbird and as but as far as teams are concerned, the mid 1980s NCAA Men's basketball teams from Illinois State, 83, 84, 85 I think they had a huge impact, not Just on basketball, but on the entire athletic program, because those teams basically supplied the, the ammunition to build CEFCU arena, sure, and CEFCU arena was like was a game changer. But I think that national recognition that we got as a, you know, We'd only been in when we won that first championship in in 83 We'd only been in the league three years. Wow, so, or actually, two, no, two basketball seasons. That was the second basketball season. Was that first NCAA tournament team, and the Valley at the time was, was a very competitive conference, and had a lot going on. Sure,
John Twork 8:17
sure, what about--you mentioned how women's athletics evolved over time, and you became very involved, although you weren't involved in those programs at first, you became very involved with them later on, and really had a front row seat to some pioneers who made history, not just at ISU, but in the entire college athletics landscape. Can you chat a little bit about the women's athletics programs here?
Tom Lamonica 8:44
Well, certainly when you work with Coach Jill Hutchison, yeah, and there are probably dozens of coaches that are still in the game right now, who would say when you worked with Coach Jill Hutchison, you were impacted. You had a greater and stronger understanding and insight of what was going on, and so it was a privilege to work with Jill. The 1990s volleyball teams were a lot of fun because Julie Morgan was the coach. We were very successful--superstars like Kim Nelson. And not only did we win, but we also really expanded our media footprint. We were on TV. We were on radio, most, most games and and also that, of course, translated into crowds attendance. Illinois State still draws more for volleyball than than than most programs, but back in those days, we were in the top 10 in the nation in home attendance in volleyball. So that was a lot of fun. The fan experience was great, and they were great to work with. I would say, if there was one moment that kind of comes to my head, it's really, you know, 2005 I can't believe it's been 20 years in 2005 Jackie McCormick's game winning shot in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. We were the number eight. Eight seed, and we had had to beat three teams that had beaten us twice, and Jackie McCormick had said, game winning shot, of course, you know, the number eight seed, winning conference championship, getting a bid that made us a Cinderella, but the dog pile shot, which you I know, you know, I've seen it. Was on the front sports page of USA Today. Oh, wow, on selection Monday, which that, especially in those days, that was the highest selling newspaper day of any, yeah, because they would have two or three extra session sections, but, but, but, yeah, Cinderella and it was at CEFCU arena, yeah, the tournament, Jackie McCormick under a great big pile of teammates,
right, right?
That was fun. That was great I and what I got from that is like, you know, one of the fun things about having a job like I had, or like in like you had, is watching athletes celebrate the product of of their hard work. Yeah, and so watching student athletes celebrate that's, that's still the thing that kind of makes me smile about the job
John Twork 11:12
and that that really launched some, some sustained success in women's basketball moving forward from that, yes, that exposure is huge, right? Yes.
Tom Lamonica 11:23
And I just saw Robin Pingeton a few days ago. I was down in Columbia visiting a couple of people and and, you know, that's still, with all the success they've had it at Missouri, she still kind of shakes her head and smiles and says that that that team was amazing because we were okay so we were 13 and 18, yeah, and and we that win over Indiana State. People need to look this up a week earlier. The last regular season game we played at Indiana State, they beat us by 27 points. And it could have been worse. And then, you know, and Melanie Beglund for Indiana State had, I think, the greatest performance I've ever seen in a women's basketball conference tournament. She scored, I think, 27 in the second half, and we just made everything and from long distances. But still, you know, came away without that. And when Melanie Beglund went into the valley Hall of Fame a few years ago. I told her, I said, Do you remember I talked to you after that game? And she said, Yes, I do. She said, I also remember that I was walking around the arena crying, yeah? I said, Well, you know that was still, that's still a fantastic performance, and one of the best I've ever seen.
John Twork 12:41
Yeah, you saw another exciting performance when the men's team won the last conference championship hosted by a school which was also at CEFCU arena. Can you talk a little bit about that? I just the other day, I had the pleasure of chatting with Dan Butterley, who is the Commissioner of the Big West Conference and was, was the head manager for that he was, and so he got a front row seat, and really that shaped his whole career. Now he now he creates championship experiences for student athletes. But can you take us through what that was like?
