Hoffman back for Valparaiso

Updated: May 11, 2011 9:33PM

For many coaches, the thought of leading a football team and an athletic department is daunting, to say the least. Few try, and even fewer stick with it very long.

But for Valparaiso’s Mark Hoffman, who will add the title of athletic director to his resume next year and will continue to coach, it might seem like a vacation.

“This year, I was assistant athletic director and I probably bit off a little more than I wanted to handle,” Hoffman said. “I was head football coach, assistant athletic director, I was teaching four classes, running the weight room, taking care of intramurals and I was a department chairman. It was a lot of hats. Too many.”

So will it be easier being “just” football coach and AD?

“We’re going to find out,” he said. “I can’t wait.”

Hoffman will replace the retiring Sam Rasmussen, who led Valparaiso’s athletic department for more than 20 years. Hoffman said he’s learned a lot by working under Rasmussen, and that the spirit of collaboration among coaches and athletic departments in the Duneland Conference has prepared him for his new role.

Among his new ideas is to keep the AD office open all summer for the benefit of coaches, parents and families moving to Valparaiso. He’s especially interested in starting lucrative — and in this age of budget cutbacks, critical — fundraising campaigns similar to what some other athletic departments have done, particularly Crown Point under Bill Dorulla.

“I’ve learned so much from all the mentors in the Duneland Conference who’ve been around a while — Garry Nallenweg at Chesterton, Bill Dorulla at Crown Point, Janis Qualizza, the dean of ADs, at Merrillville, Jeff Smith at Portage, Ed Gilliland at LaPorte, Bear Falls at Michigan City,” Hoffman said. “You talk to them, and you pick some things up, see how they do things. You don’t really see all the things they do when you’re coaching, but you see it when you’re an athletic administrator.”

Hoffman has coached at Valparaiso for 38 of the last 39 years — including the last 35 as head coach — the exception being 1976-77, when he was at Connersville. (His athletic director there? Merrillville legend Jim East.)

Over the years, he spent three decades as a boys and girls track coach, and always has been something of a gadfly at Valparaiso sporting events — working wrestling matches, supervising basketball games, and simply attending the baseball games, basketball games and swim meets of his football players. He even was the scorekeeper for the basketball team in the 1970s.

So he’s not worried about dividing his attention fairly among the football team and all the other sports at Valparaiso.

“Our sports program at Valparaiso has always been a quest for excellence,” he said. “It’s been an extension of what we do in academics and everything else here. I hope we maintain that high level.”

Hoffman often talked about retirement during last season’s remarkable 13-1 season, which ended with a loss at Fishers in the Class 5A semistate. He definitely will coach next season — he wants to make it to 40 seasons — but wouldn’t offer any clues as to whether this is a year for him to transition to just athletic director, or if both are short-term gigs, or if he plans on continuing both long term.

“Anything I give you would be just speculation,” he said. “Right now, I’m so excited to get started and get my hands dirty and get ready for this and for football season. Is it going to be overwhelming? Is this my last hurrah in football? You can speculate all you want, we’re just going to see how this year goes. If it’s as much fun and as exciting working with coaches as it is working with kids, who knows?”

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