The son of American and Italian professors who taught in Zurich during his youth, Alex Hall was perfectly positioned to embrace and eventually excel in slopestyle, the relatively new event in freestyle skiing.

The 2026 Winter Olympics were an opportunity for Italians to showcase their country and the majesty of the Italian Alps to athletes around the world. For Team USA’s Alex Hall, the 2026 Milan Cortina Games were also an opportunity to connect with his Italian heritage.

Hall was born in Alaska but grew up in Switzerland where his father, an American from Salt Lake City, and mother, an Italian from Bologna, were both professors at the University of Zurich. Hall’s multicountry background means that beyond English, he speaks fluent German and Swiss German as well as intermediate French and Italian.

Growing up near Zurich, he fell in love with — and discovered he had a talent for  — skiing.

“When I was younger I just wanted to ski every possible moment,” Hall says. Luckily for him, the high altitude and relentlessly cold conditions of the Swiss Alps created opportunities for nearly year-round skiing.

Hall, who holds both Italian and U.S. passports, talked during his youth with Italian coaches about potentially competing for Team Italy. But after moving to Park City, Utah at 16 he quickly realized he wanted to ski for Team USA.

His first Olympic triumph came in the 2022 Beijing Games, when he claimed the gold medal in freestyle skiing slopestyle, a relatively new winter sport where competitors must navigate a course with rails, jumps and other terrain features.

“I just love that it incorporates so many elements of skiing and that you’re doing multiple jumps in a row,” Hall says. “I’ve prided myself in being good at so many aspects of it … and I think you end up being better at something you love.”

At the 2026 Games, Hall was able to feel the love and support from many members of his mom’s side of the family as well as many of his childhood friends from Switzerland who came to cheer him on in person.

“I loved pretty much everything about it,” Hall says of competing at the Games in front of his loved ones. “It was really special.”

On his second of three runs on Feb. 10, he nailed his difficult routine — which included complicated grinds and leaping off huge jumps, much of which while skiing backward — and earned the silver medal with a score of 85.75, just behind the 86.28 racked up by Norwegian Birk Ruud, who took the gold.

According to Hall, his gold medal routine in 2022 wouldn’t have been impressive enough with the judges to have earned a medal in 2026.

“It’s a testament to how relatively young our sport still is that it’s changing and progressing year after year,” Hall says. “With so many young athletes pushing the sport, the skills are getting more precise and greater every year. It’s cool to keep up with the progression curve and to be right in the mix.”

Hall, who turns 28 in September, says he’s able to grow as a skier by doing it as much as he can, usually between 200 to 250 days per year.

“You can always do work at the gym but skiing is the only way to perfect the craft,” Hall says. “You can only do that if you truly enjoy it a lot.”

Hall says he used to dread having to stop skiing in the summers but now he sees the benefit in having a bit of a break.

“I think having the mental reset is important,” Hall says. “You get to get excited about the sport again.”

Hall says he’d like to make Team USA for the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps but acknowledged it might be difficult, given that he’ll be in his 30s at that point.

“It’s definitely a young person’s sport,” Hall says. “I think it’ll depend on my personal excitement for competition and how my body is feeling. I’m taking it one year at a time.”

The above article appears in the August 2026 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.

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Spinal muscular atrophy may confine her to a wheelchair, but it hasn’t prevented Luisa Rizzo from soaring to the top of the drone racing world.

The pinnacle of 23-year-old Luisa Rizzo’s drone racing career so far was her triumph at the 2024 Women’s World Drone Racing Championship in Hangzhou, China. She used her innate talent, lightning-fast reflexes and strategic prowess to outlast 111 of the world’s best pilots, all while seated in her motorized wheelchair.

“When I won the gold medal, it was unexpected for everyone. I had everyone cheering for me, not just Italians,” Rizzo says. “I was not able to understand it in the moment; I was completely out of myself. But I felt that it was amazing. You don’t expect someone in a wheelchair to win among normal people.”

She was especially proud to have won in China.

