As Coach Stacy Hollowell worked the sideline during the game, former Loyola Athletic Director and Men’s Head Coach Dr. Mike Giorlando served as a volunteer for the team. Having left Loyola in 2014 to return to a professional life that taps his training as a dentist, “Coach Gio” (as everybody calls him) returned on a big night to quietly serve Loyola and the team as a team manager and jack-of-all-trades.
Meanwhile, in the bleachers cheering as a fan was Loyola’s former Men’s Head Coach Jerry Hernandez. Recent hip surgery couldn’t keep Coach Hernandez from returning to support the Wolf Pack.
After the game, the three coaches took a picture together—all 31 years of the second era of Loyola Wolf Pack intercollegiate basketball in one place, enjoying the big win.
It’s stirring to see the success of the 2021-22 men’s team and to take in Coach Kellie Kennedy’s stunning record of consistent success, Coach of the Year honors, and multiple championships over many years. These are magis moments at Loyola, specific times when the greater good becomes quickly apparent to everyone.
But there’s another kind of magis, the greater good that evolves over time as people committed to excellence and Loyola as an institution work hard and make difficult decisions in light of their sense of the greater good and the good of the students they serve.
That’s what I saw on the basketball floor after one of the biggest nights in Loyola athletic history. It wasn’t just the winning moment. I saw years of magis in one reunion—the courage of Coach Hernandez coming to Loyola to restart intercollegiate men’s basketball in 1991 after a 19-year hiatus. I was reminded of the vision of Coach Gio, hiring Coach Kennedy in 2008 as the Wolf Pack women’s coach, bringing on Coach Hollowell as his assistant, and then handing over the reins at the right time.
The wins we are seeing now at Loyola—in Wolf Pack athletics, in growing enrollment, in exciting new programs—are here only because of the steadfast and steady work of many, over many months and years. I want to close by giving a special shout-out to the people on campus working overtime to implement the new ERP system. The grind you are going through is the kind of work that won’t get recognized with a trophy, as in sports. However, your work makes success in the future more likely for all of us.
Go, Wolf Paaaaaaack! (And thank you to Kyle Encar for capturing the three coaches together after the game last week.)
With gratitude,
Chris Wiseman ‘88
Vice President of University Advancement
