Verde brings pro experience to Cabrini

by Jim Snook photography editor

For those of you who don't know Dr. Tony Verde, he is the executive director of the Dixon center. Verde also helped establish the Sports Science major here at Cabrini, where he holds the position of chairperson of the department of sports science.

Verde was born in Fargo, Minn. His family moved to Canada when he was three years old. The Verde family resided in the Niagara Peninsula, just outside of Niagara Falls on the Ontario side of the border.

Verde attended the local elementary and high school before receiving a four-year degree in Biology and Biochemistry at Brock University in St. Catherine's, Ontario.

Verde then received his masters and doctoral in the faculty of Medicine from the University of Toronto.

After working on staff at the University of Toronto for 10 years, Verde needed a change of scenery.

Verde has worked with a variety of teams, like the Philadelphia Flyers, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Vancouver Canucks, since 1984.

Verde and some associates traveled to the teams· training camps in the fall and develop an exercise program for each player.

Verde and his colleagues ran physiological asses·sments on the players that included measuring power outputs and aerobic capacities.

Verde and friends monitored the teams three times during the sea- son to see if the players maintained their proper fitness level, which most players did not.

So in 1989, Verde moved to the States and took a job with Graduate Hospitals Sports Science Center on Lancaster Ave.

Verde was happy working in an administrative role at Graduate but something was missing. Verde missed student contact, so he wrote letters to the local area colleges looking for work.

Cabrini College called Verde asking if he could teach a night class: Biology 220: Immunology.

Verde gladly accepted.

Next Verde gathered some of his Ph.D. colleagues to help develop a Sports Science Department. The rest is history.

Verde is married and has two sons, ages seven and nine years old.

Verde enjoys coaching his kids in such sports as baseball and basketball.

Travel is something that Verde enjoys, having been all over the world, including England, Ireland, Scotland, Portugal and many of the Caribbean islands.

According to Verde, travel now means hopping in the car and going down to the shore with the kids.

The Verdes have traced their family tree right back to Giuseppe Verdi, the great opera composer. However, he says that his sister got all the musical talen_t. Verde has been known to pick up a guitar every now and then and he also plays the piano.

Despite all the changes Cabrini is going through, Verde thinks that the focus is proper here.

"The students and their education should be No.I and everything else is No.2," he said.

Verde described himself with three words: husband, father and Christian. That's real life, he says-everything else is just a job.