1 FROMtheRANCH www.bucknellbison.com The Official Newsletter of the Bucknell Men’s Soccer Program February 2018 W e said good bye to 2017 and hello to 2018 recently. As this happens we get to look back on the 2017 season. After being picked #6 in the preseason poll the young Bison surprised much of the Patriot League by finishing as the #3 seed and earned the right to host a Patriot League quarterfinal game. Unfortu- nately, the Bison hosted a hot Colgate team, and despite out shooting Colgate the Orange and Blue fell 0-1 on a shot that deflected off a Bison defender. The disappointment was evident on our young team, but little did we know Colgate would go on to win the championship as well as advance to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA tournament. This was unchartered territory for the Patriot League and showed the rest of college soccer that the bar has been raised in our conference over the years. After the season ended our staff hit the road recruiting for future Bison. We get to connect with many alumni when we are on the road and it is always a pleasure to catch up. As we prepared for the semes- ter break we received some big news in the athletic department. After 17 years of leading the Bison our director of athletics, John Hardt, was hired by the Uni- versity of Richmond. Mr. Hardt created a lot of changes at Buck- nell University and we are very thankful for his years of service. His vision led to the building of Holmes Stadium, which is the best facility in the Patriot League. As we moved into 2018 we enjoyed meeting with many more alumni across the Northeast. On January 3 we hosted our first holiday gathering in New York City. 30+ alumni braved the snow and cold for a fun evening. We are really looking forward to growing the event over the years. Many times we find good news sometimes comes with bad news. On January 7 we found this to be true. Tragically one of our for- mer student-athletes, Josh Butz- ke, died in a skydiving accident at the young age of 25. Many Bison traveled to New York to pay their respects to the Butzke family. I thought quite a bit about Josh after hearing the news. I still have very clear memories of our games ending and Josh going straight over to his family because they were so close. He was also a good teammate, but was closest with his classmates, Mayowa Alli, Aidan Hoolahan, Orman Kimbrough, Joe Meyer and Nick Tacca. #6 will stay close with us. The spring semester has now begun in Lewisburg. Despite it not looking or feeling like spring with snow and freezing tempera- tures the Bison are back to train- ing. For the next month the team will be in our eight hour cycle. This means the student-athletes lift for three hours, play with a ball for two hours and do fitness without a ball for three hours. After that the team will begin our 20 hour segment. This will be a very special spring for the program. Over spring break we will head to Denmark. Despite the trip being designed as a cul- tural experience we will also play three games while there. These games do not count as competi- tion, so we will actually play nine games this spring while most teams play five or six. Once we return from Denmark we will play our spring schedule which will conclude with the alumni game on April 28th. We look forward to hosting our many alumni in Lewisburg that weekend for some golf, soccer and good times. We would like to wish everyone a happy and safe 2018 and until next time... Sincerely, Coach Brendan Nash Notes from Coach Brendan Nash Save the date Annual Golf Outing & Alumni Weekend Join the men’s soccer team for the annual alumni and friends golf outing. All are invited to participate in what promises to be a great day of golf. The Bucknell Men’s Soccer Golf Outing will be held at the Bucknell Golf Club. Bring your “A, B, or C” game for plenty of chances to win great prizes. Don’t forget, all are welcome to partici- pate in a great day of food, fun and golf. Come out and support your Bison! Lunch and registration will be at noon and the shotgun will go off at 1:00 p.m. The scoring format is a four-man scramble with flights being determined after the session. Prizes will be given for first and second places within each determined flight. Everyone will have a chance to win! Men under the age of 70 must hit from the orange tees. Men over the age of 70 have the option to hit from the green tees. All ladies may hit from the ladies tees. There will be plenty of priz- es to go around, including “Longest Drive” and “Closest to the Pin.” Schedule of Events Friday, April 27 NOON - Lunch/Registration 1:00 PM - Group Shotgun Start 5:30 PM - Awards Ceremony, Food and Drink Saturday, April 28 11:00 AM - Young Alumni vs. Team Game 12:30 PM - Blue vs. White Alumni Game 4:00 PM - Year End Banquet 7:00 PM - Social TBA (Alumni and Guests Invited) For more information and registration forms visit www.bucknellbison.com.
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FROMtheRANCHwww.bucknellbison.comThe Official Newsletter of the Bucknell Men’s Soccer Program
February 2018
We said good bye to 2017 and hello to 2018 recently. As
this happens we get to look back on the 2017 season. After being picked #6 in the preseason poll the young Bison surprised much of the Patriot League by finishing as the #3 seed and earned the right to host a Patriot League quarterfinal game. Unfortu-nately, the Bison hosted a hot Colgate team, and despite out shooting Colgate the Orange and Blue fell 0-1 on a shot that deflected off a Bison defender. The disappointment was evident on our young team, but little did we know Colgate would go on to win the championship as well as advance to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA tournament. This was unchartered territory for the Patriot League and showed the rest of college soccer that the bar has been raised in our conference over the years. After the season ended our staff hit the road recruiting for future Bison. We get to connect with many alumni when we are on the road and it is always a pleasure to catch up.
