So, beyond school sites, I resorted to scanning the signings lists at Rivals.com and I found a few prep school players who signed.

The group doesn’t seem as numerous, or deep, as it has in the past but that may be from a lower profile more than anything else.

Remember this list is by no means exhaustive or thorough. If you’ve know a boarding school player who should be on the list, by all means add him to the comment section.

• Isaiah Battle (Fork Union Military Academy)
• Aharown Campbell (Hargrave Military Academy)
• Nevin Cyr (Cushing Academy)
• Taylor Gadbois(Fork Union Military Academy)
• Cardale Jones (Fork Union Military Academy)
• Jake Kiley (New Hampton School)
• Jamar Lewter (Fork Union Military Academy)
• James Meagher (Trinity-Pawling School)
• Cam Shorey (Philips Exeter Academy)

T-P ran short news post and photo covering Meagher’s commitment to West Point.

Photo credit: acaben

This list isn’t exhaustive. If I didn’t find someone, please add them to the comments.

Danny Aiken, long snapper for the New England Patriots, did a PG year at Fork Union where coach John Schuman taught Aiken the art of long snapping- a specialty that can earn a player a career. Aiken played collegiately at the Univerisity of Virginia and played with the Bills prior to coming to the Patriots.

Victor Cruz did a postgraduate year at Bridgton Academy in 2005. Un-hearalded coming out UMass, Cruz has developed in to a consumate slot receiver and one of Eli Manning’s primary targets.

Fellow New York Giant D.J. Ware did a post grad year Hargrave Military before attending the University of Georgia. Ware has been with Giants since 2007 and already has a Super Bowl ring.

Additional resources:

Bridgton Academy football program

Fork Union Military Academy football program

Hargrave Academy football program

Boarding schools in ME

Boarding schools in VA

If you’re a high school snowboarder with collegiate or U.S. national aspirations, you might like our latest video interview with Chris Davies, Gould Academy, head snowboarding coach.

Davies talks about how Gould works with and approaches competitive snowboarding from cross training in the off-season to spending 100 days on snow during the winter.

You can see the video in two places:

1. At Gould’s “Glog” with the title “Does This Make Me famous…??” (I think it does, Chris!)
2. Or as part or our article: “Scouting Report: Competitive Snowboarding Boarding Schools“

Additional resources:

Gould Academy – www.gouldacademy.org

Boarding schools in Maine

Janet Dunn, Director of the Akin Learning Center at Kents Hill School chats with us about the center’s new building and the story behind it.

Kents Hill (a coed boarding school in Kents Hill, ME) has been on the fore of learning differences programs having had a program (that started in Dunn’s living room) for 32 years.  The new building is the latest step in the center’s journey from living room, to library, to dedicated, purpose built facility.

A seven year process brought the Akin Learning Center from idea to realization.  Like all good architecture the process began with the students and faculty who use the building and worked outward toward design.  The center’s new home provides students a comfortable setting into which kids want to come, collaborate, and be proud of what they accomplish.

Kents Hill alumni carry a structure and routine into college and adulthood that they’ve absorbed from the KHS experience.  They know how to keep a schedule and when to study and they are comfortable and secure in their interactions with teachers and adults.

Additional resources:

Akin Learning Center

Kents Hill School – www.kentshill.org

Boarding schools in ME

Learning differences boarding schools

The lede holds much of the story’s draw.

A boarding school alumnus, Culter, who holds an undergraduate degree from Northeastern University and an M.B.A. from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, doesn’t work in finance. Instead he has found a life as a rising star in Brazilian Funk.

The story becomes even richer in light of the fact that the Brazilian funk comes out of Rio’s favelas and that Cutler makes his home in Tabajaras, the favela above Rio’s Copacabana beach.

Culter embraces and seems to love Brazilian life.

