The Lawrentian - Summer 2016

Lawrentian THE

SUMMER 2016

Finding Equilibrium

A Fifth Former turns to her Lawrenceville forebears to help define ‘having it all.’

In the Books Champ Atlee ’62 is retiring from the dugout.

PICTURE THIS Alumni Weekend 2016

The Boys of Summer Gold medalist

Boyce Budd ’57

is one of seven

alums who have competed as

U.S. OlympiAns.

24 recalls Olympic memories at Boathouse Row in

Branscom.

3 From the Editor 4 1,000 Words

10 A New Look for an Old Friend After many incarnations, the new Bath House Café was dedicated in May.

6 News in Brief

24 A Tradition That Rings True The 2016 Summer Games in Brazil call to mind Lawrenceville’s own Olympic athletes.

12 Sports roundup

Philadelphia.

Photo by Michael

2 From the Head Master

F e at u r e s

On the Cover: Boyce Budd ’57

Departments

34 Finding Equilibrium As a Fifth Former stares down adulthood, she turns to her forebears for guidance.

40 Alumni Weekend 2016

Second Formers reached the mountaintop.

Goldenberg enters NATA Hall of Fame, and Perry is named assistant headmaster at Blair.

Six teams win titles.

14 Go Big Red! Champ Atlee ’62 is retiring after forty seasons in the Big Red dugout.

TA K E T H I S J O B A N D L O V E I T 16 On the Arts Dressed for success at Spring Dance Concert

18 Take This Job and Love It Even when his hot-air balloon soars, Doug Robertson ’82 isn’t just floating through life.

20 Table Talk Q&A with History Master Alison Easterling P’19

22 Ask the Archivist For nearly 200 years, Lawrenceville and Cuba have helped shape each other’s history.

76 By the Numbers Fun under the sun: Lawrenceville’s Summer Programs

77 Student SNAP

18

Phu Jaitrong ’16 on a colorful climb

ON THE ARTS

S p o r ts r o u nd u p

12 Keep up with Lawrenceville every day!

Facebook.com/LawrencevilleSchool

16 Alumni

@LvilleSchool

44 Alumni News

lvilleschool

45 Class Notes

The Lawrenceville School

From the Head Master

O

“Over the course of the winter, I thoroughly enjoyed the term-long, dynamic series of discussions with my remarkable students, who came every day prepared to debate and speculate around the Harkness table.”

2

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

ne of the highlights of my first year was the chance to teach. I shared a classroom during the winter on the second floor of beautifully renovated Pop Hall – and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

“So, what did you teach?” a number of folks have asked me.

“Epistolary literature – an advanced 18th-century French lit seminar.”

“Oh. Hmm. You don’t say. Sounds, um … interesting.”

As a matter of fact, I believe my students were drawn in pretty quickly and found interesting relevance to our current context. “Epistolary literature” refers to a genre, especially popular in the 18th century, based on published letters that were, at first, real. As the century wore on, these missives became more frequently fictional with a thin veneer of authenticity.

Published letters allow us to follow what you might call voyeuristic impulses to peer into the private lives of real people, with all of the embarrassing, sordid, scandalous details spilling out into plain sight. And much like society’s low-brow fascination with semi-fictitious “Reality TV,” 18th-century readers played along with authors of fictional correspondences and pretended that the exaggerated escapades captured in personal missives were in fact true.

The course focuses on Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos. And given that the serial conniving and seducing begins with the second letter, my students were pretty much hooked by day two. The story revolves around a young innocent, who has just been released from the convent in order to prepare for marriage, and two conspiring, morally bereft nobles bent on revenge for a perceived slight. They cloak their pettiness and depravity in a language of grand and chivalrous exploits when in fact they are systematically destroying lives around them for the simple pleasure of it.

No need to motivate my students: The essential topic and the veiled language encourage a more careful read.

“M. Murray, je crois comprendre la situation, mais estil possible…?” “Oui, oui, tu as bien compris!” (“Mr. Murray, I am not sure I’m reading this right … he can’t mean…” “Oh, yes, you read that right.”)

After a deep dive into the novel, we conclude with two final elements. We compare two film versions: the Stephen Frears version that faithfully recreates the 18th-century context, and then Roger Vadim’s 1960 version that he sets in the smoky, decadent jazz clubs of 1950s Paris.

Thelonious Monk, living in Paris at the time, composes the score and performs in this rather brilliant adaptation.

Second, they do a final writing project where they create their own epistolary intrigue with a series of letters they have to write and knit together into a story line.

So where are the lessons? What did my students dig into as we dissected the novel? The narrative structure is a topic of endless discussion. With no narrator and nothing but a string of letters, we are left to speculate on the true motives of each character: Does Valmont actually love her? Or does he know his letter will be intercepted and he wants to make someone else jealous? Or is he making a power play to blackmail yet another person?

They picked up on the theme of education and the absolute vulnerability of the main character because she has been released into the world with no experience or formal preparation. The novel is essentially an 18th-century treatise on the importance of providing real education for young women. And in studying the language, the students saw additional relevance in the way that we, too, sometimes cleverly cloak our message in a noble veneer to cover up a more sordid reality. Think current politics.

But perhaps more than anything, they zeroed in on the double standard that many women face still today. In the central letter of the novel, one of the female characters mocks her male counterpart for the ease with which even the most inept men can navigate society. They broadcast their escapades as a way to add to their reputations, whereas women must work to avoid the slightest insinuation that they, too, may want to play the game: “Dans cette partie si inégale, notre fortune est de ne pas perdre, et votre malheur de pas gagner.” (“In this unfair matchup, the best we can hope for is not to lose, whereas your only misfortune is occasionally not to win.” – Lettre 81: Les Liasons Dangereuses, Laclos) Over the course of the winter, I thoroughly enjoyed the term-long, dynamic series of discussions with my remarkable students, who came every day prepared to debate and speculate around the Harkness table. The topic inspired some wonderful conversations, and of course, it is never simply about learning language. As is true generally with the study of great literature, there were deep, important themes to pull out and examine, and the lessons drawn from this enticing novel – lessons about education, trust, respect, cruelty, and exploitation – remain relevant today.

Sincerely,

Stephen S. Murray H’55 ’65 ’16 P’16 The Shelby Cullom Davis ’26 Head Master

Lawrentian THE

Summer 2016

|

Volume 80 Number 3

publisher Jennifer Szwalek

From the Editor

E

very four years, we tune in as a nation to witness the spirit of competition come alive, and 2016 promises nothing different. No,

Editor Sean Ramsden art director Phyllis Lerner staff photographer Paloma torres

I don’t mean the presidential campaign; we’ll leave that to some other daring periodical. Of course, I’m talking about the Summer Olympics, hosted this year by Rio de Janeiro with competitions

throughout Brazil. And whereas elections often leave folks in the United States on opposite sides of a divide, the Summer Games have a way of drawing us

proofreaders

closer as a people.

Carol Cole P’91 ’95

Sure, the television coverage tends to be a bit overwrought – can those

Timothy C. Doyle ’69 H’79 P’99

athlete profiles be any more melodramatic? – but there is something undeniably

Rob Reinalda ’76 Edward A. Robbins H’68 ’69 ’71 ’11 Linda Hlavacek Silver H’59 ’61 ’62 ’63 ’64 GP’06 ’08

compelling about watching competitors you know are the very best in the world at what they do. And it’s not like they fell out of bed that morning and into that uniform emblazoned with “U.S.A.” Their tales of triumph are real. They have a

contributors

depth and a texture that often transcend winning or losing.

