Patrick McAuley is in his second season as a graduate assistant on the Valparaiso University women’s tennis coaching staff in 2021-2022.

In his first season on staff, McAuley helped guide Valpo to its highest win total since 2007. The squad compiled a four-match winning streak from Feb. 28 to March 13 with victories over Wayne State, Northern Illinois, Chicago State and Oakland. That marked Valpo’s longest winning streak since April 2007.

The Brown & Gold topped Northern Illinois 4-3 on March 6, 2021 in DeKalb, the program’s first win over a Mid-American Conference opponent in 16 seasons (W 5-2 at Toledo on March 17, 2005). That was Valpo’s first victory over NIU on record as the Huskies had won all five matchups since the turn of the century and gone 4-0 in the series in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Valpo was shut out in seven of those nine defeats and had dropped its most recent matchup with NIU 5-2 in 2018. Valpo beat Chicago State 7-0 on March 7, 2021, its first 7-0 whitewash of a Division-I opponent since 2017.

The first conference match with McAuley on staff was a memorable one as the team beat UNI 5-2 on April 2 in Cedar Falls for the program’s first league victory since joining the Missouri Valley Conference. That marked Valpo’s most lopsided conference triumph since topping Green Bay by that same score on April 9, 2016. The victory marked a stark turnaround from Valpo’s most recent matchup with the Panthers, a 6-1 setback on April 14, 2019. The Brown & Gold started the conference slate with a victory for the first time since the beginning of the 2006 Mid-Continent Conference schedule (W 7-0 over Centenary).

In McAuley’s first season on staff, Valpo hauled in six Missouri Valley Conference weekly awards during the 2020-21 campaign. Olivia Czerwonka garnered MVC All-Select Team and MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team honors, while her older sister Claire was awarded the State Farm MVC Good Neighbor Award and MVC Scholar-Athlete Honorable Mention while also being featured in the MVC Scholar-Athlete spotlight. Claire and Olivia put together a nine-match winning streak at No. 1 doubles during the season en route to finishing the year with a doubles winning percentage of .667, tied for seventh best in program history and the best since 2004-05. Claire finished the 2020-21 season in the top 10 in the program record book in both singles wins (44, ninth) and doubles wins (52, third), while Olivia finished the year with a .585 career singles winning percentage that ranked sixth in the record book and a doubles winning percentage of .595 that ranked second.

The team also thrived in the classroom in 2020-21. Valpo Tennis posted a 3.71 GPA during the Spring 2021 semester, the highest among all Valpo programs. The squad finished with a 3.72 GPA for the 2020-21 year (both semesters) with eight players earning a 3.0 or above for the spring semester and seven garnering a 3.5 or better.

During his playing days, McAuley was a Division-III All-American at Wabash College. He led his team to a top-five finish at the NCAC National Qualifying Tournament in May of 2017. McAuley organized weekly hitting sessions to increase the potential and level of play of his teammates throughout the season. He represented men’s tennis on Wabash’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and organized the school’s first-ever athletics’ penny drive for the local salvation army.

McAuley owns a variety of life experiences including time as a Capitol Hill Intern in Washington, D.C. During his undergraduate tenure at Wabash, he was also a staff editor and writer for the campus newspaper. He participated in 2018 Unlocking Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence, an exclusive week-long informative session that discussed the importance of emotional intelligence within a professional setting.

McAuley earned a bachelor’s degree in religion from Wabash in May 2021 and is on track to graduate from Valpo with a master’s in international economics and finance in May 2022.