“…In a musical subculture that still frightens and fascinates many residents of the self-described noble seaside districts literally in the shadow of Rio’s hillside favelas, Mr. Cutler talks the talk. His Portuguese flows with roguish street terminology and self-deprecating wisecracks, a stream-of-consciousness commentary that would merit at least an R rating.

And unlike many fair-weather foreigners who frequent Rio for its beaches, he also walks the walk. He performs here in the gritty city of Nova Iguaçu and other sketchy parts of the Baixada Fluminense, the patchwork of poor districts on Rio’s periphery. He has put down stakes in Tabajaras, a favela perched atop Copacabana, where he paid $20,000 in cash for a tiny house where he lives with his girlfriend, Yasmin Leiros.

Tabajaras is a long way from Los Angeles, where Mr. Cutler was raised in an affluent Jewish household, before attending Berkshire, a Massachusetts boarding school.

Mr. Cutler clawed his way into the funk world from the ground level, after earlier efforts rapping in Spanish in the United States and then the Dominican Republic. He said he was drawn to rap, and later to funk, by the sense of incomparable adventure these genres offered compared with working in an office…”(NYT)

Culter knows the act may not last forever but he’s staying with music as long as he can telling writer Romero, “I don’t know if I’ll sing funk forever, but I know what it’s like to do music that trembles your soul.” (NYT)

Boarding school alumni sometimes work their way into seemingly odd places. I’d love to know where Cutler’s musical seeds were planted.

Worcester Academy, Worcester, MA

New head coach of the Miami Dolphins, Joe Philbin, did a post graduate year at Worcester Academy (a coed boarding school in Worcester, MA) during the 1979-80 academic year.

From the ‘life is a merry-go-round/degees of separation’ and the “my-oh-my how did those two guys end up in the same prep school english department at the same time’ files, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King writes:

“Miami’s hire of the Green Bay offensive coordinator as head coach Friday probably never would have happened without Matt Birk, Kirk Ferentz, and two Massachusetts establishments of higher education with significantly different reputations — Worcester Academy and Harvard.

“But never without Matt Birk,” said one NFL scout Friday. “And never without Harvard.”

And never without Kirk Ferentz.

Everyone’s life, personal and professional, has a certain degree of kismet to it. Every coach can look to one point in his career and say, That’s when it all changed for me. Peeling the onion on Philbin’s career shows the same thing.

In 1979, Philbin, a high-school tight end, enrolled at Worcester (Mass.) Academy for a post-grad high school year before going on to a four-year college. One of the assistant coaches on the team was a young kid just out of college, Kirk Ferentz, who actually performed nightly bedchecks on Philbin and got to know him well. Fast-forward to 1997. Philbin was climbing the coaching ladder, and took a job coaching the Harvard offensive line. At the time he took the job, Philbin inherited a good but technically raw starting center, Matt Birk. Excellent size and flexibility. But not technically sound. “A reacher and a grabber,” recalled Philbin. “He would get outside the framework of his body and start reaching and grabbing. Once he learned the fundamentals of punching and pass-protecting the right way, I think some people in the NFL felt he was certainly a prospect worth investing in.”

Here came the scouts, in the late winter of 1998, a month or so before the draft. One of those scouts, Ferentz, was the offensive line coach at Baltimore. “When I came in for a visit,” said Ferentz, “I looked at Matt and right away I could tell he’d been coached to do things the way we wanted them done. Coaching makes a huge difference. You work guys out, and you can see which ones have been schooled and which ones haven’t. Matt had a great head start.”

Ferentz had a good visit with his former student, Philbin, and thought: I knew he was a good kid. Now I can see that he’s a really good coach…”(SI)

Ferentz hired Philbin when he became the coach at Iowa.

And, get this tidbit about the Worcester English department circa 1979:

“Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me

When Joe Philbin did his post-graduate high school academic year at Worcester (Mass.) Academy in 1979-80, the two English teachers at the small school 35 minutes west of Boston doubled as assistant coaches on the school’s football team: Kirk Ferentz and Mike Sherman.

