Mark Ewald
Mark Ewald has achieved success in both coaching and professional sales. Mark has coached at every level, from youth sports to the collegiate level, giving him a unique perspective on coaching, mentoring and motivation at all levels. He has been on many championship caliber teams. He has also had the pleasure of coaching teams that were not successful in the win- loss column. Both experiences have built a laser- like approach to guiding each team, each individual to being the very best version of themselves that they can be.
He has been an assistant football coach for the last 15 years at Wittenberg University, and has contributed to the university’s distinction as the most successful small college football program in the country, approaching 700 wins. Prior to that he coached at numerous high schools as a Head Coach and assistant coach for 15 years. He is entering his 32nd year of helping mentor, motivate, and mold young people.
Mark has had the good fortune to coach 3 ALL-Americans and has been a part of 9 league championships at Wittenberg. He has coached championship teams at all levels in baseball, girl’s softball, basketball and wrestling. The challenge and journey of putting together a team and having individuals embrace their roles and learn the invaluable life lessons putting team 1st and seeing those Teams and individuals work to reach their full potential is what gives mark his greatest fulfillment.
Mark has a successful sales career being a national sales leader 3 times earning the prestigious Chairman’s Circle from a fortune 100 company. The ability to balance and manage time between coaching and a successful sales career is an area Mark takes great pride in and resonates in all of his talks. That enthusiasm and passion is contagious and can help get you to the top.
Mark has had coaching articles published including the prestigious American Football Coaches Summer Manual. He has been actively involved in his church Holy Trinity as a council member lectern and wine minister. All these endeavors have been supported by his partner Diane. She keeps things in perspective and has been an extremely devoted wife and Mother to their 3 children: Nick 23, Jackie 16 and Luke 10. The fact that his three children are growing up to be solid young people are his greatest accomplishment in life!
Tony Vittorio
University of Dayton head coach Tony Vittorio has solidified himself as one of
the baseball program's greatest managers since he took over beginning with the
2000 season.
Vittorio was named Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year after
guiding the school to its first-ever Atlantic 10 regular season championship in
2009. Vittorio's squad broke a number of long-standing UD records, including
wins (38), batting average (.332), hits (665), at-bats (2,005), runs scored
(448), home runs (77) and strikeouts (370). He also surpassed the 500 career win
mark, capturing the milestone in a 5-3 come-from-behind win in the Bronx against
Fordham on April 24, 2009.
He has guided the program to five Atlantic 10
Championship appearances and is the only coach in program history to advance to
the A-10 Tournament.
However, Vittorio (511-465, 287-267 at UD) would
give many reasons why those numbers represent a starting point rather than a
destination for a program that had only one winning season in the decade prior
to his arrival.
With Vittorio and his staff's mentorship, UD has seen
five of its own selected in the MLB draft with two of them (Jerry Blevins and
Craig Stammen) seeing playing time in the big leagues.
In his first year
at Dayton, Vittorio guided the Flyers to a 23-32 season with a 10-11 record in
conference play, paving the way for the record breaking 2001 campaign, and gave
promise to a program that had eclipsed the .500 mark just one time during the
1990s.
But as bright as the future appears for Vittorio's Flyers, his
past still stands at the top of UD's record books. In 2002, UD shattered record
after record, boasting school-highs in strikeouts (332) while winning 32 games,
as well as an April 16 win over IPFW that gave Vittorio his 300th career
victory. His ability to mold professional-caliber players was also validated
during the year, with four members of the '02 squad going on to play some type
of professional ball. The quartet of players moving on to the next level brought
his total to five players in three years.
A year earlier, Vittorio
guided Dayton to its first winning season in three years, setting a
then-single-season school record for victories with 32, while leading Dayton to
its first berth in post-season play since joining the A-10 in 1996.
Vittorio's team set a former program record 596 hits in 2005 while
ranking second in runs scored (397) and at bats (1,932), third in batting
average (.308) and RBI (358). The 2005 Flyers also had a solid pitching staff
with 314 strkeouts (third most in school history) and a 4.41 team ERA (fifth
best).
UD also won two of three games against #19 Notre Dame on Feb. 26
& 27 in Mesa, Ariz. at HoHoKam Park, the Spring Training home of the Chicago
Cubs. It marked the highest ranked team ever defeated by the Flyers in school
history.
In 2006, Vittorio took the Flyers to the Atlantic 10
Championships for the second consecutive season and won 33 games including a
program best 18 in Atlantic 10 Conference play to finish third in the 14-team
A-10. Not only did the UD pitching staff record a then school-record 343
strikeouts, but the offense used its speed to record the third most doubles
(115), fourth most stolen bases (75) and fifth most triples (18) in program
history. He also saw a Flyer (Craig Stammen) selected for the third time in
three seasons in the MLB Draft.
This transformation of Dayton's program
has come as no surprise. From the start of his 20-year coaching career as an
assistant at Indiana University, Vittorio has been a builder. His first
reconstruction was at Lincoln Trail Community College, a junior college in
Robinson, Ill. Taking over a program that suffered through a 2-48 season before
he arrived, Vittorio guided LTC to 144 wins from 1990 through 1994, including a
45-28 record his final year. While coaching the Statesmen, he mentored two MLB
draftees and saw 22 players advance to four-year college teams. He then spent
two years as an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky before beginning
the revival of Division II IPFW, a team that was 9-41 before he arrived in the
fall of 1996.
Vittorio engineered his rebuilding process again and
posted a 24-23 mark his first season and an impressive 30-17 record in 1998.
Vittorio's Mastodons won 80 games in his three years in Fort Wayne, bringing his
then seven-year career head coaching record to 224-198. In 2000, coach Vittorio
made the move to UD, bringing with him head assistant Todd Linklater.
The ball field is not the only place that Vittorio expects his players
to excel. Each year the team volunteer's their time at the Jerry Lewis Muscular
Dystrophy Association telethon and raising money for Jerry's Kids, as well as
participating in the Real Men Where Pink campaign for breast cancer awareness
and each member of the team visits Children's Hospital and is involved in
Christmas on Campus.He is also involved with the Building Bridges baseball
clinic which helps at-risk youth between the ages ofnine and 18 build character
and self-esteem.
A native of Indianapolis, Vittorio graduated from
Hanover (IN) College in 1988 with a double major in both business administration
and physical education. He went on to earn his master's degree in sports
management from the University of Kentucky in 1997. At Hanover, Vittorio was a
four-year letterwinner as a middle infielder and was selected into the American
College Hall of Fame at the conclusion of his collegiate career.
Vittorio resides in Kettering with his wife Heather and their lovely daughter
Taylor Reann and tenacious son Nic
Wife Heather is a First Team All-American wife and mother, strong supporter of University of Dayton athletics and youth in the Dayton community