As we prepared for the semes-ter break we received some big news in the athletic department.
After 17 years of leading the Bison our director of athletics, John Hardt, was hired by the Uni-versity of Richmond. Mr. Hardt created a lot of changes at Buck-nell University and we are very thankful for his years of service. His vision led to the building of Holmes Stadium, which is the best facility in the Patriot League. As we moved into 2018 we enjoyed meeting with many more alumni across the Northeast. On January 3 we hosted our first holiday gathering in New York City. 30+ alumni braved the snow and cold for a fun evening. We are really looking forward to growing the event over the years. Many times we find good news sometimes comes with bad news. On January 7 we found this to be true. Tragically one of our for-mer student-athletes, Josh Butz-ke, died in a skydiving accident at the young age of 25. Many Bison traveled to New York to pay their respects to the Butzke family. I thought quite a bit about Josh after hearing the news. I still have very clear memories of our games ending and Josh going straight over to his family because they were so close. He was also a good teammate, but was closest with his classmates, Mayowa Alli, Aidan Hoolahan, Orman Kimbrough, Joe Meyer and Nick Tacca. #6 will stay close with us.
The spring semester has now begun in Lewisburg. Despite it not looking or feeling like spring with snow and freezing tempera-
tures the Bison are back to train-ing. For the next month the team will be in our eight hour cycle. This means the student-athletes lift for three hours, play with a ball for two hours and do fitness without a ball for three hours. After that the team will begin our 20 hour segment. This will be a very special spring for the program. Over spring break we will head to Denmark. Despite the trip being designed as a cul-tural experience we will also play three games while there. These games do not count as competi-tion, so we will actually play nine games this spring while most teams play five or six. Once we return from Denmark we will play our spring schedule which will conclude with the alumni game on April 28th. We look forward to hosting our many alumni in Lewisburg that weekend for some golf, soccer and good times. We would like to wish everyone a happy and safe 2018 and until next time...
Sincerely,Coach Brendan Nash
Notes from CoachBrendan Nash Save the date
Annual Golf Outing & Alumni Weekend
Join the men’s soccer team for the annual alumni and friends golf outing. All are invited to participate in what promises to be a great day of golf.
The Bucknell Men’s Soccer Golf Outing will be held at the Bucknell Golf Club. Bring your “A, B, or C” game for plenty of chances to win great prizes. Don’t forget, all are welcome to partici-pate in a great day of food, fun and golf. Come out and support your Bison!
Lunch and registration will be at noon and the shotgun will go off at 1:00 p.m. The scoring format is a four-man scramble with flights being determined after the session. Prizes will be given for first and second places within each determined flight.
Everyone will have a chance to win!Men under the age of 70 must hit
from the orange tees. Men over the age of 70 have the option to hit from the green tees. All ladies may hit from the ladies tees. There will be plenty of priz-es to go around, including “Longest Drive” and “Closest to the Pin.”
Saturday, April 2811:00 AM - Young Alumni vs. Team
Game12:30 PM - Blue vs. White Alumni Game4:00 PM - Year End Banquet7:00 PM - Social TBA
(Alumni and Guests Invited)For more information and registration forms visit www.bucknellbison.com.
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In the winter of 1997, two high-school soccer recruits walked onto the Bucknell campus for
the first time, both wearing long shaggy hair, were two complete opposites in most every other way, but shared a passion for a game that would merge their paths for life. Sam Graziano ’01, of Wyckoff, N.J., recalls the stranger next to him, Er-ick Davis ’01, of South Burlington, VT, as a “quintessential Vermont-er.” The New Jersey native on the other hand, a “sarcastic jersey guy” with a lot of confidence. When they left that weekend, there was no Facebook or mobile phones to keep them in touch, they wondered if their paths would cross again which it did later that year.
Their differences extended to the playing field, where the men competed on separate ends of the pitch. At center back, Davis was an imposing presence on the field and a natural leader who would bark strategic commands to teammates. The speedy Graziano was an expert ball handler, playing forward and putting his teammates in the best position to score.
Twenty years after their initial meeting, Davis and Graziano aren’t just best friends, they’re both CEOs of successful financial services businesses. Much of their success, each man says, traces back to the soccer field.
“When there’s pressure, sports teaches you to turn it into adren-aline and focus,” notes Graziano, founder and chief executive of Fundation, a New York City
based “FinTech” company. The firm serves as a “credit solutions” company to major banks and other institutions. “I do the same thing as a CEO,” he adds. “In the business world, just like athletics, you have to be able to deal with inevitable ups and downs.”