“I’ve been there three times, and I know and can say they don’t really consider people with disabilities,” Rizzo says.

At a tournament in Chengdu, China, last year, race organizers failed to find her wheelchair-accessible transportation, so her journey from the hotel to the tournament grounds was a two-hour trek in sweltering heat and 90 percent humidity. She did not perform nearly as well in that tournament.

“I considered it a win just to be there,” Rizzo says.

Rizzo is affected by spinal muscular atrophy and spends most of her time in a wheelchair. She was given her first drone by her father in 2015 as a fun way for her to keep her hands moving. It didn’t take long for her to start excelling in the new sport of drone racing.

Don’t feel too out of the loop if you haven’t heard of drone racing because it didn’t exist as an organized sport until 2011. Racers operate small radio-controlled drones that have onboard digital video cameras. The racers strap on video goggles to navigate the race from the drone’s perspective with the goal of completing an obstacle course as quickly as possible. Unlike other forms of competitive motorsport, the racer does not need to use legs or feet.

“That’s what I like the most, we all have the same opportunity,” Rizzo says. “If you don’t know me, or you don’t look at me, but you see me flying you can’t tell I’m in a wheelchair. There’s no difference.”

She has captured the top prize in Italy’s major domestic tournament six times.

Rizzo says her biggest dream is for drone racing to be included in the Summer Olympics. The new sport is already part of the World Games, an international sports competition made up of events not included in the Olympic Games.

She competed in the 2021 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, and came in 20th out of 32 racers, a respectable result, made even more impressive considering the circumstances: Her drone racing equipment was lost by the airlines!

“So, I had to buy new stuff there and of course it was not the same,” Rizzo says. “And we’re talking about the 32 fastest flyers in the world, so it’s OK.”

Rizzo says the sport is continuing to evolve, with the competition getting tougher and the competitors seeming to get younger each year.

“Until some years ago, you’d get like 30-something-year-old people who could go fast and win some races,” Rizzo says. “But now we find there’s a lot of kids, and they learn so fast that they are dangerous.”

“So, basically, I’m already old at 23,” she says.

But she has found that flying strategically can be better than just flying fast.

“In just a moment, everyone can fall down and crash. So, my strategy most of the time is to just stay in the air,” Rizzo says. “It doesn’t matter if I’m not as fast as the other ones but if I manage to stay close, maybe I can go further.”

The above article appears in the June 2026 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.

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Three Italians graced UIC Women’s Volleyball Team with her talents during the 2025 season.

What would compel a young Italian to leave her home and family to enroll at a state-run university in Chicago? For the three Italians on the 2025 Women’s Volleyball Team at the University of Illinois Chicago, the answer is a combination of wanting to travel, the desire for a challenge and knowing they would be part of a robust community of international students.

Francesca Venturini, who grew up in Bergamo, a city of around 120,000 residents northeast of Milan, was the first of the trio to enroll at UIC, arriving for the fall 2022 season.

“It was hard at the beginning, I missed speaking Italian, and it’s always good to have somebody from home,” Venturini says. “So, when Beatrice came my junior year and when Emma came this year it was a big help.”

Beatrice Carulli, who grew up in Rome, played for Miami Dade College in 2022 and 2023 before transferring to UIC in 2024. She says having an Italian on the UIC team when she arrived helped a lot.

“I wanted to leave my comfort zone, I wanted to make my parents proud, so I decided to make this big change,” Carulli says. “I’m just so happy, grateful, proud.”

Venturini and Carulli are both seniors, so this was their final season as UIC Flames.

Kimi Davis, UIC Women’s Volleyball assistant coach, says each has made a lasting impact on the team.

“Fran was recruited for her strong volleyball IQ, her ability to manage an offense and her experience competing at a high level in Italy,” Davis says. “Bea brings an intensity felt by both teammates and opponents, and she is coachable and driven to improve not only for herself but for the team. Her work ethic and standards will positively influence our program for years to come.”