Katherine Birkenstock

Hadley Copeland ’18

researching this summer’s cover story, I became acquainted with our earliest

Karla Guido Lisa M. Gillard Hanson

That can also be said of Lawrenceville’s seven Olympic competitors. In

Olympians only through archival materials and the internet, while others were

Jacqueline Haun

able to share their recollections through some very enjoyable conversations.

Barbara Horn

Either way, what I learned was, at various turns, inspiring, funny, sad, and

Sonia Shah ’18

reassuring. Take the sportsmanship shown by James Rector, Class of 1906.

Tiffany Thomas ’18

Touted as the world’s greatest amateur sprinter, “Reck” fixed a flaw in his chief rival’s form prior to their 1908 race that allowed the other man to nip him at the finish line; the Lawrentian would have undoubtedly triumphed otherwise.

The Lawrentian (USPS #306-700) is published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, and fall) by The Lawrenceville School, P.O. Box 6008, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, for alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends.

Periodical postage paid at Trenton, NJ, and additional mailing offices.

The Lawrentian welcomes letters from readers. Please send all correspondence to sramsden@lawrenceville.org or to the above address, care of The Lawrentian Editor. Letters may be edited for publication.

The Lawrentian welcomes submissions and suggestions for magazine departments. If you have an idea for a feature story, please query first to The Lawrentian Editor.

Visit us on the web at www.lawrenceville.org. www.lawrenceville.org/alumni/the-lawrentian Postmaster

Please send address corrections to: The Lawrentian The Lawrenceville School P.O. Box 6008 Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 ©The Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey All rights reserved.

Or consider the perseverance on vivid display in the story of Boyce Budd

’57, who was consigned to the junior varsity crew at Yale for his final two seasons. His eight-man boat was the best in the world in the 1964 Tokyo Games, easily outpacing the Yale varsity in the Olympic trials. Boyce is too much of a gentleman to gloat over it – believe me, I tried to pull it out of him! – but his story of athletic redemption is the kind that make the Olympics irresistible at their best.

As you tune in, I hope you are enjoying a healthy and happy summer.

All the best,

Sean Ramsden Editor sramsden@lawrenceville.org Setting the Record Straight Some overenthusiastic editing of Class Notes in the spring issue gave the impression that Denny Cummings ’62 was planning a visit to Chicago, when in fact it is already his home. In the same column, a segment of Gregg Miller’s note on the life of Mic Van Alst ’62 was mistakenly deleted. His complete remarks are included in this issue. The editor regrets these errors.

Summer

2016

3

1,000 Words

Top of the

Mountain

Ain’t no mountain high enough to keep the Class of 2019 from getting to know each other. Mountain Day in April saw the entire Second Form enjoy a day of hiking and Norvin Green State Forest in Bloomingdale, New Jersey. This spring tradition also helps Lawrenceville’s youngest to bond as a class while scoping views of New York City from thirty miles away.

Summer

2016

5

Photograph by Vinh Luu '19

experiencing nature, while learning about ecology, navigation, and conservation at

News in Brief

Capstone Explores the Race for the White House In a year that has seen a primary process

media studies at Rutgers University: The

unlike any other in recent years, Fifth

transformation of presidential campaigning

Form students tackled issues surrounding

and rhetoric

the state of American democracy and the upcoming U.S. presidential election in this year’s Capstone course.

Perry Named Asst.

Headmaster at Blair Lorry Perry, chair of Lawrenceville’s English Department, has been named assistant headmaster and

Primaries, Polls, and Money: Selecting the

deciding which candidate to vote for,” said

Presidential Candidates

History Master Erik Chaput, who also serves as Capstone director. “We want them to be able to ask the right questions and make intelligent, informed decisions about candidates and the overall state of American democracy.”

Students read selections from William Hudson’s book, American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America’s Future, to as the role of money in politics, judicial

Kennedy, English Department chair, not to mention English teacher,” said Chris Cunningham, Lawrenceville’s dean of faculty. “In all of these roles, Lorry combined creativity, conscientiousness, and caring, as well as a wonderful and sometimes slightly quirky sense of humor. Blair is lucky to get such a committed and inspiring teacher and leader.”

Perry, who is also a founding director of Lawrenceville’s Summer Scholars program, began her teaching career at Phillips Exeter Academy Summer School before teaching at Scattergood Friends School in Iowa. She served as a teaching assistant at the University of Iowa while earning her master’s degree in English. Perry joined Lawrenceville in 2006 as an English teacher, housemaster, and coach of soccer, volleyball, and basketball.

6

Public Affairs at Syracuse University:

Blairstown, N.J.

er, housemaster in Reynolds and

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and

but rather what to think about when

gain a better understanding of such issues

in a variety of roles – mentor teach-

Professor of Citizenship and Democracy

“We’re not telling students what to think,

dean of faculty at Blair Academy in

“Lorry has done extraordinary work

• Kristi Andersen, author and Chapple Family

politics, national security, and declining citizen engagement. Hudson, the initial Capstone speaker, is the chair of the

• Steven Prothero, author and professor of religion at Boston University: Religion and Politics in 2016 • Alejandro Portes, author and professor of sociology at Princeton University: Public Ideologies of Immigration and Current Policies • Keith Bybee, author and director of the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University: What Does the Presidential Election Have to do with Law? • Ted Widmer, author and senior fellow at

Department of Political Science at Provi-

Carnegie Council for Ethics in Interna-

dence College.

tional Affairs: Where in the World Are We?

Lawrentians attended weekly lectures by renowned experts, before tackling key issues around the Harkness table with the teaching team. In addition to Hudson, the 2016 speakers and their topics were: • Ross Douthat, New York Times columnist: Overview of the major issues of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election • David Greenberg, author and associate professor of history and of journalism and

Foreign Policy in the 21st Century • Jami Floyd P’17, host and legal analyst at WNYC Radio, and Marcus Mabry ’85, Twitter’s “Moments” managing editor and lead of U.S. curation: A student-led discussion on race and politics • Julian Zelizer, author and professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University: The Legacy of the Great Society and the significance of the next election for the Class of 2016

Learning About the Birds and the Trees One day, years from now, Lawrentians will walk through a beautiful forest filled with native trees and birds – and it will be thanks to the work of the Classes of 2016-19.

In an all-School effort, students broke ground in March on Lawrenceville’s Aldo Leopold Grove, planting more than 60 native trees on the land bordering the Big Red Farm. They also built 80 Eastern bluebird houses, which hang on the Farm’s fence posts, and planted 22 trays of lettuce.

“Flora, Fauna, and Food Day” was inspired by the legacy of Aldo Leopold, Lawrenceville Class of 1905 and one of the 20th century’s most influential environmental thinkers.

Second and Fifth Formers teamed up to plant 25 red maple, 18 white oak, and 18 black birch trees. “We lack a native forest on

this campus,” explained Science Master John Clark. “With this grove, we’re now on the path to creating a robust forest at Lawrenceville.”

With a hand from the School’s Facilities staff, Third and Fourth Formers constructed new homes for Eastern bluebirds. These colorful avian creatures were once abundant along the East Coast of the United States but have been pushed out by habitat destruction and non-native birds. The new Bluebird Trail is ideally located, as the birds will dine on pests that are detrimental to the health of the farm.

“Being able to come out here and actually do something made me feel like the work I’m doing in the classroom means something at the School,” Cammy Johnson ’17 said.

Goldenberg Inducted into NATA Hall of Fame

A

thletic Trainer Mike Goldenberg P’05 ’10 was inducted into the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) Hall of Fame at the organization’s national convention in June.

Goldenberg has served the Lawrenceville community since 1989 in a variety of capacities, including head athletic trainer, associate athletic director, acting athletic director, athletic director, and athletic trainer.

