So Long, Old Friend

For the most part, I have avoided posting any essays of a personal nature of any sort on my blog.

But this week I need to make an exception for the passing of an old friend, Dan Tepke.  His death just before New Year took me my surprise and hit me like a baseball bat to the midsection.

Like most professionals, I have hundreds of “connections” in my LinkedIn profile.  But the truth is that if any of 90% of them moved away, retired, or otherwise exited the professional world, it wouldn’t make much of a ripple.

But Dan mattered.  Dan mattered greatly to me and dozens of other people.

One of the litmus tests of how much a person matters is whether that person changed the trajectory of your life.   For me and so many others, Dan did in a very major way.  Several aspects of my life would have turned out differently had my life not intersected with Dan’s.

At a time when The University of Chicago football program was in the infancy stages of its rebirth,  and The College had only about 2400 undergrads, Dan kept recruited and kept guys in school.  He kept the embers burning.  And among these student-athletes were a number from blue-collar backgrounds that were among the first in their families to go to college.  Convincing a kid to play football in such an intense academic environment was no mean feat, but Dan was up to the task.  The emails and text messages from the athletes of that era all resonated with the same themes:

“Dan was the reason I went to U of C.”

“Those of us from the classes of ’81 and ’82 had three coaches in four years, and Tep was the only constant in those years (and beyond)."

“Dan was a role model and outstanding mentor to me during my years at UChicago.”

“Dan kept me at U of C”

 “Dan was truly the glue in those early years.  Also a lot of fun.”

 Dan was all in on getting and keeping student athletes at the school. 

After athletics and football, Dan went on to get an MBA at Chicago and had a varied career, taking on took on different roles at different stages, university administrator, business executive, consultant and executive coach and business strategist.  Finally, he became an author, penning the book, Hatching Your Million Dollar Business.

Through all those experiences, Dan managed and successfully dealt with an incredible variety of people.  I don’t know anyone that could successfully manage relationships across a spectrum like Dan could.  From obstreperous university presidents and prima donna tenured faculty to facilities management staff (i.e. janitors) to neurotic, anxiety filled students and mischievous jocks, to daffy coaches and athletic directors to CEO’s, bare-knuckled contractors and Nobel Laureates.  Dan dealt with them all, matter-of-factly, with respect and without judgment or undue deference. 

Dan not only could successfully deal with a wide variety of people, his interests were just as wide.  Over the years we had lengthy talks about politics, economics, management, football, and family matters.  He could talk about high school football as well as the genius and leadership skills of Vaclav Havel.

In this era in which “beta” males are celebrated, Dan was a man in the best sense of the word.  He was responsible for and devoted to things outside himself—to his family, to the institutions he worked for, and the students under his aegis. He always seemed to find the right balance in things.  He was competitive without being ruthless, ambitious without being greedy, and ruthless, and principled without being rigid.  He was a physical person—a college athlete that stayed fit throughout his life, and outdoorsman.  One of the difficulties in processing Dan’s passing is the idea that he could be physically subdued by anything. It was hard to get my head around.

I often joked with Dan in later years that he had been helping me to get my act together for over 40 years…with mixed success.  But it wasn’t really a joke. 

Dan helped me so many times in so many ways over the years—from recruiting me at U of C, to helping me get summer jobs, to giving me career advice later on, to helping my daughter with the college admissions process, and, of course, simply being a friend.  We had lots of laughs over the years, particularly at the expense of the politically correct.

Sadly, I have had to write several eulogies and tributes over the years.  And in doing so, I try to keep in mind two questions:  How and to whom did this person matter?  Who was this person, really?

The answer to the first question is unanimous.  For me, and so many others and I have the emails to prove it.  He changed the trajectory of many, many lives.  As to the second, Dan was as complete a person as I have ever encountered.  He was a professional.  He was a devout family man.  He was a business strategist and author.  He worked in several very different environments. He had a rich intellectual side. He was a regular guy that like sports and fishing.  He was a true Christian, a very loyal person that maintained relationships that spanned decades.

Dan, I will miss you.  You will be one of the first people I look up to have a beer with when I get to the other side.