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BLUE SKIES FOR RED STARS IN NWSLBy Maggie Dziubek

Reprinted from The DePauliaFor parents and players heading to Little League games on the surrounding fields, the line forming outside of Benedictine University sport complex in Lisle might been have been puzzling. Little did they know that just inside the small suburban stadium, some of the best women’s soccer players in the world were ready to kick off.

The atmosphere in the stadium at the Chicago Red Stars’ second home match of the inaugural season of a new women’s soccer league was hope-fully optimistic.

Two former American-based professional women’s leagues, the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) and Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), both buckled under mounting bills after only a handful of seasons. The new league, The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) is dedi-cated to minimizing costs.

“It’s a minor miracle that the league is up and running this year,” said Red Stars General Manager Alyse Lahue. “We’d love to have more staff, that’s the top of my wish list...but I think for the first year, it was important for us to stay modest.”

Player salaries range from $6,000 to $30,000, incredibly low for profes-sional athletes. However, a new feature of this league is the inclusion of the Canadian and Mexican soccer federations and the financial backing of the national programs to finance the salaries of big-name players from the national teams.

For the women’s soccer community, having a running league is very impor-tant.

DePaul’s women’s soccer team, led by head coach Erin Chastain, is just wrapping up its spring season. For DePaul’s players, having a professional team in the Chicago area is an opportunity to learn from the best.

Our team learns a lot from watching the league, it gives them role models to look up to and ... I think it’s just important for all the younger soccer players to have a professional league just to show that everyone’s supportive of women’s soccer and to be able to see it played at the highest level in our city,” said Chastain.

DePaul is represented in the league by Red Stars defender Julianne Sitch, who graduated from DePaul in 2006 and is happy with to be a part of the Chicago team.

“I love playing in Chicago, it’s my hometown,” said Sitch. “I love all the girls, the coaches have done a great job of bringing in amazing players, but also just really good hard working blue collared people.”

As an alumni, Sitch is allowed to join DePaul’s team for occasional trainings, so while Chastain has never coached Sitch, she is familiar with her as a player.

“She’s just a high-energy, athletic, really passionate soccer player. Her best spot is on the flank somewhere. Anyone would love to have that kind of work rate on your team. You can always count on her coming in and bringing it.”

The NWSL venues are often as small as the salaries. The Red Stars play at Benedictine University in the western suburb of Lisle.

While this makes it difficult for car-less Chicagoans to get to a game, it spares the team to the costs and inevitably empty seats of a bigger, more expensive stadium in the city.

“We’re planning on organizing transportation from the city,” said Lahue. “And we want to make it affordable, especially for students, so we’ve offered extremely discounted tickets, and we’ve organized tailgating before the game as well.”

The Red Stars will play a total of 11 home games, from April to August against teams from Boston, western New York, New Jersey, Portland, Seattle, Washington D.C. and regional rival Kansas City. The team tied Seattle 1-1 in its April 14 home opener and lost to Portland 2-0 April 27. The outcome of a scheduled second match up against the PortlandThorns on May 12was determined after this paper went to press.

After the game, as volunteers carried track and field hurdles onto the sidelines in an attempt to keep fans off the field, the players mingled with fans.

While many fans flocked to U.S. National Team star and Thorns forward Alex Morgan, others tried to get the attention of Red Star Maribel Domin-guez of the Mexican federa-tion or chanted for Red Stars midfielder Lori Chalupny.

At midfield, Red Stars goalie Erin McLeod swapped soccer stories with a group of young Canadian fans.

“That’s a total credit to the players,” said Lahue. “[They] are willing to stay after every single game, and these are Olympians and world class athletes. I don’t think that’s something that would happen with most Chicago teams. That’s something that’s unique to women’s soccer.”

As fans fervently thanked players for autographs and pictures, players echoed back their gratitude.

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REMEMBERING JARROD: DEPAUL ANNOUNCES TRACK & FIELD SCHOLARSHIPDepaulbluedemons.comCHICAGO, ILMemorial Day is always a somber day of reflection, but this year It carried additional weight for the DePaul community. Each May, on the last Monday of the month, the country presses pause to remember the sac-

rifices and contributions made by men and women lost in military service.

Blue Demons grieve this spring for an additional reason, as this year’s holiday also happened to be the day former student-athlete Jarrod Jahnke would have turned 33.

Last July, the DePaul family lost a cherished companion when Jahnke - a gifted track & field athlete and member of the class of 2004 - suddenly passed away from a heart attack.

At DePaul, where he was a two-time Conference USA champion in the hammer throw, Jahnke had the credentials to be remem-bered for his track and field exploits alone. In 2004, he defended his first C-USA title by winning his signature event by 23-plus feet.

Talk to anyone who knew him, however, and athletic prowess is usually the last thing brought up in conversation.

“There are so many people that I could think of at least one nega-tive thing to say about, but he was just one of those rare people that you never really thought anything other than great things about,” said former teammate and current assistant track and field coach Leah Bohr. “I would just say he was the definition of what a Blue Demon is.”

Most recall fondly Jahnke’s presence at meets, cheering his teammates on. Now, even in passing, his aura will continue to shine on the program with the birth of an annual scholarship bearing his name. A $50,000 anonymous contribution was received by the university this year and will serve as the starting point for what will someday be a endowed full scholarship for a member of the throws program.