But freshman Emma Colombari’s collegiate playing career is only just beginning. Colombari also grew up in Bergamo and played for the same club team as Venturini.

“She gave me a lot of information that was useful to me,” Colombari says of Venturini. “But also having Bea to talk to here is really comforting to me, it’s like having a bigger sister.”

Davis says Colombari is an important part of the program’s long-term vision.

“As she gains experience, she has the potential to become a consistent scoring option and a dependable six-rotation player,” Davis says.

It’s becoming more popular for Italian volleyball players to play at American colleges, Venturini says, but getting scholarships is increasingly competitive, in part because of how strong the level of play is.

“This level is the same high level I was playing back at home,” Venturini says. “The way of playing, it’s way faster here, the ball flies way faster. I feel that I improved all four years.”

One reason UIC ended up with three Italian players this season was the emphasis the program places on recruiting international talent. Ten out of the 18 members of the UIC squad are international students. Besides the Italians there are two Argentinians, a Brazilian, a Serbian, a Bulgarian, an Egyptian and a player from the Czech Republic.

“Our staff invests time connecting with these groups, learning about athletes early and understanding their academic and athletic goals,” Davis says. “International prospects see that UIC offers high-level volleyball, strong academics and a diverse campus in a major global city, which makes it an attractive destination.”

Colombari says having so many other international students has been a huge help.

“It’s like having a second family, it’s our family away from home,” Colombari says. “It makes you aware of the fact that you’re not alone, many other girls did the same thing that you did.”

The above article appears in the February 2026 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.

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When Sofia Cantore joined America’s National Women’s Soccer League, little did she know she was stepping over a threshold that had never been crossed before.

Before the age of 26, Italian soccer star Sofia Cantore compiled an impressive resume in her native land. At just 17, she signed with Juventus, considered the top club in Italy’s top women’s soccer league, and appeared in over 120 league matches, tallying more than 40 goals and 20 assists in the process.

At the international level, Cantore is a Team Italy mainstay. She scored five goals for Le Azzurre in fewer than 50 games and last year started every match for her country in the 2025 UEFA Women’s Championship.

So it comes as no surprise that she would get opportunities to play in America’s National Women’s Soccer League, considered by many to be the most competitive women’s soccer league on the planet. In June, Cantore signed a three-year deal with the Washington Spirit that includes a fourth-year option.

What was a surprise is that in doing so she became the first Italian player in the league’s history.

“I didn’t know that I was the first, they told me the news after,” Cantore says. “For me, it’s a pleasure because I think this league is amazing.”

The last time an Italian player competed in a U.S. women’s professional league was in 2010, when forward Patrizia Panico played for the previous iteration of NJ/NY Gotham FC in the now-defunct Women’s Professional Soccer league.

Cantore has played well since signing with the Spirit. At press time, she’s scored 5 goals in just 14 total matches, including one in a match in late September that clinched a spot for the club in the NWSL playoffs.

Cantore acknowledged that the level of play in the NWSL is higher than back home.

“The biggest difference is that here all the players are extremely physical and athletic. I’m a striker, I’m fast but here the defender is also fast,” Cantore says. “So I have to try to find a solution to be more effective.”

Also in September, Cantore finished 24th in voting for the Ballon d’Or Féminin, an award recognizing the best women’s soccer player in the world each year. It was the first time she’d been nominated for the honor, which for the third year in a row went to superstar Aitana Bonmati of Spain.

“It’s crazy to be among all of those names, the most important soccer players in the world,” Cantore says. “I didn’t expect to be a part of this but I’m happy. And now it’ll be something that makes me want to improve more.”

Cantore, who was born in the small city of Lecco in northern Italy, says she always imagined that her career would involve an experience in the U.S.

“I’m a curious person and wanted to know a new culture and a new people,” Cantore says. “I had this opportunity to mix soccer with the experience of life.”

Cantore says she’s still settling in but so far she’s enjoyed the experience. One perk of signing with the Washington-based club is that it has given her an opportunity to spend more time with her older brother, who is a biologist in the D.C. area.