Ferentz, the future coach at Iowa. Sherman, the future coach of Brett Favre with the Packers.”(SI)

You can’t make-up a rare confluence of talent like this.

Additional resources:

Worcester Academy - www.worcesteracademy.org

Boarding schools in MA

A Post Graduate Year; what’s that?

The Williston Northampton School head, Robert Hill, talks about Williston’s new mission statement- how it came about and how the new statement informs and reflects school life.

Built on three concepts that are innate parts of the Williston community- purpose, passion, and integrity- the entire Williston community now harnesss these core values to sharpen daily life and practices. Purpose, passion, and integrity inform everything that Williston does, how the community, and how each individual goes about life at the school.

Building the new mission statement was an inclusive nine month process beginning with faculty examining and giving expression to the fundamental tenets of the Williston experience.

“The Williston Northampton School inspires students to live with purpose, passion, and integrity.”

Additional resources:

The Williston Northampton School – www.williston.com

Boarding schools in MA

Name the two boarding schools that Leon Leonwood Bean attended?

Bean spent a semester each at Hebron Academy and Kents Hill School- both in his native Maine.

Bean did not graduate from either, but he did take a business course at Kents Hill which looks to have had a certain effect.

Additional resources:

Leon Leonwood Bean (Wikipedia page)

Boarding schools in Maine

Kents Hill School – www.kentshill.org

Hebron Academy – www.hebronacademy.org

Photo credit: toastiest via Creative Commons

The best part, though, is the good people of New Hampshire, and, in this case, Dublin School students, are up to task of vetting and getting to the core of candidates.

They ask questions. Persist when the candidate is evasive and/or patronizing and demand a level of personal interaction from candidates seldom possible, seen, or necessary in other states.

Into New Hampshire citizenry at its best walked Rick Santorum as he took the stage at Dublin School (a coed boarding school) this past Friday.

With cameras rolling Dublin students and residents pressed Mr. Santorum into explaining himself on issues ranging from openly serving in the military, to marriage as privilege reserved exclusively for heterosexual couples, to long term disability care.

New York Times reporter Katherine Seelye offered this description:

“But the crowd, mostly high school students and a few visitors from the area, seemed more interested in his views on social issues.
Asked about gay men and lesbians serving in the military and about same-sex marriage, Mr. Santorum, a former Senator from Pennsylvania, said they should not be allowed to serve openly and called for reinstituting the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.

He said that marriage was a privilege ‘given by society for a reason,’ which is to procreate. ‘Lots of people love each other,’ he said, ‘but we don’t give them this unique privilege because it’s so important that moms and dads bond together’ and give their children what they need.
Jessica Scharf, 16, a student here [Dublin School], told Mr. Santorum that she had a handicapped brother and wanted to know how to take care of him without help from the federal government.

Mr. Santorum noted that his daughter was disabled and ‘we bear the cost,’ but said that people who could not should seek help elsewhere before turning to the federal government. He suggested that family, friends, neighbors and the church could help, and that caring for someone would knit them all closer together.

Ms. Scharf said later she did not find the answer satisfying. ‘My brother is multiply handicapped,’ she said. ‘I don’t think the church or my neighbors are equipped to handle my brother’s handicaps.’”(NYT)

Of the Dublin students (three of whom have gay parents) and the community’s performance, Dublin headmaster Brad Bates said,

“I am extremely proud of our students for wanting to participate in the democratic process and I was especially excited when I learned that the students in Brooks Johnson’s American Presidency class invited all of the candidates to speak to our community so that we could learn their positions on the critical issues facing our country. I was particularly impressed with the thoughtful and serious questions our students asked Senator Santorum on Friday. They were truly living our motto of “truth and courage.”

In the finest New Hampshire tradition, it sounds like Dublin students were polite, but firm, and challenging. Kudos to Johnson’s American Presidency class for extending the invitation to candidates.