Tom Lamonica 13:15
Yeah, that was, that was an amazing year, because I have to go back to, like, mid January, we were, we were about six or seven games under 500 and we played it at Creighton, and just, just played poorly, very poorly. And it was very frustrating. And the first thing that happened was the student athletes locked the coaches and even the athletic trainer out of the locker room after the game and had their own meeting there. John Pemberton was in that room, so if you ever talked to Pepsi, you could get more details.
John Twork 13:55
But so it was Dan. He told me about this actually, okay, he's in there, yeah, Butterly.
Tom Lamonica 13:58
so he told you what happened. Yeah, it was pretty interesting. And we're standing outside going, what the heck? Yeah, you know. And at Bob Bender was the head coach. Bob Morris was on that staff, Billy King, Ray Jacoletti, some, some really great guys. But we were kind of like, oh my gosh, this is really isn't going well. And we got six seniors, and it's just not cooking. Well, they went back and continued the meeting in CEFCU Arena, in the in the locker room, and I believe they they, they went out to breakfast after it was over. Oh, wow. They got off the plane, and they were basically up all night talking. And after that we got red hot, yeah, and we started knocking off everybody who showed up right up through that championship game, but Ricky Jackson had a had a day. You know, the story sometimes seems surreal, but Ricky Jackson lost his mother earlier that day, and he went out, he still had a game where it felt like he was shooting. He was unconscious, yeah, and he was a big part of that victory and and. Yeah, it was a big day for for the Redbirds that also we're going to talk about this later, possibly, but I'll go into it now. At that time, Doug Elgin the new commissioner of the Missouri Valley Conference. He'd been an SID, so I knew him when he was at Virginia, and he came up with this cockamamie idea of moving the tournament to Saint Louis, uh huh. And after that game, I saw Doug, and I said, Look at this. Look at this. I mean, there's never been more people in CEFCU arena than that day. I said, and you think we can do better in Saint Louis? He had a great answer that I still remind him of today. I talked to him about once a month. Doug said, Tommy, either this is going to work out and we're going to get this thing going in three or four years, or you're going to be talking to a different commission. He rolled the dice with that. And you know, the same thing happened with the women. I didn't learn after the men were so successful, Patty Viverito in the early 2000s started talking about moving the women's tournament to a neutral site. That never happened. Patty never happened. Well, okay, so I said this to Patty. I haven't didn't say this about the men's tournament. And I've been to every men's tournament in St Louis, I told patty. I said, if you can get a neutral site, I will come and work the tournament even after my team's eliminated, I will stay right through the end and help I said, you know, but I don't think you can pull it off. Of course. You know, I'm wrong a lot. Those are two biggies,
John Twork 16:30
yeah. And the men's tournament has been in St Louis ever since, and the women's tournament has been on a neutral site ever since then as well. So two of the marquee college basketball tournaments. For sure. We'll talk a little bit more about the valley in just a few minutes. Tom I wanted to touch on one more thing, which was, you were on the committee of judges who helped name Reggie Redbird. Tell me about that. Well,
Tom Lamonica 16:57
the committee was two people. It was assistant AD Brian Faison, who's gone on to have a long career the AD at several places. We were the judges, and it was run by the Kids Club. It was we offered it to the Kids Club, and Reggie was a very popular submission. And I think eventually we had to draw a name out of the Reggie submissions to find the winner. But the decision to go with Reggie had a lot to do with a 1970s and 80s baseball superstar named Reggie Jackson. Sure, wherever he played, the fans would chant Reggie, Reggie, and we wanted to capitalize on that. Now there were some people again 1980 there were some people who thought, Okay, we're going to name our mascot after a black baseball player with a big mouth and a big attitude and a big afro. Is that really what we want? And the answer is absolutely still, Reggie. Reggie still today. So that's, that's been a lot of fun to watch.