Current track and field head coach Dave Dopek, who will have the final word on future recipients of the honor, says those recipients will share the same qualities Jahnke brought to the team on a daily basis. That means he or she will have to work hard, remain coachable, have fun and be an inspirational teammate all while not feeling forced to live up to the name on the award.

Dopek says Jahnke was the perfect example of someone whose extraordinary deeds did not go unnoticed even though he couldn’t have cared less about personal recognition.

“The interesting thing for me is, in order for Jarrod to have a legacy at DePaul, we have to do something that was against his nature - which is talk about himself, or be about himself or identify great things about himself,” said Dopek, who was an assistant coach during Jahnke’s time in Lincoln Park. “I keep saying he was a great teammate and he focused more on helping others, which obviously is very Vincentian of him. But he was good at that.”

“It’s also very interesting to me that when you talk about an individual when they’re around, and then you talk about them when they aren’t around - oftentimes things change and there are different conversations. That doesn’t change with Jarrod. He was loved. He was very much loved by everyone around here.”

At the time of his death, Jahnke had been accepted into the U.S. Army Officers’ Training Corps and was in the midst of a rigorous training regimen as he prepared to head off to boot camp.

Following his graduation in 2004, Jahnke had worked in the financial industry with an abundance of suc-cess. Still, he expressed a lack of fulfillment to friends and explored career options in fire protection and police work before deciding to serve in the military.

“Losing Jarrod has been very difficult for me personally, but I am most disappointed for my son, Henry,” said Ryan, who continued to work out with Jahnke as he prepared to join the Army. “I really wanted Henry to be a part of Jarrod’s life, and have him as a role model. One of my last memories of Jarrod is watching him play with Henry and giving him tons of hugs and kisses.”

REPRINTED FROM DEPAULBLUEDEMONS.COM

DePaul Athletic Development Staff

Thad Dohrn tdohrn@depaul.edu Lemone Lampley llampley1@depaul.edu Marge Mazik mmazik@depaul.edu Mario Stula mstula1@depaul.eduMolly Creek mcreek@depaul.eduJules Lloyd Jlloyd1@depaul.edu

CONTACT CAITLYN VANN AT 773-325-4057

NCAA APR PUBLIC RECONGITION AWARDS PLENTIIFUL AT DEPAUL THIS YEARSeven programs earn NCAA honors for second straight yearCHICAGO – Seven DePaul programs were recognized with Public Recognition Awards from the NCAA for having multi-year Academic Performance Rate (APR) scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports. Women’s basketball, men’s golf, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball, men’s tennis and women’s tennis were all recognized by the NCAA with DePaul standing as one of 61 schools in the nation with multiple teams earning the honors in each of the last eight years. The APR measures academic progress and retention of student-athletes receiving any measure of athletically-based scholarship assistance.

DePaul’s total of seven teams honored represents the third-best total among all BIG EAST Conference schools. Women’s basketball, softball and women’s tennis picked up the recognition for the eighth straight year while the golf team was honored for the seventh time in eight years. The seven teams are a high for the second straight year after having six teams earn the honor in 2004-05 and 2009-10.

The women’s basketball program is just one of four teams nationally to earn the honor the last eight years along with Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton.

Each year, the NCAA tracks the classroom performance of student-athletes on every Division I team through the annual scorecard of academic achievement, known as APR. The rate measures eligibility, graduation and retention each semester or quarter and provides a clear picture of the academic performance in each sport. The most recent APRs are multi-year rates based on scores from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-2012 academic years.

A total of 976 teams earned the NCAA Public Recognition Award with 594 women’s teams and 382 men’s or mixed squads. Out of 346 Division I programs, a total of 268 schools placed at least one team on the APR list.

The BIG EAST Conference produced 72 teams led by Georgetown and Notre Dame with 14 programs apiece. DePaul’s seven teams were the third-highest total fol-lowed by six from Villanova and five from Seton Hall and Syracuse. Full APRs for all teams, including access to postseason play and penalties for low-performing teams, will be released June 11.

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The Campaign supports dreams. Students come to DePaul from across the country and around the world. Their dreams are many and varied, individual to each, as our students come from all stations in life. Many are the first in their family to attend college.

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ATHLETICS CAPITAL CAMPAIGN SURPASSES $10 MILLION MARKAthletics provides an avenue of opportunity for students at DePaul. Athletics also helps build community and enhance DePaul’s reputation locally and nationally. As part of DePaul’s Many Dreams. One Mission. Campaign, Athletics is charged with raising $14 million. Strategically, goals have been set to raise the gifts to support scholarship endowment, facility improvements and programmatic sup-port. As of March 15, DePaul Athletics had raised nearly 10.2 million dollarsINSURE OPPORTUNITY FOR TOMORROW, TODAY THROUGH SCHOLARSHIP ENDOWMENTSDePaul Athletics fundraising efforts have focused on endowing scholarship and programming needs. Annually athletics spends nearly $5 million on scholarship expenses for its more than 200 student-athletes. By endowing scholarships, DePaul Athletics has the opportunity to enhance scholarships in some sports and redistribute available funding to maximize the department’s resources.A named scholarship requires a gift of $50,000. All gifts can be made in pledges over five years. Planned giving opportunities are also available. For more information, call Thad Dohrn at 773-325-7240.

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