Davis, CEO of London-based Autonomous Research, an inde-pendent research firm focused on the financial sector in Europe, the US and China, is similarly compli-mentary to his Bucknell athletic experience. “In sports, intelligence and hard work are a foundation for success,” he says. “In the business world, it’s also critical to be strategi-cally thoughtful and to work hard to execute on opportunities,”
Both men made their mark on the Bison’s men’s soccer program. Graziano finished his four-year ca-reer among the university’s Top 10 assist leaders and an all-conference player. Erick was a dominant force on the field during their junior year where they flirted with the Top 25 rankings, but suffered an injury that sidelined him for his senior year. Davis was still the team captain given his passion for the game and leadership skills. Graziano jokes, “Erick protected me off the field since he couldn’t protect me on the field for our senior year.”
As seniors, Graziano and Davis helped lead Bucknell to its best showing in years, winning the Patriot League regular season and beating sixth-ranked South Carolina. The friends deflect glory, both looking back fondly at the op-portunity to compete at a high level but feeling like they left unfinished business on the field.
Head soccer coach Brendan Nash isn’t surprised that his protégés have gone on to find success in the business world. “Both have incredibly engaging personalities, are intelligent, hard-working and intensely focused on succeeding,” he says. “As freshmen, you could tell they had the talents to be suc-cessful at whatever field they would choose.”
Although a computer science and engineering major, Graziano was
attracted to the financial services sector and started his career as an investment banking analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) immediately after graduating. Erick pursued an MBA at St. John’s where he was the assistant soccer coach to a team that competed in several NCAA Division 1 Final Fours. A couple years later, Graziano opened the door for Davis to get an inter-view at KBW, which Graziano says was “the easiest recommendation I have ever made by far.”
Although starting their careers at the same firm, their paths to becoming a CEO are very different. Graziano spent about a decade on mergers, acquisitions, and corpo-rate finance with KBW and then Centerview Partners. In late 2011, Graziano’s creative spirit drove him to leave Wall Street and pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions. He started Fundation in his living room with a younger Bucknell alum (Doug Gordon ’10). The company has since grown to nearly 100 employees with offices in New York and northern Virginia, and is a leading “FinTech” company.
Davis started his career at KBW in equity research in New York be-fore joining the firm’s institutional equity sales desks in San Francisco and Boston. Davis had an entrepre-neurial itch to scratch of his own. Autonomous Research approached him to help launch its US business. He called on Graziano for advice, who urged him to pursue the oppor-tunity. Davis’ rise with the company was fast, quickly rising to run the firm’s U.S. operations before being named Global CEO at age 38.
Both men are adamant that their Bucknell experience and their experience as student-athletes was critical to where they are now. They both agree that the networks they developed at Bucknell have been tremendous assets since leaving campus. They also agree that one of the most under-appreciated aspects of athletics is the leadership skills it helps develop, most importantly, the ability to leverage the unique talents of individuals toward a com-mon goal. n
Off-the-Field Success for Two Soccer Alums
Sam Graziano ’01
Erick Davis ’01
On Sunday, January 7th, Bucknell soccer alumni class of 2014, Joshua Butzke, died
tragically in a skydiving accident in Tampa Bay, Florida.
Josh was making his 85th career jump but died after a parachute malfunction. Witnesses state that Butzke’s open parachute had been spiraling. The Federal Aviation Ad-ministration will conduct an investi-gation. Butzke, who was visiting from Connecticut, had made 13 jumps over two days prior to the accident.
Josh is originally from Long Island but worked as a financial planner in Norwalk, CT prior to his passing.
Many Bison traveled to New York to pay their respects to the Butzke’s family. His two older sisters, Eva and Samantha, and his father Rich spoke extensively about Josh’s love and pas-sion for his family, traveling, movies, Disney World, and of course soccer!
Josh was a fantastic teammate, mentor, and leader to so many Bison players throughout his four years representing the Orange and Blue. However, he was closest with his classmates, Mayowa Alli, Aidan Hoolahan, Orman Kimbrough, Joe Meyer and Nick Tacca.
According to Mayowa, “Josh was one of those people you could speak with and be your natural self. Wheth-er you were meeting him for the first time or knew him for years you could speak with him about literally anything. He was unapologetically himself and I couldn’t have asked for a better friend to grow with since attending Bucknell.”