John Twork 17:59
Yeah, that's, that's quite the legacy to have been part of that naming committee, and I can't imagine him named anything else. So Tom, you retired in 2006 from Redbird athletics. I don't know if you had planned this or not, but you basically started a second career at that point. You moved from Horton Field House to the School of Communication and Fell Hall. Were you thinking that you were just going to teach a few classes, or that you'd start a decades long relationship with the school of Comm at that point? Well,
Tom Lamonica 18:31
I think the story actually goes back to like 1987 Okay, starting in 1987 I taught a class in the School of Communication in the fall, in the spring, every every year, and and I enjoyed that, and I looked at it as kind of a respite from in those days, the phone, the phone that sat on your desk, the old style phone, you know, they didn't have phones in classrooms. And I could spend three hours a week working with students. And I liked it a lot. And then in in 2005 I found out, kind of by accident that I had that was nearing the point where I could retire with a full pension. Mm, that first they they had to explain that to me about five times before I understood that this is how it works. And so but at that time, like no way my my supervisors, my superiors, were Todd Kober and Sheahon Zenger, two incredibly great guys. My coaches were Robin Pingeton in basketball, Sharon Dingman in volleyball, Ray kralis in golf. You couldn't find three better coaches to work with, yeah. So life was good, yeah. But in February after that, in February of 2006 I got a call from Doctor Marianne Moffat, who was the director of the PR program, and I was teaching PR classes. Then she said, Look, we're losing two of our four permanent faculty, so I've gotta find some people, and I'm hoping you can help me that can teach those classes. That have master's degrees and qualifications that are interested in teaching so that we can keep the program going. Because at the time, we are going through a six month period with a hiring freeze through all the trials and tribulations of the last 30 plus years, that's the only hiring freeze we've had. Wow. So that was in the spring of 2006 and I had started to notice a few things, one of them being that most of the people that I was working with in sports information were closer to my kids' age than mine. And the second thing was the travel was tough. It was tough and I wasn't as young as I used to be. And I thought I'd always thought that, you know, if that particular AD came along and actually got rid of me and I couldn't find a job in sports that I liked, I thought, well, maybe I can find a teaching job, sure. Well, I thought this was God's way of tapping me on the shoulder and saying, hey, you know, row boat, life raft, all that kind of stuff, story and, and so I thought, What the heck, you know? And I talked to my wife about it, and I prayed about it and thought about it. And finally, I called Mary Ann back, and I said, What if I could be that full time person instead of having all those part timers? And of course, her answer was, you got a pretty busy job right now. I said, What if I didn't have that job anymore? Yeah, and so she she bought into that, Larry Long, who was the director of the School of Communication at the time, Larry just jumped on that. Because he said, Hey, well, you can teach classes and you can go home, put your feet up, or you can do these other things here that I want you to do. And he read me pretty well. So working with alumni and bringing speakers to to campus, and COM Week and all those things kind of came along with the teaching.
John Twork 21:47
And so you've been there since 2006 and in addition to teaching you, you're also the coordinator of the internship program, which is a such a valuable and powerful program and through that, I'm sure you've met 1000s of students through that and through teaching, and probably have hundreds and hundreds of success stories. But I'm curious if you can just give us a few highlights of students, and we know we're leaving students out, so sorry if you don't hear your name here, but, but, but, but, who are some highlights that you you could talk about, well,
Tom Lamonica 22:21
there, there are some people that I want to talk about who made their mark in sports, mostly. And I think I'll, you know, I think I'm going to focus on that and just maybe apologize to all the non sports people at the start. But, you know, Craig Boner had a long career in college and Olympic sports, and now he hits the media operation, the on site media operation for the USA Olympic team and Paris 24 was was was bones is 14th Olympian Wow. And then Nancy Worley is the Associate SID at Louisville. Been there for more than 40 years, and she's won about every award a college sports communicator could win, and again, she has made the trip from Louisville back to campus to talk with students. There are 30 NBA teams, as both of us know, and each one has a communications staff leader, and two of those 30 are Illinois State alums, Beth Esler with the Chicago Bulls and Matt Tumbleson with the Oklahoma City Thunder and again, they are people. We brought some students up to a Bulls Thunder game a year ago, and they on a game day. I would never do this on a game day. They took time to meet with the students and introduce them to people and network them. So that's they're pretty special. Jay Blunk is a name that a lot of people are familiar with on campus. He helped make the Cubs and the Blackhawks leaders in creating and providing one of the best fan experiences in sports history. And Jay has been a great friend to his alma mater and and he comes back frequently to meet with students. Phil Bedell has worked for the Cubs, the Blackhawks, the bulls and the White Sox, and is a recognized expert on broadcast strategy. He was the CEO of NBC Sports Chicago, and now he will be on the executive staff of the New Chicago sports network, CHS, and in that we'll launch in October. Oh, sure. Uh, Tom Sheridan, who I know, you know, was the White Sox ticket manager for for 23 years. But Tom was also a big leader in the national ticket Directors Association, his professional group, and he's a consultant. Today, I'll wrap this up to talk about two non sports people who just graduated last spring from the School of Communication. Shelby Hodel is a graduate student teaching the intro to PR course at the University of Florida. Oh, wow. And Emmalynne Shumard is in Harvard Medical School's communication graduate program in Media Management and Health. John, I really never. Thought that I would ever be writing a letter recommendation for somebody to get into Harvard Medical School. But Emmalynne Shumard Is there? Yeah. You know, I could do this all day,
John Twork 25:09
absolutely. And this and that has to be such a highlight of your career to have all these connections, right?