Cantore has noticed a major difference in the cultural dynamics of America and Italy.

“In Italy, we are a little country so there are not so many differences,” Cantore says. “I think people growing up here, they can be more open and more comfortable in every situation.”

Cantore recommends other athletes travel and play outside of their home country.

“I think that every time you make a change, go out of your comfort zone, you can grow up,” Cantore says. “I suggest to young people to make this step because it is something that can make you grow up a lot.”

The above article appears in the January 2026 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.

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Born and raised in the Chicago area, Christina Toniolo helped lead Team Italy to victory in the European championships.

When Fra Noi last checked in with softball pitcher Christina Toniolo for the June 2024 issue, the Crystal Lake, Illinois, native reported that she’d been recruited to the Italian National Team and helped the squad earn third place at the Canada Cup International Softball Championship.

In 2025, Toniolo suited back up for “Le Azzurre” and helped the team accomplish even more.

Team Italy won the 2025 Women’s Softball European Championship Gold Medal, claiming the top prize in the 21-team tournament.

Toniolo proved to be one of the team’s top performing pitchers. She earned a 3-0 record and a 2.63 ERA over the four games she started, which led the team. She struck out 9 of the 44 batters she faced and allowed only 12 singles and zero extra-base hits throughout the tournament.

“I think this year was another step up,” Toniolo says of her performance in the tournament. “That’s always what you’re looking for, to play well and to earn the trust of your teammates and coaching staff.”

She credits new Team Italy staff members for creating a positive environment for the team to thrive.

“I loved being on the field with those girls. That made it less stressful,” Toniolo says. “We love playing for each other, we love playing for the team and for Italy.”

The national team got together to begin training for the tournament in August in Caronno Pertusella, outside Milan. They then traveled together to the Czech Republic to continue preparing for the tournament the week before it was set to open in Prague on Sept. 7.

While she was busy with the tournament and didn’t have much time to explore, Toniolo says her first experience with the Czech Republic was very positive. Most days, a lot of local schoolkids would be brought to the tournament fields to watch the action.

“That was really cool to see the young kids supporting us,” Toniolo says. “One of the reasons we’re out here is to grow the game.”

In addition to her strong showing in international competition, Toniolo also played her first season in the Italian professional softball league. She led her team, Inox Saronno, with 20 starts, had a 13-7 record and earned a 1.86 ERA. The team finished the year with a better-than-expected 4th place finish in the 10-team league.

“Something special about this season for me is that I continually got better as the season went on,” Toniolo says. “I got hot at the right time for the team.”

Saronno, a community northwest of Milan, became Toniolo’s second home over the course of the season. Between the club season and the tournament, Toniolo got to live in Italy for around six months this year.

“I’m really grateful that I have this opportunity to experience Italian culture,” Toniolo says. “To be able to immerse myself in it has been really, really special.”

Toniolo says her goal is to keep playing professional softball in Italy next year. Her long-term strategy is the same as it was last year when she told Fra Noi she eventually plans to go to dental school but wants to play softball as long as possible first.

“I’m taking it year by year,” Toniolo says.

She considers herself very lucky to be able to live in Italy and experience the country. One highlight from this year was getting the opportunity to go hiking in the Dolomites, the famed mountain range in northeastern Italy.

“That’s something I never thought I’d have the opportunity to do in my life, so to be able to do that all thanks to softball is amazing,” Toniolo says.

The next big goal for Team Italy is to qualify for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. But no matter what happens, Toniolo will always have her gold medal to remind her of her 2025 in Italy.

The article above appears in the December 2025 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture.

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The New Trier High School Freshman Girls crew battled choppy waters, fended off fierce competitors and ultimately won a gold medal at the top rowing tournament in the country on May 24 at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America’s Championship Regatta. The event was hosted on the Cooper River in New Jersey, just a few miles east of Philadelphia.

Christina Salvi, one of a team of eight rowers guided by a coxswain, says that before the final race the team was nervous, but confident. They had won previous tournaments together, including the Midwest Scholastic Rowing Regatta in Michigan just two weeks earlier.