“I do what I do for my profession because I love what I do, and to be inducted into the NATA Hall of Fame is a great honor and very humbling,” said Goldenberg, who has also received multiple awards at the national, regional, and local levels, including the 2012 Cramer Award from the Eastern Athletic Trainers Association.

Election to the Hall of Fame is NATA’s highest honor. Members are recognized for their significant, lasting contributions that enhance the quality of health care provided by athletic trainers and advance the profession.

In May, the Philadelphia Sports Medicine Congress selected Goldenberg as the 2016 recipient of its Ted Quedenfeld Award, presented to athletic trainers who make important contributions to sports medicine in the Philadelphia area.

Summer

2016

7

Photograph by Lisa Jiwoo Kim '17

Gopal ’18 Earns a Spot at Intel ISEF He programmed a smartphone app that measures the color intensity of the disk and can detect how much aldolase is in the blood by taking a picture of

‘‘

Rupp ’16 is Public Speaking Champ

the disk.

These advances are important because they enable doctors

Charlotte Rupp ’16 captured the

to use a cheap, nearly

annual School-wide Woodrow Wilson Public Speaking Competition in

electricity-free method

March in the Kirby Arts Center.

to test for malaria and

“Why Read Books?” reached this stage by advancing through the classroom round, quarterfinals, and

‘‘

W

Finalists, who spoke to the prompt

ith a win at the 2016

matched against 1,760 entries

monitor the progress

Mercer Science and

submitted by high school

Engineering Fair, Nikhil

students from more than 75

of the treatment

based on aldolase

Gopal ’18 earned a chance to

countries.

semifinals.

compete at the Intel International

Gopal’s project uses a method

“Reading inspires the human decen-

Science and Engineering Fair

of protein detection based on

Gopal said. “Previously, doctors

cy in an age where technology makes

(Intel ISEF), the nation’s largest

antibodies. “There is a protein

did not have an inexpensive

it possible to hurt another person

international pre-college science

that is present in humans

method of monitoring patient

without looking them in the face,”

competition, where he finished

infected with malaria called

response over time, which is

Rupp said in her winning oratory.

second in the Mircrobiology

aldolase, and I designed a disk

important because now doctors

Eliza Koren ’17 and Ivy Zhang ’19

Category. His project, Point of

that can be spun on a centrifuge

will know sooner whether the

placed second and third,

Care Testing for Malaria Using a

that will change color when

strain of malaria the patient has

respectively.

Smartphone and a

aldolase is detected,”Gopal

is resistant to the treatments

Microfluidic ELISA Chip, was

explained.

being given.”

concentration,

Hoops Alum to the Olympics While you’re reading about the seven Lawrenceville alumni who have competed for the U.S. in the Summer Olympics (see page 24), SulEIman Braimoh ’07 will take the floor for the Nigerian National Olympic basketball team this month in Brazil. The 6-foot-8 power forward, who was born in Benin City, Nigeria, and played collegiately for Rice, was a 2016 all-star for the Giessen 46ers of Germany’s Basketball Bundesliga.

Science’s Calvert Wins Teaching Award Science Master Mary Calvert won the 2016 American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Chemical Education Middle Atlantic Regional Award for Excellence in High School Teaching. The award is given to recognize, encourage, and stimulate outstanding high school chemistry teachers.

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t h e l aw r e n t i a n

In 2013, Calvert was named one of two Outstanding High School Chemistry Teachers by the Princeton and Trenton Sections of the ACS. “I’m really pleased for Mary.

We know at Lawrenceville what a committed, excellent chemistry teacher she is – her love for her students and her subject is

legendary – but it’s wonderful for Mary to have people outside the School recognize and celebrate her work in this way,” said Dean of Faculty Chris Cunningham.

Calvert, who sits on Lawrenceville’s Oscar H. McPherson ’01 Distinguished Teaching Chair, the housemaster of Kirby House and co-coaches the Sci-

ence and Robotics club, which enters about a dozen competitions a year.

The recipient of Lawrenceville’s Henry C. Woods Faculty Award for Service to the School in 2012, Calvert was honored with the School’s Ritter Award for Fostering a Nurturing Academic Environment in 2000.

Big Red Standouts Choose Schools

Wu ’17 Published in National Journal

In May, the School recognized Lawrentians who will continue their careers as studentathletes next fall at some of the nation’s finest colleges and universities. Not every student who will continue his/her career as a student-athlete in college was available for the accompanying photograph, but here are the names of those who were present: Connor Kraus • Colby, hockey

Devon Strachan • Hobart William Smith, hockey

Wade Maloney • U niversity of Virginia, lacrosse Breyanna Mucius • Loyola, track Sam Smith • Bard, lacrosse

Natalie Yang • Harvard, fencing

Noah Herington • University of Northern

Leanne Passaro • Washington & Lee, soccer

Michigan, football Henry Flannery • Brown, football Henry Evans • Princeton, rowing Tom Bischoff • Yale, rowing Conway Staunton • Yale, rowing Connor Kirst • Villanova, lacrosse Hannah Zoll • H averford, basketball

Anais Gonzalez • Bates, cross country Lorenzo Lagares • SUNY-Purchase, baseball Emile Bamfield • Trinity, football/track Khedive McIntosh • Syracuse, soccer Matthew Hubler • Johns Hopkins, lacrosse Genevieve de Vicq de Cumpitch • University of Southern California, rowing

Jacqueline Paul • B abson, softball

Alexandra Olnowich • Syracuse, hockey

Amanda Cooleen • Princeton, rowing

Jordan Naidrich • Union, hockey

Nick Silber • Rice, baseball

Kathryn Leininger • Bowdoin, hockey

Josh Chery • A mherst, basketball

Sophie Ochs • Holy Cross, lacrosse

Joe Kalosky • E ndicott, football

Jordan Harris • New York University, basketball

Keith Braxton • S t. Francis, basketball

John Lazear • U.S. Merchant Marine Academy,

Christian Schade • P rinceton, lacrosse Aahana Chatterjee • N orthwestern, fencing

football

A

research paper by Cathy Wu ’17, titled “The Korean War Outbreak: How a Surprise Attack Changed U.S. Foreign Policy Against Communism in Asia,” was published by The Concord Review. Founded in 1987, the Review is the only national history journal that publishes the academic research papers by secondary school students. Only 5 percent of submissions are published. Wu authored the paper in spring 2015 for her “Forces that Shaped the Modern World” class, taught by History Master David Figueroa-Ortiz.

Wu’s paper discusses how the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 triggered a change in U.S. foreign policy. “Prior to the Korean War, the United States had been focusing its anti-communism efforts on mainly Europe,” she explained. “Subsequently, the Korean War led the U.S. to counter communism on a global scale. Thus, this war prompted the U.S. policy changes that helped raise the country to a global leader status.”

Many historians have hinted at this conclusion, Wu noted, but she has never seen anyone investigate it in depth. “Thus, even though I am simply a highschool student, I wanted to be the one to explore this idea profoundly,” she said. “Through this experience of researching, I learned the extent to which my Lawrenceville experience has empowered me to think for myself and ask the right questions.”

Summer

2016

9

A New Look for an After 130 years

and multiple uses, the historic brick edifice was rededicated as the Bath House Café in May.

S

ince its construction to accompany the Circle Houses in 1885, the modest brick structure dubbed “the Bath House” has seen life through a long series of incarnations ranging from an actual cold-water bathing facility, a smoking room for underformers (or a “fumorium,” as noted in the February 19, 1910, issue of The Lawrence), a music building, barber shop, art studio, radio station, laundromat, and headquarters of the Black Students Society, followed by the offices of outdoor programs and sustainability.