Tom Lamonica 25:16
These people, besides my again, family and faith, these people are my life. I mean, my life is not defined. My career is not defined by anything that I did. I hope it's defined by what people that I've had as students, what they've done, because that might give me a lot better scores. Yeah, yeah.
John Twork 25:37
Well, thank you for sharing those names. Really appreciate that. So in addition to everything that you've done so far with the School of Communication, you're part of a new program now, the sports communication degree program, which is right up my alley. This sounds incredible. Can you tell us about that program and what your role is with that?
Tom Lamonica 25:59
Well, first of all, I want to say that it's people like you and your experience here in your career that helped make this program possible, that and a lot of hard work from from people like Dr Joe Blaney and Dr Pete Smudde, Dr Steve Hunt, Dr Aimee Miller Ott, who's our director now, they've done the heavy lifting. Yeah, for me, I started teaching a course about five years ago, and Steve Hunt and Pete Smudde asked me to teach this sports course, design it and teach it. And after I taught it, they they called me in to talk to me about, you know, what you think? And I said, well, one of my friends says I shouldn't be forced to enjoy myself quite this much. It went well, and I liked it. And then that's when they said, Well, here's our plan. We want to make this into a major and of course, as people in academia know, that takes like, four or five years, sure. And here we are, in the summer, the Illinois Board of Higher Education approved it, and we have students who are already visiting with me, visiting with our academic advisors, and wanting to get into it so, and the resources that we have, besides the, you know, the classroom, internship opportunities, ability to connect with professionals. I mean, you're going to get you involved in this, because you had a career as a young man in sports and and you can give them some guidance and show them some leadership. So we're hoping to have a very strong mentoring program as part of this, yeah, well
John Twork 27:26
It has to be so appealing to prospective students, you know, find something that they're passionate about and make a career out of it. Why not?
Tom Lamonica 27:34
I'm hopeful that that the people I teach are able to have as much fun and have the kind of experiences in their career that I've been able to have in mind.
John Twork 27:44
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you've done so much at Illinois State and the School of Communication and athletics, and during that entire time, you've also been very involved with the Missouri Valley Conference, which we touched on a little bit earlier, but working championships at both the men's and women's basketball championships. And for your efforts, you were inducted as one of six inductees into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame, class of 2024 right alongside Redbird football great all American Boomer Grigsby. Tell us about your involvement with the Valley, Tom and also what that felt like to be inducted into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame.
Tom Lamonica 28:28
Well being involved in the Valley and working with the people in the Valley, the people are just really, really outstanding. There's been some transition as Jeff Jackson's come in as as Commissioner after Doug Elgin retired after 33 years. But guys that you know, Mike Kern in communication, Jack Watkins in broadcast and marketing, they're the guys who lead these events. And also St Louis and Kansas City are popular places for NCAA tournaments, and they are the leaders of those tournaments. So you know, the opportunity to work with you and the the volunteers that we have at the Valley tournaments are just unbelievable people. We have one who's a registered nurse, lives in California and takes her vacation to come to St Louis for Arch Madness and run the credentials security desk for us. You know? I mean, it's easy for somebody like me, because I worked, I got a paycheck in it, yeah, but I really admire those people who do it just for love, and we've had some people like that here, Danny Winberry and Art Sievers are two that come to mind that are in the Redbird Hall of Fame.
John Twork 29:42
Yeah, yeah, you've gotten to see a lot of exciting moments there, huh, at both the men's and the women's tournaments. For folks you know who may not have had the opportunity to go down to St Louis or over to St Charles or Moline soon. Be Evansville. There's nothing quite like championship Sunday, is there? No.
