viaStaff Feature: Q&A with D’arcy

Smart, funny, and colourful (both his personality and his wardrobe).Meet D’arcy Mulligan, our resident Manager, IT and Business Intelligence at viaSport. He describes his role as others in the organization asking him to “make (insert literally anything from data visualization to telephone services to a locked computer) work!” (To which he happily obliges). 

Finish this sentence: To me, sport is _____. 

Something my mother grudgingly tolerates.

Who is your favourite athlete of all time? 

Oh, that is just not a fair question at all! I could go with Bill Lange, a baseball player who retired in the prime of his career for love.

Or I could go with John Montgomery Ward, a fantastic baseball player who founded his own league when he felt that players weren’t getting the rights that they deserved.

Or Jackie Robinson, who broke the colour barrier.

Or Curt Flood, who lost a career fighting for player’s rights.

Or Joey Votto, one of the smartest athletes in the world who also once did an interview in a full Mountie outfit.

Or Shohei Ohtani, the closest thing to Babe Ruth we’ve seen in decades.

Or Ichiro! Who is just great and weird and awesome.

Or Rickey Henderson, who is also great and weird and awesome and you can lose hours just reading stories about him…

Wow, seems like I like baseball players.

If there could only be one sport is the world, what would you choose?

Basketball! I just love watching it and analyzing it and playing it. Nothing quite like going to a college or university playoff game with a raucous home crowd.

Most importantly, a world without dunk contests is not one I’d want to be a part of.

If you could try any sport, what would it be? 

I really want to try Team Handball! I started watching it a few years back during the Olympics and it’s just such an interesting sport. Jumping, throwing, passing, goalies…

And somehow even the athletes making a million dollars a year still have a unique flare. 

What songs are included on the soundtrack to your life?

Oooohhh… That’s a tough one. I’m going to cheat and go with albums instead:

Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Sonata Arctica – Songs of Silence – Live in Tokyo
(though Astronoid – Air and Death – For All the World to See are close behind)

Basically, my life is too big to be constrained by only three songs.

When you’re 80 years old, what sport will you be playing? 

Halo toss with the angels.