“After seeing how we performed at Midwest I had a gut feeling we’d win at nationals,” Salvi says. “Coach (Allison Elli) said before that it was the most important race we’d had in our entire lives.”

The team got off to a good start and quickly earned the lead.

“You have to be physically strong and also mentally strong,” Salvi says. “When everything is going perfect, everyone is going at the same time and you are all exactly together as if we were parts of a machine.”

Around 4 minutes into the 2-kilometer race it began to look like the team in second place — a crew from Winter Park, Florida – might be making a push to overtake them. But the New Trier girls surged ahead to their fastest pace of the race and finished the course with a time of 5 minutes and 12 seconds, around five seconds ahead of Winter Park.

Next school year, Salvi and her fellow championship rowers will have the opportunity to try out for New Trier’s varsity squads.

“I hope that we all make it, and I know we might not all row together again but at least we’ll all be on the same team,” Salvi says.

And no matter what happens, they’ll always have their shared triumph on Cooper River.

“In that race we were all rowing for each other,” Salvi says. “It was the perfect sendoff for this boat, and I’m never going to forget it.”

Competing at prestigious rowing tournaments is nothing new for the Salvi family.

Silvano Salvi, Christina’s grandfather, competed for the Italian national team in the coxless four, a four-person boat that doesn’t have a coxswain.

Sam Salvi, Christina’s father, was on the first rowing team at Loyola Academy in Wilmette.

John Salvi, Christina’s older brother, was featured in the pages of Fra Noi magazine last year for his exceptional high school and collegiate rowing career. His New Trier team won nationals during his senior year, and he is currently rowing for Stanford. His goal is to earn a seat for Team USA at the 2028 Olympics.

Christina’s older sister, Catherine, will row as a freshman at Columbia University in New York City this fall. The sisters both competed at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America’s Championship Regatta, though Catherine was on the varsity team.

“It was great to have her with me,” Christina said of her sister also being at the New Jersey tournament. “It felt like I wasn’t in such a foreign place.”

Catherine’s team earned third place in their category.

Seeing her siblings find success and enjoyment in rowing is what inspired Christina to pursue the sport as well.

“I saw them grow as people, and they always seemed like they were having the best time when they were with their teams,” Salvi says.

Unlike other sports in which children can learn the basics in gym class or even teach themselves, the barrier to entry in rowing is high. Salvi says she enrolled in rowing camps to learn the fundamentals and found she loved the sport.

“I would ask my siblings about what the proper form was but really, having instruction and support from coaches is where you learn how to row,” Salvi says.

“It’s not common for a family to have a (rowing machine) at home … though of course mine did,” Salvi says with a laugh.

The article above appears in the August 2025 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

Recently retired after nearly 40 stellar seasons as head coach of the DePaul women’s basketball team, Doug Bruno continue to pitch in as a special assistant to the program.

After 39 seasons of exemplary leadership on and off the court, Doug Bruno has stepped down as the head coach of the DePaul women’s basketball team.

Through his long career, Bruno established himself as one of the most prominent and influential figures in collegiate women’s basketball. He was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022 and the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. He also was a nominee for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.

Bruno led DePaul to 25 NCAA Tournament appearances and his teams made the Sweet 16 four times, claiming the Big East title nine times.

If Bruno had it his way, he would be gearing up for his 40th season of leading the Blue Demons, but life had another plan. He suffered a stroke in August 2024 and wasn’t able to return to the sidelines. His recovery took months and it wasn’t until November that he was close to feeling like his old self.

“My assistant coaches are all great and they picked up the torch and went on and coached the team,” Bruno says. “The season was already well along, I was not going to mess with the chemistry they had going. I was not going back on the sidelines: That’s just how life works.”

Top assistant coach Jill Pizzotti served as interim head coach in Bruno’s absence. She will succeed him as head coach next season.

“It’s a great and natural decision by DePaul and I’m thrilled,” Bruno says.

Bruno was first named the head coach of the Blue Demons women’s basketball program in 1976, at 26 years old. After two seasons he left the program to become the head coach of the Chicago Hustle, a women’s basketball team in the now-defunct Women’s Professional Basketball League. When asked how that league compared with the modern WNBA, which got started nearly 20 years later in 1996, Bruno said the main difference is that there are more opportunities for women athletes now.

“Women have always been great athletes and able to compete at a high level, they just needed the opportunity to compete,” Bruno says. “The women’s game now has been accepted, it’s been embraced.”

Bruno says that, in his opinion, coaching professionals wasn’t different from coaching college athletes.

“The beauty of basketball is the togetherness of players, it’s the ultimate team game,” Bruno says. “The best teams are the best sharing teams, they share in everything they do.”

In 1980, Bruno served as an assistant coach for the Loyola men’s basketball team before eventually returning to lead the DePaul women’s basketball team once again in 1988, at 38 years old.

Another way he’s been shaping the lives and careers of basketball players is through the Doug Bruno Girls Basketball Camp, which he started in 1980. He was inspired to start his camp because of the camp launched by legendary DePaul men’s basketball coach Ray Meyer, which Bruno worked at in his youth.

“I just started naturally running a camp myself; it kind of emerged and evolved,” Bruno says. “It’s the competition that makes the camp. Players love to play and learn, and there’s no better learning than playground basketball.”

Bruno sold his camp to United States Sports Camps but he continues to be involved. Some of the coaches who now run the day-to-day operations once were players at the camp.

Bruno will continue on at DePaul as a special assistant to the vice president/director of athletics for women’s basketball. He sees his new role as an opportunity to confer the lessons he’s learned about coaching to other coaches in the DePaul athletics family.

Bruno says he doesn’t think about what his legacy will be.

“I just hope people know that I gave it my all every day as a player and a coach and that we were good to our players and helped them grow as people and athletes,” Bruno says.

The article above appears in the June 2025 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

While other kids were batting, pitching and fielding their way toward careers on Major League Baseball’s fields of dreams, Wayne Randazzo’s sights were set a little higher.

Countless young boys grow up following Major League Baseball on TV or the radio and dream of one day being part of the game. Wayne Randazzo wished for a life in baseball, but not as a player — he wanted to get to call the action.

“Pretty much ever since I knew I needed a job when I got older, this has been the job I wanted,” says Randazzo, 40, who is in his third season as the lead play-by-play announcer for Los Angeles Angels TV broadcasts.

Randazzo was born in Chicago and grew up watching legendary broadcasters Harry Caray and Steve Stone call Chicago Cubs games on WGN. Shortly after graduating from North Central College in Naperville with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast communication, Randazzo landed a four-month internship at WGN Radio in 2005. While there, he got to work with Chicago sports media figures like David Kaplan, Tom Waddle and Mike Ferrin. He also would go to Wrigley Field to help with Cubs game broadcasts, meeting legendary broadcasters Pat Hughes and Ron Santo.

“They were all really gracious with their time. It was perfect, it was just what I needed to get my path started,” Randazzo recalls. “I was so interested in it and so passionate about it. They recognized I had a knack for it and interest in it and they helped me along.”

He has worked in broadcasting ever since, including a yearlong return to WGN Radio in 2010 and a three-year job as an update anchor and host on 670 The Score, another legacy AM radio station in Chicago.

Randazzo’s first regular MLB broadcasting assignment came for the New York Mets in 2019. In 2022, he began serving as a play-by-play announcer for “Friday Night Baseball” on Apple TV+.

In addition to being live on the air during the long baseball season, Randazzo says broadcasters also put in hours of prep work.

“The preparation is pretty constant,” Randazzo says. “With all the info out there, there’s never enough — you can always do something more.”

In his first six years announcing MLB games, Randazzo has witnessed some amazing players in the process of making history. He covered Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom’s Cy Young Award-winning 2019 season and two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani’s MVP Award-winning season for the Angels in 2023.