Tom Lamonica 30:06
I mean, just the entire tournament is so exciting, because people come in filled with hope, and they know, I mean, they know that eight seeds and nine seeds, at least on the women's side, have won tournaments. They know there have been huge upsets in the men's tournament. And so it's just like, you know coaches, coaches are telling the truth when they say, hey, when you start the conference tournament, everybody's Oh no, yeah, everybody's got a shot. But the atmosphere and the fan experience and the way the student athletes are treated by the Missouri Valley Conference, and it gets supported by the schools that I think that's a big part of it. A long time, Belmont administrator, who's now retired, mentioned that when I had a chance to talk to her about a year ago, she said, you know, we didn't realize when we came into the Valley just how well that the conference office and the other schools would treat us, yeah, and you kind of lose sight of that when you see the you know, conference shifting and the you know, let's grab the big money. And it's all about football. The Valley's different. It's special.
John Twork 31:10
It really is. Well, speaking of special and Hall of Fame, Tom, this Homecoming this fall, you are being inducted into the Illinois State Athletics Hall of Fame as the Campbell Stretch Miller award winner, going in with that 2024 Illinois State Athletics, Percy Family Hall of Fame class. What does that mean to you?
Tom Lamonica 31:33
You know, I'm still trying to get my arms around it, yeah, because I just it's not something I ever thought would happen. I mean, I've got to thank the committee, because there's so many great candidates to choose from, and, and, and, you know, I'm lucky enough to be one of them. I'm humbled, I'm honored, but also, you know, really grateful to more than that committee. I didn't get here by myself. I didn't get anywhere by myself. I talked earlier about the grad students and the undergraduate interns and the volunteers and yes, a lot of coaches and great student athletes and people in the media that have all supported what I was doing and supported Illinois State in that vein. I really feel like this is a tribute to them, but I have to say, I want it to be a big tribute to my family, because, as you know, when you have a job in sports, you know your family, your family, can't come first on game day, yeah, and there's things that you miss. And you know your kids have to understand. My wife was very patient. Coach Bass had a great line when our kids were small. He would see us with our three children and and he would say to Claire, you know, you're doing a great job of raising all those kids, especially the big one with the mustache. Coach Bass was hilarious, but you know what? He was pretty much, right? Claire, who who had a great career on her own on campus and impacted, you know, 1000s of people, 1000s of professors and instructors and, by translation, millions of students. Yeah,
John Twork 33:12
well, as we wrap up the interview, I'm glad you mentioned Claire, and I wanted to just talk a little bit about about her and you together, and the legacy that you've created, as you mentioned, Claire, was 15 years with the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology, and also spent time in English department and at the lab schools. So again, anyone who's had any involvement on this campus over the past 40 years has has probably met a Lamonica.
Tom Lamonica 33:42
it's, it's possible, I have to say, Claire. Claire probably knew more faculty. Knows more faculty than anybody I could identify. You know, she had, she had more than 40 years on campus herself. And, you know, I think the way we look at that is like it's an opportunity for us to give something back to a place that is given so much to us, you know, supporting students and supporting faculty. I think those are the things that we have have always prioritized, you know, and Claire, Claire has done her part more than 40 years on campus, and she helped teachers get better at their jobs and and that's, I think, the teaching center when she was there. And that again, that commitment continues, and that's one of the things I think, that makes Illinois State great, that separates us from a lot of institutions like institutions, is we care about teaching, and our professors care about teaching, and they're able to get the support that they want, that they need. We've been fortunate enough to have a connection to a teaching award, and we. Recognition, obviously, is a big part of that. And again, the opportunity to do that, and every year meet somebody who's had the opportunity to earn that award, that's pretty special too.
John Twork 35:13
That's real special. Tom, thank you so much for taking time to think about the past 40 years here on campus share some of the memories. I wish we could chat longer, because I know you've got great stories to tell, some maybe you couldn't even tell on the podcast, but it's been a great pleasure. Congratulations on your induction into the Hall of Fame. So well deserved. Tom. Thanks so much.
Tom Lamonica 35:40
Thank you, John, you and your colleagues in university, marketing and communications are difference makers for our university as well. And I want to say thank you and how much we appreciate what you do here and your colleagues.
John Twork 36:03
and that's Tom lamonica, long time sports information director and school of Comm professor, who's going into the Percy Athletics Hall of Fame as the Stretch Miller award winner homecoming weekend. Thanks for tuning in to Redbird Buzz, and be sure to tune in next time for more stories from beyond the quad.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai