PEORIA MAGAZINE July 2022

C hris Reynolds doesn’t dwell on the past. “You can’t live life looking in the rearviewmirror. You have to keep moving forward,” he says. It’s a pragmatic stance by the vice president for intercollegiate athletics at Bradley University. Reliving glories of a triple-overtime state basketball championship game or a trip to the NCAA Final Four doesn’t pull your department through the COVID-19 pandemic. Agonizing over cruel outcomes (Reynolds’ teams at Peoria High School and Indiana University lost those big games in heartbreaking fashion) serves no purpose 30 years later. Still, the past is important. Our lives are shaped by fleeting moments, big events, success, failure and, most importantly, howwe react to all of that. Reynolds recalls a moment when he was a boy, not but 10 years old. His father, Ralph, was a Caterpillar, Inc., foreman who frequently had to represent employee concerns to management. Ralph would prepare by reciting his main points in front of a mirror. On this particular day, father turned to son and said, “If I had it to do over again, I’d go to law school.” Fast-forward a decade or so. Chris was the starting point guard at Indiana, riding the team bus to an NCAA tournament game. Coach Bob Knight sat next to him and asked what seemed a strange question for that time and place. “Chris, what do you want to do when you’re finished playing basketball at Indiana?” The first thing that popped into Reynolds’ head was “I don’t know.” That was not something you say to Coach Knight. So Reynolds fell back on his father’s self-reflection and replied, “I think I may want to go to law school.” A few days later, as the Hoosiers were preparing for the next round in their march to the 1992 Final Four, Knight pulled Reynolds off the practice floor and introduced him to Harry Pratter, a lawprofessor at IUformore than50years.

Pratter encouraged Reynolds’ educational and life choices. As did Knight. As would Dr. Bill Wiggins, who had co-founded the Afro-American Studies program at Indiana. Reynolds went to law school, where he met his wife, Katrina. By the time he got his degree, though, he knew that being a trial lawyer or working in a corporate setting was not his future.

through subsequent stints at Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Indiana and Northwestern – earning his PhD at IU along the way – before Bradley coaxed him back to Peoria in March 2015. “I say this with every sincere bone in my body: Peoria is the best place I have ever lived,” Reynolds says. “It’s a tremendous place to raise a family. It’s the most connected place I’ve ever lived. People in this community care. The number of fundraisers and not for-profits in this town, where people just want to help, is very unique. “Unless you’ve been away a long time, it might be hard to really appreciate what we have here. But this is unequivocally the best place I’ve lived.” Before accepting the job, though, the Reynolds family had some serious discussions. Katrina, who also has a law degree, was an assistant dean of students at Northwestern. Together, they determined she would take a timeout to work as a full-time mother to Joshua, now 18 and a graduate of Richwoods High School, and Olivia, 15, who will be a sophomore there this fall. “No way could I do this without Katrina,” Chris says. He talks easily about family and teamwork, as you might expect from a former point guard and captain for a Big Ten championship team. But Reynolds, now 50, is more than the words he so carefully shares. “He is genuinely concerned about everyone in our department – more than 60 employees and 220 student athletes,” says Craig Dahlquist, senior associate athletics director at Bradley and, after 38 years, the longest-tenured member of the department. “He’s equally concerned about your professional and personal growth. He’s always making sure we’re taking care of ourselves and our families. He would much rather we not be in the office – if necessary, taking care of our wives, sons and daughters – than being distracted in the office.” Jennifer Jones is senior associate athletics director and also senior woman administrator (SWA) at Bradley.

“I didn’t care where I worked, I needed to be around young people and try to be an influence in their lives,” he says. “Where are young people? College campuses.” Sports provided a natural setting for Reynolds. He interned at the NCAA, the governing body for intercollegiate athletics at 1,100 schools, then took a job at Michigan State. He quickly ascended the administrative ranks

JULY 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE 49