Now, the recent transformation of this adaptable space into the Bath House Café establishes the recognizable building, along with 10

t h e l aw r e n t i a n

its new glass atrium addition and ample patio, as one of the preferred gathering spots for students, as well as faculty and staff. The Bath House Café was formally dedicated on May 5, on the eve of Alumni Weekend, in a ceremony that recognized the vision and generosity of alumni who helped fund the project.

Thomas L. Carter Jr. ’70 P’01 ’05, president of the Board of Trustees, lauded the functionality of the new café, neutrally situated at the nexus of the Circle and the Crescent, as a “place where students from all houses and forms can gather for a bite to eat, for Open Mic Night, or for coffee and conversation.”

Carter also highlighted the digital upgrades, which give the

Bath House the functionality of an internet café, as well the glass conservatory, walled with windows topped with the flag representing each of Lawrenceville’s 18 houses.

Speaking on behalf of the project’s lead donors, Trustee Jeff Dishner ’83 P’15 said that as both an alumnus and as someone whose daughter benefited richly from her Lawrenceville experience, the renovated Bath House occupies a place in his heart.

“While its history holds memories of my own time on campus, its recent conversion to a student center – bridging the gap between old and new, Circle and Crescent, boys and girls – makes the Bath House Café a landmark contribution to the School in all that it

represents,” he said.

The renovation project was closely tied to the 25th anniversary of coeducation at Lawrenceville, a distinction noted by Trustee Alexandra Buckley Voris ’96.

“Lawrenceville’s campus is defined by beautiful architecture and landscape,” she said, “but the Bath House is its legacy of coeducation.”

In that spirit, Corrente Schankler ’98 hailed the generosity of those who helped fund the project, which she believes is already an integral part of School life.

“Being on campus is always a time to reflect on the past,” she said. “And this evening, I hope that you can all savor the present and enjoy this lovely new space.”

Old Friend

Sports Roundup

Boys’ golf Record: 2-9 Coach: Tim Doyle ’69 H’79 P’99 Captain: Zachary McCloskey ’16

SPRING Season STATS Boys’ Baseball Record: 7-12 Coach: Champ Atlee ’62 H’74 ’75 ’79 ’83 ’84 P’92 Captain: N icholas Silber ’16 Boys’ crew M.A.P.L. Champions Varsity Eight Record: 72-12 Varsity Four Record: 5-0 Coach: Benjamin Wright P’10 Captain: Edgar Staunton ’16 Girls’ crew Varsity Eight Record:

23rd /32 boats at Stotesbury Varsity Four Record:

32nd /70 boats at Stotesbury Coach: Bernadette Teeley Captains: Genevieve de Vicq de Cumptich ’16 Sarah Milby ’16

By Karla Guido

Girls’ Golf Record: 3-0-1 Coach: Gus Hedberg H’03 P’96 ’00 Captains: Logan Hammond ’16 Ciana Montero ’16 Charlotte Habib ’16

Boys’ Lacrosse N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 14-10 Coach: Allen Fitzpatrick ’73 H’85 H’89 P’99 P’04 Captain: Jonathan Coffey ’16 Zachary Lipkin ’16 Wade Maloney ’16 Girls’ Lacrosse M.A.P.L. Champions N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 19-3 Coach: Kris Schulte P’15 Captain: Sophie Ochs ’16

Girls’ softball Record: 8-10 Coach: John Schiel H’78 P’97 ’08 ’10 Captains: K aleigh Gillen ’16 Jacqueline Paul ’16 Boys’ Tennis MAPL Champions Record: 7-3 Coach: Nicholas Lewis Captain: L awrence Cummings ’16

Boys’ Outdoor Track M.A.P.L. Champions N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 3-0 Coach: Erik Chaput Captains: E mile Bamfield ’16 Michael Bauman ’16 Alejandro Roig ’16 girls’ Outdoor Track M.A.P.L. Champions N.J.I.S.A.A. Champions Record: 3-0 Coach: Katie Chaput Captain: V eronica Danko ’16 Samantha Kunkel ’16 Irene Ross ’16

sp r i n g

2013

13

For the most current athletic news visit www.lawrenceville.org/athletics

Go Big Red

This One’s In

the Books

By Lisa m. gillard hanson

Champ Atlee ’62 is retiring after forty seasons in the Big Red dugout.

I

f you are a baseball fan, particularly one from Lawrenceville, Champ Atlee ’62 H’74 ’75 ’79 ’83 ’84 ’06 P’92 is the guy you want to sit next to on a long plane ride. He’s far too polite to regale you with unrequested stories, but if there’s anything you want to know about Big Red baseball, Atlee is the man – and now he’s got more time to tell those tales.

After forty seasons as the head coach of the School’s varsity baseball program, Atlee retired from the dugout this past spring. He’ll continue as a much-respected English master but he’s handing the team’s reins over to Ron Kane ’83. A fellow member of the English Department who played for Atlee, Kane has served as his assistant coach.

“I think I’ve done as much as I could hope to do, and forty years really constitutes an adult life, so lucky me,” Atlee says. “I love baseball, and it really does mean something serious to me. I love its grace, its pace, the beauty of it … I hope my players have caught the affection I have for the game.”

Atlee’s accomplishments over four decades are, without question, a home run. During his time at Lawrenceville, he’s accumulated a long list of professional honors, the sort that come from coaching teams to 521 wins, 18 N.J. Independent School championships, three Mid-Atlantic Prep League titles, and twice winning the Mercer County Tournament.

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t h e l aw r e n t i a n

In addition, dozens of his players have continued their baseball careers at America’s most prestigious colleges and universities.

Three have played professionally, as did Atlee, who logged one season with the Minnesota Twins’ minor league affiliate, the Thomasville Hi-Toms.

The Lancaster, Pennsylvania, native arrived at Lawrenceville in 1959 with his center fielder’s glove, and earned a full-time spot on the varsity squad as a Fourth Former.

“It was tougher to break in as a center fielder at Lawrenceville than it had been at home,” Atlee says. “The center fielder when

“No game will make a fool out of you quicker than baseball. You either laugh at mistakes and forge ahead or you can be buried by them.”

— Champ Atlee’62

I got here, Chuck Miller [’61], wound up in the Lawrenceville Hall of Fame.”

Atlee led Big Red in runs batted in and had the second-highest batting average in his Fifth Form season, behind old friend Jock Hannum ’62 P’88 ’94. He also began a lifelong association with the two men he considers his coaching mentors, Jack Reydel H’60 ’62 ’65 ’68 and Chuck Weeden P’77 ’79 ’87 H’65 ’92.

Like his own coaches at Lawrenceville, Atlee has worked diligently on player development, giving boys as much – or as little – guidance as they needed. Paul Devlin ’79, for instance, came to Lawrenceville as a first/ third baseman before the team’s projected starting catcher broke his shoulder. Atlee thought the solidly built Devlin might work behind the plate, so he turned to Weeden, his assistant coach who had played the position at Princeton, to work with Devlin on the basics of catching.

“About 20 minutes later, Chuck comes back, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, no. We’ve got a hopeless cause.’ Instead, Chuck tells me, ‘I showed him everything I know, and he did it all perfectly.” So perfectly, in fact, that Devlin landed a baseball scholarship to the University of North Carolina, a contract with the Boston Red Sox’s Advanced Class A team, and a role in the 1988 feature film Bull Durham.

