Reflection #89: Yesterday meets Today

            Every evening at midnight, yesterday and today bump into each other, but, at Saint Ignatius over the last month-and-a-half, on three separate occasions, yesterday and today actually over lapped.  I refer to reunions.   

             In mid-September, the 50-year reunion of the class of ’66 was held.  The class of ’66 has a special place in my memory because they were the members of the freshman football team of 1962.  I was their coach, but on a fateful day in March, the school’s president, Fr. Robert Koch, S.J., announced that St. Ignatius was dropping football and dropping out of the Catholic League.  Don Lucas, one of the varsity’s assistant coaches, was instrumental in starting the baseball team that spring, and, with his encouragement, I became the frosh-soph baseball coach.  Several of the football players made the transition to the upstart hardball program.  I must admit that, meeting men that I coached when they were freshmen and are now eligible for social security, is a little unnerving, but it was great to learn what they had done with their lives.  

Then on September 30, six individuals, all alumni, and the 1991 Women’s Basketball Team, were inducted into the St. Ignatius Athletic Hall-of-Fame.  Strictly speaking, that’s not  officially a reunion, but for all intents and purposes, it is the same, especially when all of the inductees are alumni.   This years inductees were:

 Donald Mnichowicz, ’57(football),   Dr. Paul Poskozim, ‘57(tennis), Arthur Reliford Jr. ’92 (basketball),   Patricia Ryan, ‘95(volleyball), and the entire 1991 Women’s Basketball Team, several of whom I was fortunate enough to coach in tennis.

Finally, two inductees in the list are close friends of mine and both were inducted because of their coaching careers.  They are Jim Luzzi, class of ’65, who was the first and only head soccer coach at SICP from 1970 to 2014, and tennis coach Rychelle (Kitty) Hooper, ’87.   As a senior, she was the captain of the tennis team, and, at her graduation, was named Ignatian of the Year, an honor given by the vote of the senior class.   

 Last but not least, in mid-October, the 16^th to be exact, the reunions for the classes of  ’86, ‘81, ’76 and ’71 were held.   Again, it was my pleasure to meet up with alumni I had coached and/or taught.  I admit that, at this point in my life, my memory isn’t as sharp as I would like it to be, but then, it never was.   I am more likely to remember former athletes better than math students because there is an aspect to athletics that isn’t as common in the regular classroom setting.  It is emotion.

 Finally, how about the Wolfpack Football Team?  Going into the playoff game, their record was 7 wins and 3 loses.   Looking back to the fall of 1962, that record is magnificent. Granted, they lost to Br. Rice by a sizeable margin, and while the present-day players and coaches likely aren’t satisfied with their record, I am proud of how far we’ve progressed.