“Elite stars bring out the best in the broadcaster,” Randazzo says. “There’s always that extra pep in your step when you’re going to call those performers.”

He was on the mic for Apple TV+ when St. Louis Cardinals legend Albert Pujols became just the fourth player to enter the 700-home-run club on Sept. 23, 2022. Being able to call that historic moment is among Randazzo’s career highlights so far.

“Ultimately it’s important for people to pursue their dreams in life,” Randazzo says. “It might not necessarily be a career, but it’s important to pursue things that drive you personally and bring you joy.”

Another of Randazzo’s passions is the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. Created in 1977 by George Randazzo, Wayne’s grandfather’s first cousin, NIASHF has honored generations of Italian-American athletes and sports figures. From 1977 until his death in 2019, George oversaw the induction of more than 270 standout athletes in every sport.

Wayne spent a lot of time at the museum during his youth. “I sat at the front desk there for years answering the phone,” he says.

He also edited the Hall of Fame’s print magazine “Red, White and Green,” after he graduated from college. In recent years, he has served as the emcee for the organization’s annual induction ceremony.

“I’m glad to make sure the people who deserve that time on the stage are introduced the right way,” he says, noting that he hopes to be involved in the hall for the rest of his life. “I want to make sure it continues and George’s legacy lives on.”

The article above appears in the May 2025 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

As the point person for Lega Serie A USA, it’s Andy Mitchell’s job to raise the profile of Italian soccer in one of the world’s most coveted markets.

Since 1898, when Italians have wanted to enjoy calcio at its finest, they’ve turned to Lega Serie A, one of the top domestic soccer leagues in the world. In the spring of 2022, the Italian league opened an office in New York City and tasked Andy Mitchell with convincing more Americans to join in the fun.

Calcio is the most popular sport in Italy and its national team is second only to Brazil in most FIFA World Cup wins. In the United States, interest in soccer is on the rise, but it still lags far behind baseball, basketball and American football, and knowledge of Serie A is largely limited to true fans of the sport.

Mitchell, the CEO and managing director of Lega Serie A USA, says that when he was approached about the job, his enthusiasm was off the charts.

“It was clear to me calcio was under-leveraged in the market and had a high ceiling, with the sport continuing to grow here,” Mitchell notes.

Mitchell says his main goal is to spread the word in America that Serie A is one of the top three global leagues, playing in a country that Americans love with top American players thriving on the pitch.

Five members of the United States national team currently star in standout Italian clubs, including Christian Pulisic, the 26-year-old winger for AC Milan, nicknamed “Captain America.” Also, nine of the 20 Serie A clubs now have North American ownership, including powerhouses Inter Milan and AC Milan.

Another important goal for Serie A USA, according to Mitchell, is to partner with community soccer organizations. Their first such collaboration has been with Street Soccer USA, a nonprofit that fights poverty and strengthens communities across the United States through soccer. In May 2023, Serie A USA and Street Soccer USA opened the Teddy van Beuren Street Soccer Park and Learning Center at Community School 55 in the Bronx, New York City, creating an accessible space for young people to learn soccer while developing important social and educational skills.

“The Serie A Calcio in the Community program is central to our efforts to leverage the profile and platform of Italian soccer to inspire the next generation,” Mitchell says. “We’re excited to see the difference we can make in collaboration with our nonprofit partners.”

Serie A USA also supports a youth soccer initiative in Little Havana, Miami, and Mitchell says his organization is working with Street Soccer USA to expand to one or two new cities in 2025.

Though Mitchell isn’t of Italian descent, he says that, through his work with Serie A USA, he has come to appreciate all aspects of Italian culture and has even begun learning to speak Italian.

“Interacting daily with the Italian community within Serie A and the clubs has deepened my understanding of Italy’s rich cultural nuances and the people behind the sport,” Mitchell says.

Before his current role with Serie A USA, Mitchell spent about a dozen years working for Facebook and Meta, including roles as Facebook’s news and global media partnerships director and as Meta’s head of global media accounts.