Nick Francona ’04, now assistant director of player development with the Los Angeles

Dodgers, is another student-athlete who benefitted from Atlee’s strategy. Francona’s father, Terry P’04, is a major league veteran who has also managed several clubs, including the Cleveland Indians since 2013, so the younger Francona grew up surrounded by top baseball minds.

“Nick could see things happening on the field that other players missed, so when he asked early in the season for a chance to push some boundaries, I’m not such a dunce that I didn’t say ‘yes,’” Atlee recalls.

His confidence was rewarded one Saturday afternoon against Elizabeth High School, when Francona stole home – or, more accurately, strolled home. Late in the game, with the attention of the opposing catcher wandering, Francona kept taking progressively longer leads from third base. After Lawrenceville’s batter took a pitch, and with Francona creeping closer to home, the catcher

nonchalantly tossed the ball back to his pitcher, allowing Francona to walk down the line, step on the plate, and calmly trot back to the dugout.

“We’re wondering, what happened? Did someone call time?” Atlee says. “It was beautiful, just beautiful – and it took a lot of guts.”

The self-admitted “Type A” coach credits his players with increasing his sense of humor.

“Baseball is a funny game,” says Atlee, echoing the words of the late major league catcher and broadcaster, Joe Garagiola. “Partly because of the amount of time you spend waiting for something to happen in baseball, people do really funny – not to say peculiar – things. If you aren’t laughing from the start, you’re going to learn to laugh. No game will make a fool out of you quicker than baseball.

You either laugh at mistakes and forge ahead, or you can be buried by them.”

For that reason, Atlee emphasizes to his

players that mistakes are OK. “The fear of mistakes can be disabling on the field – you have to be willing to accept that occasionally, you are going to look like a jackass,” he says. “That is a notion that does not come very readily to young men.”

Atlee has seen many significant changes to the game he loves. The crack of the wooden bat has been replaced by the ping of metal alloy. Players spend more time in the weight room, and even arrive at the diamond with personal pitching tutors. There’s now so much information available on players that colleges seldom contact Atlee during the recruiting process, other to check on a boy’s character.

What hasn’t changed is “the repeated gratification of coaching individual players and seeing their accomplishments,” Atlee says.

“When you have some understanding of what works for people, you just love to see them have success.”

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2016

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On the Arts

The Big Red Bandstand at the Stephan Archives For more than 200 years, Lawrenceville has swung, rocked (and rolled), and even sometimes sung the blues. Come see about all that jazz at The Big Red Bandstand!, a new exhibit in The Stephan Archives at the Bunn Library. The exhibit, open to the public and free of charge, opened May 6 and will run through April 2017. All are welcome to visit during regular Bunn Library hours.

Lawrenceville concerts by famous musicians and singers, including B.B. King, God Street Wine, Huey Lewis & The News, Blues Traveler, Les Brown & His Band of Renown with Doris Day, Angry Salad, Spin Doctors, and Jimmy Buffett made prom, School anniversaries, graduation, and building dedications memorable. The Big Red Bandstand! features a variety of objects, from concert T-shirts to newspaper clips, plus audio and video clips of the artists.

It’s a must-see for music fans.

Postal Painting Delivers 1ST Prize

S

tudent Cindy Jin ’17 earned first place in the colored-drawing category of the Congressional Art Competition in May. Each piece of art submitted to the competition is judged against the work of other students in their state’s congressional district. Jin’s award was for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.

Jin said she chose the theme of her artwork, the U.S. Postal Service, because of its impor-

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tance to the nation. The painting prominently featured a local postal worker from Princeton “who has been there for [...] ages,” she said.

Noting his familiarity to many local residents, Jin added that he would provide an interesting central focus for this piece.

In the background, behind the man, Jin depicted an array of postage stamps from different eras featuring the faces of national figures and icons, including Benjamin Frank-

lin, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Chief Hollow Horn Bear, who was anonymously captioned on the 14-cent stamp simply as “American Indian.”

Sponsored by the Congressional Institute, the Congressional Art Competition is a national annual competition that asks high school students to submit an original piece of two-dimensional art.

— Hadley Copeland ’18

Dressed for Success at SDC

A

s trade relations between the United States and Cuba continue to slowly thaw, the benefits can already been seen in the performing arts at Lawrenceville. This northern Caribbean influence was on joyful display during the 2016 Spring Dance Concert (SDC), themed Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal, in April in the Kirby Arts Center.

The show featured students performing 24 dances in many styles, including contemporary, hip-hop, jazz, classical ballet, salsa, and more. More than 100 Lawrentians participated in this year’s performance, whether on stage or off.

One of the evening’s many highlights was “Yo Vengo de Cuba!” choreographed by Derrick Wilder, the School’s chair of performing arts and director of dance, and performed by student dancers who traveled with Wilder to the island nation in March via Lawrenceville’s International Programs. There, students immersed themselves in Cuban culture, dancing their way through the capital city of Havana, among other destinations.

Most other SDC dance routines are choreographed by student artists.

— Sonia Shah ’18 contributed to this report

Summer

2016

17

Take This Job & Love It

and , Up Up,

Even when his hot-air balloon soars, Doug Robertson ’82 isn’t just floating through life

T

ell someone they’re full of hot air, and they just might take exception.

For Doug Robertson ’82, however, that’s when life is at its best. Being full of hot air helps him soar high above everyday life, which is just where he wants to be. And he wants you to experience it, too.

Robertson is the owner and chief pilot of eHotAir.com, which has been providing safe, fun hot-air balloon rides to customers in the Bowling Green, Kentucky, area for thirteen years. From the first time he experienced the graceful serenity of ballooning more than twenty years ago, Robertson was determined to share the feeling with as many people as possible.

“I knew nothing about it until 1994, when we had a balloon festival in town and I volunteered. That’s when I got my first ride in a balloon,” he says. “I remember flying with this rough, grizzly guy with a beard who had horrible breath. But I looked down as we were ascending, and I saw this mass of people. And my first thought was, Boy, I’ll bet a lot of those folks would love to be in the position I’m in right now.”

By the time he was back on terra firma, Robertson had made a decision.

“I said this is it. I’m going to buy a balloon. I’m going to have a ride business, and I’m going to give people this exact same feeling that I’m having right now,” he says.

The son of a recreational aviator, Robertson earned his private airplane pilot’s license during his days at Lawrenceville.

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interest, but the cost does help sort out Robertson’s clientele.

“The people who fly with me most are typically under the age of 25 or over 50. They have no kids, or their kids have moved out, so they have some disposable income and can afford it,” he says, noting the $200 price tag to fly. “If I could get on the AARP website, I’d be in good shape!”

Cultural memes like “bucket lists” have also helped stir business – and not just from empty-nesters. “I had a 17-year-old girl who told me it was on her bucket list! She’s 17!”

Robertson says, laughing. “But it’s kind of a buzzword now in ballooning – the ‘bucket list.’

People use it all the time when I get calls.”

Ballooning is a totally weather-dependent endeavor, says Robertson, who typically does thirty to fifty flights per year. Because

Photograph by Matt Andrews

“I had a couple great housemasters and people who took care of me, taking me to the [Trenton-Mercer] airport at 5 o’clock in the morning so I could get my flight lessons and get back in time for class,” he says.

The creation of eHotAir.com didn’t happen overnight. After earning the air-balloon endorsement to his pilot’s license, he purchased his first balloon in 2002 to give lessons, then another in 2004.

“As balloons get larger, they get more expensive and the insurance does, too” says Robertson, one of only about four-thousand hot-air balloon pilots in the United States.

“Now, I have a six-passenger balloon and a basket with a door in it, so I can take six people flying, plus myself, and that’s a pretty good ride business.”

The experience is one that draws consistent

the Kentucky climate does not offer the year-round hospitability of California or the Southwest, those flights are condensed within a six-month span.

“If I could make a living by just ballooning, I would,” says Robertson, who has also worked in medical sales for more than twenty-five years. “So it’s a great weekend business. It’s definitely my favorite business.”

Robertson originally planned to become an on-air meteorologist when he enrolled at Western Kentucky University, and the training he received continues to serve him well.

“The best decision you’ll ever make in ballooning is when not to fly, because weather can change everything in an instant,” he says.

“There have been times when it’s looked beautiful outside, but we’ll have to cancel.”

Indeed, eHotAir.com has never had an accident and boasts a perfect record of safety.

It’s not only the right thing to do, Robertson says, but it’s just good business.

“If they have a bad experience, they’re going to tell everyone they see,” he says.

A customer’s fear is an occasional hurdle, Robertson says, but he’s become used to easing new flyers through the experience. One recent client was literally rigid with fear.

“His wife had wanted to try to this for years, and the first time they tried, they couldn’t do it because he was just too scared,” Robertson says. “Then, I had to climb to three-thousand feet just to find some wind and get any movement. People generally get a little more nervous the higher you go and three-thousand feet is a bit of a mind-blower.”

Robertson managed to calm the man, whose anxiety slowly ebbed. “By the time we landed, he was so elated – almost ebullient – just jumping for joy that he did this. He was so happy for himself that he got over it.”

The occasional marriage proposal adds a wrinkle to the experience, though they rarely come as a surprise, Robertson says.

“I think anyone who pays $600 to do a marriage proposal in a hot-air balloon probably has some pretty good knowledge she’s going to say ‘yes,’ he admits, adding that he has never witnessed a suitor rejected. “That would make for the longest flight ever.”

That distinct lack of drama is exactly what Robertson and every other balloon pilot hopes for. “Perfect days, beautiful scenery, and no action,” he says. “That’s the kind of flight we like. If nothing happens on our flight, we did our job.”

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Q&A

TableTalk

What’s happening inside the classroom at Lawrenceville?

As a young student, Alison Easterling felt most connected to history when it was present. It’s not a contradiction of terms, but rather, a feeling of immersion in a past that still surrounded her. Set to begin her twelfth year teaching at Lawrenceville, Easterling – the chair of the History Department who also sits on the Lewis O. Brewster III Distinguished Teaching Chair – explained to The Lawrentian that for students to understand themselves and their world, they must have a handle on the past.

What was it that drew you to history?

Well, my mom is a history teacher, so I certainly grew up around certain people who were interested in history and who talked a lot about history, which was kind of a dinner-table topic. When I was about 6 years old, my dad had a sabbatical and we spent some time as a family in England, and I was also able to go to the Soviet Union on a school trip in 1985. Then I took a year off between high school and college and spent a year in France, so I think that some of that international travel got me interested. I was suddenly in places where history just felt a lot more present in a way.

You have master’s degrees in medieval history and history. How did these steer you toward teaching? Every time I took a course, I became really engrossed in that topic. For example, I started doing some work on French medieval history, and I was like, “God, I love this!” And then I did a course on some 17th-century European intellectual history, and I thought, “I love that, too!” So I started to think that maybe I don’t want to be so much of a specialist. And I don’t say “dilettante” in a negative way at all,

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but I was more of a dilettante than a specialist in my interests in history, so teaching at the high-school level allows for the opportunity to teach a broader range of topics.

You said your mother had been a history teacher. At what level? High school.

And my father was a high-school administrator and English teacher, so I come from a family of teachers. My sister is a professor of English at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, but we’re all teachers. When I was 18, I really didn’t envision myself being a high-school or a boarding-school teacher, but I’ve finished my eleventh year here at Lawrenceville, so it’s well beyond that now.

I love it.

Did your mother’s informed historical perspective ever affect the way you were raised? My mom’s father was born in 1895, and he started flying airplanes during the First World War. He went to France to learn how, and did test-piloting there during World War I; his pilot’s license is signed by Orville Wright. It’s amazing. He was in President Wilson’s delegation to Paris in 1919 for the Paris Peace Conference after World War

I and flew supply planes in the Berlin Airlift in 1947 and ’48. He was kind of like Forrest Gump, always in the picture with someone.

So these things come out little by little, but my mom’s family was deeply affected by some of the major historical events of the 20th century.

Your grandfather was like a living history lesson, then. Right, and because of her father’s Army service, my mom lived in Germany in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

She actually graduated from the American High School in Frankfurt. So she was witnessing Germany, post-World War II, and she had lots of stories about that. So I don’t know if it was a matter of parenting, but certainly, the relevance of the past and the value of understanding it was always communicated to me.

History is such a part of your family narrative; they were there.

It kind of brings it to life. So for me to understand myself, history has always seemed like a window to do that, to understand myself and my family, even if it’s a rather narrow slice of history. But as I’ve taught more and gotten older, my interests have broadened a great deal.

How does that lend itself to the School’s history curriculum?

When I first came to Lawrenceville, the core curriculum was two terms of European history and a full year of U.S. history, and there were electives. Now, we’ve really changed the curriculum so that our Third Form course has much more of a global focus.

these other factors that have to do with what’s going on in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, as well as some internal factors, of course.

We have a pretty diverse student body, so when we approach history from a more global point of view, is it fair to say that more of our students feel personally connected to it? I think so, and we’re trying to think about that in terms of our core course design and elective offerings, too. Like all teaching, there is always more work to be done in that area. But with our electives, we’re trying to offer a pretty wide range of choices for students once they complete our core curriculum.

Photograph by Michael Branscom

Do students come to understand that it’s not just history for its own sake?

That we can learn how to confront the future when we understand history?

The goal for any of our regional electives is to help students understand the world they live in today, in which all of those regions are important. We still want to turn out students who are responsible global citizens, so isn’t part of that understanding why the world is the way it is? When you understand why things are the way they are, it gives you some new perspectives on problem-solving.

How does the progression go here?

In the Second Form, students do a course we call Cultural Studies. It’s very skills-focused, but the content is primarily a very in-depth look at China – ancient China to present – and then they do the same thing with India.

In the spring term, the students look at some events like the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 and the Indian independence movement. And then in Third Form, they take a course we call Forces that Shaped the Modern World.

What is that all about? It really looks at the rise of the modern world, from about 1400 to the present. Of course, a big part of

that story is the rise of Europe to a position of political and economic dominance by the 19th century, but we’re trying to put that story in a much larger global context. And we ask different sorts of questions.

Can you give us an example? In the past, in a European history course, we might’ve asked, “Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in Britain?” And we would look only internally toward that question. Now, we might phrase that question, “Why didn’t the Industrial Revolution begin in China? And then, why did it begin in Britain?” But to answer that question, we might consider all

Not so long ago, most high-school history was presented in a very Eurocentric way. Do you think that caused American students to look at our history through a less critical lens?

I think it probably led to a narrow understanding of the past, and even to some half-truths and missed information. The author Robert Marks compares it to a drunk looking on the ground for the car keys he’s dropped, but only under the street light. The keys could be anywhere, but you’re only looking in that one spot…

It’s the only part that’s illuminated.

I think that’s really powerful, and something that we’re trying to say: Yes, you have to broaden your perspective and include different things to really understand. It’s a great metaphor. There is always going to be darkness when you’re doing historical inquiry, because you can’t know everything.

We aren’t capable of looking at every single thing, but we have to do our best to enlarge the spotlight.

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2016

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Ask the Archivist

For nearly two-hundred years, Lawrenceville and Cuba have

Sometimes It’s Not Just a Cigar helped shape each other’s

history. By Jacqueline Haun

W

hen Performing Arts Chair and Director of Dance Derrick Wilder led a group of students and faculty to Havana to study Caribbean dance during the 2016 spring break, it was the first time The Lawrenceville School had sponsored an international trip to the newly “reopened” Communist nation of Cuba. However, the School’s connections to the island reach back to the earliest days of School history and periodically thereafter through the lives of alumni and faculty.

Among the very earliest of Lawrenceville’s international students were several young men from Cuba, although next to nothing is decisively known of them beyond their names. The first, Joseph Ferrer, appears to have arrived in Philadelphia by ship from St. Jago (today’s Santiago) in 1824 to study at Lawrenceville, and while he is known to have left the school before 1826, nothing is known of his subsequent fate. Less than five years later, Richard, Joseph, and William Bell – perhaps a group of brothers or cousins – also came to Lawrenceville, though again, little else about their lives is known with any certainty. One strong possibility is that they were relatives of wealthy sugar and coffee plantation owner Richard Maxwell Bell, who was rumored to have married the daughter of his Cuban business partner and to have participated in the slave trade from the Congo, eventually becoming one of the richest men in Cuba.

A less murky but still painful connection

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▲ The scenic and historic Michie Stadium at West Point is named for the Class of 1888’s Dennis Michie, who was lost in the 1898 Battle of El Caney, Cuba.

with Cuba came about during the Spanish-American War, which had its roots in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain that began in 1895. The American press, particularly those newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, portrayed Spain’s attempts to quell rebellion in its colony as brutal and repressive, and urged American military intervention to ensure the freedom of the Cuban people from their colonial oppressors. Public outcry for American intervention reached a peak after the unexplained sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in February 1898. By April, war was declared between Spain and the United States.

The conflict was extremely one-sided, with the United States handily defeating Spanish fleets in the Philippines that May and in Cuba in July. The war officially ended with the December 1898 Treaty of Paris, in which Spain renounced all claim to Cuba and ceded control of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States.

The four Lawrentians who died as a result of the conflict are honored with a flag that still hangs in Edith Memorial Chapel. Of the four, the only one to die on Cuban soil was the Class of 1888’s Dennis Mahan Michie, an 1892 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and second lieutenant in the

U.S. Army Infantry who was killed in the Battle of El Caney in July 1898. Michie is perhaps best known for introducing football and the Army-Navy game at West Point, where the institution’s Michie Stadium bears his name.

Following the end of the Spanish-American War, Gen. Hugh Lenox Scott, Lawrenceville Class of 1869, was intimately involved in the transition of political control of Cuba from Spain to the United States. After graduating from West Point in 1876, Scott was commissioned to the U.S. Cavalry and for the next twenty years served on the Western frontier of the United States, becoming an expert in Plains Indian languages and culture as he rose up the military ranks. Only a few months after he was appointed to the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, the Spanish-American war erupted and Scott was redirected to Cuba.

Although he saw no combat during the war, Scott was installed as the adjutant general of the Department of Cuba in May 1900.

In the two years he held the post, Scott served as acting governor of the island and took an active part in the transfer of power from the Americans to the Cuban people. In later years, Scott served in a variety of high-ranking capacities, including chief of staff of the Army, the highest rank attainable in the service, and even briefly as the ad-interim secretary of war. Throughout his active life of service, Scott remained closely involved with

▲ A curious throng of Lawrentians and media surrounded the car carrying then-Cuban prime Minister Fidel Castro, who spoke at Edith Memorial Chapel during a controversial visit to the United States in April 1959.

▲ Gen. Hugh Lenox Scott (left), Lawrenceville Class of 1869, and Dennis Michie, Class of 1888, both played pivotal roles in the Spanish-American War. Michie gave his life in the Battle of El Caney, and Scott served in several leadership roles in the newly independent Cuba.

Lawrenceville as an in-demand speaker and writer for alumni events and publications.

Perhaps the best-known – and most controversial – Lawrenceville connection with Cuba is the speech given by Fidel Castro in Edith Memorial Chapel in April 1959, only four months after Castro’s revolutionary forces overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Invited by the American Society of Newspa-

per Editors, Castro was at the time making an 11-day tour of the United States, including stops in New York City and Washington, D.C. Following an evening speech at Princeton University, Castro arrived the next morning on Lawrenceville’s campus to speak to the student body, escorted by N.J. state troopers and his own bodyguards.

The Lawrenceville visit had been arranged by Dr. Roland T. Ely, who was an adjunct teacher of Latin American history at Lawrenceville and an instructor at Rutgers University. Ely met Castro while studying in Cuba and became a close friend. Following his speech in halting English, in which he spoke of the power of the young to drive change in society, Castro is reported to have ground out his cigar on either the podium or the floor, prompting a mad scramble among the students to seize it as a souvenir.

Although it has been many decades since the last student came directly from Cuba, there are still many alumni of Cuban descent in the School community, and as the relationship between the United States and Cuba shifts once again, it will be interesting to see what roles modern Lawrentians will play in Cuba’s future or what role today’s Cuba will play in the School’s.

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a tradition that true by sean Ramsden

The 2016 Summer Games in Brazil call to mind Lawrenceville's own Olympic athletes. ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ When the Olympic Flame was lit in Rio de Janeiro to officially open the Games of the XXXI Olympiad on August 5, the spectacular scene bore little resemblance to the scaled-down athletic competition that marked the revival of the “modern” Olympics in 1896. That year, athletes from just fourteen countries made their way to Athens for the nine-day event, and it would be another thirty-two years before the symbolic Olympic Flame was kindled at the 1928 Summer Games in Amsterdam.

So when hammer-thrower John R. DeWitt, Lawrenceville Class of 1900, arrived at the 1904 Olympics, little of today’s modern spectacle was present. In fact, the games that year marked the first for which gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded.

One of those medals left St. Louis around the neck of the burly DeWitt, marking the seminal moment in what would become a tradition of outstanding Olympic performances by alumni of The Lawrenceville School.

▶ Well before returning to The Lawrenceville School as its business manager, George “Biss” Moore ’37 P’69 ’71 (center) earned a silver medal in the 1948 Olympic pentathlon.

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John Riegel DeWitt Class of 1900

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s the reigning collegiate champion in the 16-pound hammer-throw for Princeton University, John R. DeWitt entered the 1904 Summer Games as a favorite to capture the gold medal.

Ralph Rose of the Chicago Athletic Association presented his stiffest challenge, while John Flanagan of the Greater New York Irish Athletic Club lurked as a likely bronze medalist. According to author Charles J.P. Lucas in his recap of the 1904 games, DeWitt “was known to be in excellent physical condition and capable of beating his own record [and] … had thrown the hammer very well in practice at the stadium” just days before the event.

“Probably no weight event ever saw better men eligible to compete for an Olympic honor than this group of athletes,” Lucas continued, and it was proven when Flanagan’s first throw sailed 168 feet and 1 inch (51.23 meters), setting an Olympic record. The unexpected new standard was beyond the reach of DeWitt, though his throw of 164-11 (50.26 meters) still bested Rose’s by nearly 15 feet. Though he performed to his top capabilities, DeWitt settled for silver in St. Louis.

▲ Among the many titles John R. DeWitt ’00 (seated, far left) held at Lawrenceville was vice president of the Upper House directors in 1900. Though he earned a silver medal in the 1904 Olympic hammer throw, DeWitt’s greatest claim to athletic fame was as one of the nation’s early bona fide college football stars for his exploits at Princeton.