The Butzke family requests donations in his name to go to his scholarship fund, which they plan to rename The Joshua Butzke Memo-rial Fund. Checks can be sent to Patchogue-Medford High School, attention Carol Grimm, 181 Buffalo Ave. Medford, N.Y. 11763. n
In Memory
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March 9 – New York to Copenhagen, Denmark March 10 – Land in CopenhagenMarch 11 – Vejle, Match #1March 12 – Travel to Nykøbing Falster - Visit the small Medieval town center prior to Friendly Match #2.March 13 – Mons Klint Depart Nykobing Falster and head to the stunning 400 foot white cliffs of Mons Klint, one of Denmark’s most stunning natural landmarks! From there we will
continue to Vordingborg and the Danish Castle Center to visit the castle and museum. Travel to Copenhagen. Free time to relax, explore Copenhagen. (No soccer, day off). March 14 – Copenhagen Bike Tour including the changing of the guard at the Amalienborg Palace, Frederik’s Church, Strøget, Rådhus-pladsen, and much more. Friendly Match #3. March 15 – Visit Copenhagen, Match #4Walk through the counterculture squatter’s
colony of Christiania. Other Copenhagen activities TBD depending on the time of Friendly Match #4. March 16 – Last day in Denmark, Free TimeClimb up the Kongens Nytorv for the best view of Copenhagen. Free time in the afternoon to visit, relax, shop, etc. Farewell dinner followed by evening free to relax and explore. March 17 – Copenhagen to JFKDepart Copenhagen to London Gatwick to JFK.
Bucknell Men’s Soccer will Travel to Denmark
What positions/role are you playing? I mainly played as the for-ward this season, although I did start out as an attacking midfielder. I also played some minutes as an outside midfielder.
What do you miss most about home? One of the biggest things I miss about home is my Mom’s cooking. What are your thoughts on your brother’s career in Denmark? Chris is loving his time in Denmark and my whole family is very supportive. We’ve visited him there and we all have his jersey. We all follow his games online as well. Of course we miss having him back home but we’re all excited for him! What would like to say to the Bison faithful? I’d like to thank everyone that supports us, from alumni, to family, and everyone else that helps us make everything we do possible. We do everything we can to make our supporters proud of us both on and off the field.
Thorsheim vs Thorsheim
What positions/role are you playing? I strictly play right back but I’m hoping to play in the mid-field at some point. Luckily, we play an attacking style of football so I get to attack a lot.
What do you miss most about home? I definitely miss my friends and family the most. It gets harder and harder to leave each trip back to Den-mark. Also, they don’t have Chipotle in Denmark. I really miss that! What are your thoughts on your brother’s first year with the Bison? I’m extremely proud of the way he played this season. College is a whole different ball game than high school and he’s showed up to the level. It’s a shame he got hurt late in the season and couldn’t contribute towards a Patriot League title run. What would like to say to the Bison faithful? I’m thankful for all of the support the Bison family has given me throughout the years. I can say with confidence that the Bison will bring another championship home soon. I miss everyone back in the states and I’m looking forward to seeing the current squad in Denmark.
CHRIS THORSHEIMCurrently playing with:
Nykøbing FC.
Awards while playing for the Bison:-Finished career with 20 goals, 18 assists, 58 points in 81 games -Ranked 9th on Bucknell’s career assists chart - 2015 MAC Hermann Trophy Watch List (top 30) -Bucknell’s first four-time All-Patriot League selection in men’s soccer and one of nine in league history from all teams -The Bradley N. Tufts Award, which is given in recognition of exceptional athletic achievement and contribution to Bucknell Athletics n
MATT THORSHEIMCurrently playing with:
Bucknell University (’21)
Awards while playing for the Bison:-Third Team All-Patriot League (5g,4a,14 points)-United Soccer Coaches Third Team All-Northeast Region selection (one of just five freshmen named to the All-Region squad) -Named Patriot League Rookie of the Week on Sept. 18 and Oct. 30 - College Soccer News 2017 “All Freshman Team” (Top 33 freshman in the country) n
One brother with a Bucknell legacy, while the other works to build one.
Men’s SoccerBucknell UniversityOne Dent DriveLewisburg, PA 17837
Bucknell Class of 2018: Post-Bucknell Plans Set
Graduating with a degree in: Accounting and Financial Management with a finance concentration. What are your post-Bucknell plans? My plan after graduation is to work at Stifel Financial. What is your favorite memory playing for the Bison? My favorite memory playing for the Bison would have to be winning a championship my freshman year. What advice would you give the incoming class of 2022? Embrace the difficulty of being a student-athlete at Bucknell. You will have to overcome significant adversity to succeed as a Bucknell men’s soccer player, but they are defining moments in your life that will make you a better person.
Graduating with a degree in: Economics What are your post-Bucknell plans? Investment Banking Analyst at Shot Tower CapitalWhat is your favorite memory playing for the Bison? Winning the Patriot League championship in 2014.What advice would you give the incoming class of 2022? Be humble, stay confident, and above all enjoy the experiences.
Graduating with a degree in: Biomedical EngineeringWhat are your post-Bucknell plans? Currently applying to graduate schools.What is your favorite memory playing for the Bison? Winning the Patriot League championship in 2014.What advice would you give the incoming class of 2022? Make sure to prioritize your responsibilities and to lean on the upperclassmen for advice and guidance!