“Prior to joining Serie A, I loved everything about football both from a cultural and sporting standpoint and was following the business of the sport as part of my role at Facebook and general interest in the media business,” Mitchell says.

So has Serie A USA begun to grab the interest of American soccer fans? Mitchell says the early indications are positive.

There were two Serie A games broadcast on CBS last year and the viewership grew from the match in August to the one in December. Serie A USA’s online newsletter, Calcio Weekly, has been consistently increasing its readership and the organization’s Instagram page has doubled its audience over the last 18 months, Mitchell says.

“Across every dimension, the business is on a great trajectory,” Mitchell says.

The article above appears in the April 2025 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.

A standout centerfielder at Bartlett High School, Josh Colaizzi has all the attributes of a pro player according to his coaches.

Among all the athletic luminaries honored at the 2024 Chicago Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame ceremony gala in November, Josh Colaizzi was the only one too young to enjoy a celebratory glass of wine.

Colaizzi, 17, took home the evening’s Future Star Award for all the baseball accomplishments he’s managed to rack up as a teen.

Colaizzi, a centerfielder, made the Bartlett High School varsity team his freshman year and quickly established himself as a star player and leader. As a sophomore during the 2023-24 season, he was named Upstate Eight Conference Player of the Year after hitting for a batting average of .435 with 5 homers, 10 doubles and 30 RBIs during the 35 games. To top it off, the Bartlett squad won the conference tournament. When asked which prize meant more, Colaizzi answered like a seasoned veteran.

“I think winning as a team, it’s so special because you get to share it with all the people you grew up playing with,” Colaizzi says.

In the fall of 2024, Perfect Game, a baseball organization that hosts tournaments and maintains lists of the top young ballplayers across the country, ranked Colaizzi, now a junior, as the third best outfielder in the state and 7th best player in Illinois overall. Later in the year, Perfect Game ranked him among the top hitters in the nation as well.

Like so many other talented teen ballplayers, Colaizzi also is on a travel ball team, spending his summers going to games and tournaments all around the country. He was recruited by Cincy Legends Baseball out of Ohio in 2023 after footage of Colaizzi in action made its way to club staff via social media.

“He was one of the best players, if not the best player, we had all summer,” says Cincy Legends coach John Sullivan. “He’s always looking at what is the next move, what can I do to continue to get better against the guys I’m competing with.”

Colaizzi currently stands at around 5 foot 9 inches, which, despite being the average height of an American male, can be considered a bit short for a baseball prospect.

“I tell coaches all the time, I know you’re looking for a 6-foot-4 kid but I am taking this 5-foot-9 kid,” Sullivan says. “He is a little undersized, but he’s built like a brick house. He’s fast and strong as hell. The kid lives on the sweet spot of the bat and his hand-eye coordination is insane.”

Sullivan adds that Colaizzi is a role model in the way he handles himself off the field as well.

“His character is off the charts, we’re extremely lucky to have Josh,” Sullivan says. “If there were more Joshes in our community, we’d all be in a better place.”

Like other star athletes, Colaizzi has high aspirations for the coming season and for his career. He wants Bartlett High School to repeat as conference champions, to defend his title as conference player of the year and eventually to be ranked as the top outfield prospect in Illinois.

“I want to play D1 baseball at a high level and make it to the League,” Colaizzi says.

At the National Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame gala, he got to meet big leaguer Nicky Lopez of the Chicago White Sox, noting that when Lopez was his age he played at some of the same travel ball tournaments on his way to the MLB.

“It was fun, really a blessing to be there and it was nice meeting a ton of new people,” Colaizzi says.

And getting an award was nice, too.

“I love the attention, but I’ve just gotta stay humble and not get cocky,” Colaizzi says.

The article above appears in the February 2025 issue of the print version of Fra Noi. Our gorgeous, monthly magazine contains a veritable feast of news and views, profiles and features, entertainment and culture. To subscribe, click here.