Additional resources:

Dublin School – www.dublinschool.org

Boarding schools in NH

I shared the role it fills in the pre-collegiate space, who plays it, where it came from, and why particular boarding schools operate high-powered basketball programs.

Lucky for you, readers, you don’t have to listen to me and, lucky for me, The Hippo (a southern New Hampshire arts and activities weekly) has published an interesting, bordering on exhaustive (4500+ words), general interest piece on New Hampshire prep school Class A basketball- “NH GOT GAME: How the state’s prep schools are creating the next generation of basketball stars.”

If you’re at all interested in high level, New England, prep school basketball, I recommend this piece as required reading.

“NH GOT GAME” presents a richness through the inclusion of some historical characters (does the name Leo Papile jar the memory of any New England basketball cognoscenti?), college and prep school coaches, and players.

The piece is good for both some historical context as well as piquing interest to get folks into gyms to see the show. And, it’s not just the boys. Reporter Adam Coughlin devotes a bit of space to girls side of this not high school/not quite college industry.

Kudos to Hippo reporter Coughlin. He made some good calls and did some nice homework to cover the origins of potential college players spending a year, or more, in a Lakes Region boarding school before heading off to college and a division I collegiate basketball program.

Some article high notes

Current Lakes Region power programs Brewster Academy, Tilton School, New Hampton School, and Vermont Academy and their current star prospects all receive coverage. The depth of talent and competitiveness of Lakes Region Class A boys basketball is a marvel:

“…three schools — Brewster Academy, Tilton School and New Hampton School — have become the epicenter of high school basketball in America.

This is not hyperbole. In its 2011-2012 Five Star Basketball preseason Top 25, Sports Illustrated magazine ranked Wolfeboro’s Brewster Academy number 1, Tilton School number 3 and New Hampton School number 8, beating out schools in Las Vegas, Chicago and Texas. When Tilton plays Brewster in January, the game will be televised on ESPN. Brewster’s Mitch McGary will play his college basketball next year at the University of Michigan. He is being called the school’s biggest recruit in a decade.”(TH)

For players, the competition is intense and can serve as measuring stick:

“It is part of the natural weeding out process…Some kids rest on their laurels. Others are good but not great. Not everyone is meant to be a star” Jason Hickman, national basketball writer and editor for Maxpreps.com, explains. (TH)

Of the potential benefits, Hickman added:

“It is a tremendous avenue for kids…They can get away from home and hone their skills in the classroom and on the court.” (TH)

History, Leo Papile, then the head coach of the Boston Amateur Basketball Club (BABC):

“We sort of pioneered the whole thing in 1983 when we sent Eugene Miles, a great player from Dorchester, up to New Hampton.” (TH)

No special treatment:

“Maybe if they [student athletes] were treated differently…But everyone at New Hampton is held to the same standards. There are no special privileges,” New Hampton head coach Peter Hutchins says of the boarding school experience. (TH)

Getting into a prep school program:

“There is no magic wand…To succeed a kid needs academics, character and maturity,” Brewster coach Jason Smith. (TH)

A total academic, athletic, and life experience:

“For all of these guys the transition will be easier because they’re essentially playing against Division I talent every day…At a traditional high school, a guy might be 6’9” but the next tallest guys he’s going up against is 6’2”. At these schools you’re practicing against equal talent every day and definitely getting that competition in games,” Xavier University assistant coach Travis Steele told the author. (TH)

Paraphrasing, Steele Coughlin writes:

“Steele said the constant challenge against such talent is an instant reality check for players. Everyone at the Division I college level has talent. Talent isn’t enough. Hard work both on and off the court is needed for success and Steele said prep schools prepare kids for that.

Steele also said he is looking for kids who are willing to work and aren’t afraid of a challenge. He said competing against the best at a prep school shows him a kid isn’t afraid.”(TH)

Additional resources:

NH GOT GAME: How the state’s prep schools are creating the next generation of basketball stars (in magazine layout form)

Boarding schools in New England