DeWitt’s success as a collegiate star in the

ebratory signs read “DeWitt 11, Yale 6” as un-

weight events was not surprising. He graduat-

dergraduates rang the bell in Nassau Hall until

ed from Lawrenceville as

1 a.m. The historical college football website tiptop25.com claims that if the Heisman Tro-

the School’s record hold-

phy had been awarded to college football’s

er in the 12-pound shot put (48-8, a mark that stood for thirty-nine years), discus (111 feet, which stood for more than twenty years), and the 12-pound hammer (188-4). Both literally and figuratively, DeWitt was something of a big man on campus.

Modestly listed in the 1900 Olla Podrida at 6 feet and 195 pounds, the barrel-chested native of Riegelsville, Pennsylvania, captained both the football and track teams, was vice president of the Fourth Form, Upper House, and the School, and was a director of Upper House. His talents earned him induction into Lawrenceville’s Alumni Hall of Fame in 1996.

Despite his silver Olympic medal, DeWitt was far more renowned for his exploits on the gridiron as one of college football’s early bona fide stars. His legend was cemented during the 1903 Princeton-Yale game in New Haven, in which the teams entered with identical 10-0 records. With Yale attempting to lengthen its 6-0 lead on a 25-yard field goal, DeWitt blocked the kick, scooped it up and sprinted 75 yards for a touchdown before tying the game with his subsequent point-after. Later, DeWitt kicked a 42-yard field goal (worth five points under the scoring rules of the era) on Princeton’s final possession of the game, giving the Tigers an 11-6 win and the de facto national championship. Back on campus, cel-

premier player during that time, DeWitt would likely have been the recipient in 1903.

Sadly, DeWitt, who was beset by heart ailments, would not live to see his 1954 enshrinement in the College Football Hall of Fame. On his way from Connecticut to visit a New York cardiac specialist, he suffered a fatal heart attack in the club car as his train pulled into Grand Central Terminal on July 28, 1930. The president of the National Bag Corporation was just 48 years old. However, his legacy is still felt at Princeton, where in 1969, bequests from DeWitt and his wife helped establish the Elise Casey DeWitt and John Riegel DeWitt Scholarship for undergraduate and graduate aid.

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★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

James alcorn rector Class of 1906

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imilar to DeWitt, James Rector entered the 1908 London Olympics poised to win his event in the eyes of many. Touted as “America’s Greatest Amateur Sprinter,” Rector had the record to back the claim. The Hot Springs, Arkansas, native was a fine three-sport athlete who also excelled in the classroom as the valedictorian of the Class of 1906. But Rector’s greatest reputation was earned on the track, where he particularly excelled in the 220and 100-yard dashes. According to The Lawrenceville Alumni Bulletin of October 1, 1914, Rector only lost two races in his life: once to Kingsley Swan, Class of 1908, who ran the 100 in 10 2/5 seconds (times were measured to the closest 1/5 of a second), and again in his very last competition in the Olympic games.

Rector, who left Lawrenceville in possession of two school records – 10 seconds in the 100, and 22 seconds in the 220 – was elected captain of the track squad at the University of Virginia, and soon began to rewrite the Cavaliers’ record books, as well. The freshman set new school marks in the 100 and 220 in his very first meet in 1907, and by the next year, after abandoning the 220 to concentrate on the 100, he ran a record 9 3/5 against Johns Hopkins.

In June 1908, in Philadelphia, the speedy Rector qualified for the London games by ty-

▲ A perfect start by South Africa’s Reggie Walker (far right) allowed him to edge James Rector ’06 (second from right) in the 100-meter finals in 1908.

ing an Olympic record of 10 4/5 seconds in the 100 meters. (The standard length for international and Olympic competition; yards were still used the United States.) Later that month, he sailed for England as the favorite in the 100 meters. As reported by the Bulletin, Rector had only been there for a matter of hours when he was approached by a man from South Africa, who said he was training a runner who would compete against him.

“He told me that the youngster under his charge knew little about the game, but had the native ability to become a great runner,” Rector told the Bulletin. “He complained that his starting was bad and asked me to lend a helping hand. I agreed.”

Rector’s noble sense of sportsmanship would be his undoing. The South African trainer introduced him to Reggie Walker, who watched Rector closely, mimicking his starting method. Rector did not see Walker again until the next day during warmups for their race. When he did, he noticed that Walker had

mastered his starting technique.

In semifinal heats that day, both Rector and Walker equaled the existing Olympic record of 10.8 seconds (adjusted for modern timekeeping), but in the final, Walker again ran a 10.8, crossing the finish line a half yard ahead of Rector, who was credited with a 10.9.

“When the race was on, he got away from the mark ahead of me,” Rector continued. “It was the first time I hadn’t shaded my competitors from the start. We ran neck-andneck and he beat me by inches.”

It would be the last time Rector ever donned racing spikes in a formal competition. Retiring to concentrate on his studies, Rector earned a degree in law in 1909. He joined the firm of Taliaferro, Rector and Taliaferro in St. Louis, where he practiced for more than thirty years before returning to Hot Springs. After retiring in 1943, Rector devoted himself to oversight of the Rector Family Trust until his death in 1950.

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George Bissland Moore Class of 1937, P’69 ’71

A

fter Rector’s flirtation with gold in London, it would be forty years before Lawrenceville was once again represented in the Summer Olympics.

George Bissland “Biss” Moore ended the four-decade drought with a silver-medal performance in 1948.

After the Summer Games were halted by World War II in 1940 and ’44, London was chosen to host the games on short notice. The 1948 games were the first to be shown on television, though most homes did not yet own this new technology. The modern pentathlon, in which Moore competed, was introduced to the Olympics in 1912. In it, athletes earn points for their performances across a range of events that includes fencing with epée, swimming a 300-meter freestyle race (this distance was shortened to 200 meters in 2000), show-jumping on a horse previously unknown to the rider, a shooting discipline with a 4.5 mm air pistol, and (in Moore’s day) a 4-kilometer cross-country race.

The event places a premium on a broad range of athletic skills, but Moore, who was a successful track-and-field athlete at the United States Military Academy at West Point following his graduation from Lawrenceville, was up for the challenge. He was at the top of his game despite being injured in World War II, for which he earned a Purple Heart, two Bronze Star Medals, and the Legion of Merit serving in the First Armored Division. Moore had little time to train, as the U.S. Olympic Committee looked to the military for physically fit competitors after the war. In fact, Moore had to borrow a horse from a nearby veterinarian in order to train for the show-jumping segment of the event.

Despite a thermometer hovering in the 90s throughout the London games, Moore competed hard for the gold before succumbing to William Grut of Sweden.

Moore’s versatile athleticism was no surprise to those who recalled his talents at Lawrenceville. The 1937 Olla Podrida imagined a recipe for the ideal, all-around student-athlete represented by Moore: “Take the School’s leading scholar. Add to this the brainy, de-

▲ A silver-medal performance by Biss Moore ’37 (left) in the modern pentathlon in 1948 ended a forty-year hiatus for Lawrenceville Olympians.

pendable halfback of the varsity football team.

Dash an ace boxer and a track letterman into this mixture.

Then flavor the whole with a winning personality and a fine character. After mixing evenly, you have 140 pounds of grey [sic] matter and muscle, Biss Moore.”

After the Olympics, Moore returned to West Point to teach English, part of a long Army career that saw him achieve the rank of colonel. Afterward, he moved on to business, working in operations research with Philco-Ford until 1967, when he returned to

Lawrenceville as assistant treasurer. He was named business manager two years later. Moore’s association with the U.S. Olympic Modern Day Pentathlon team continued, too, when he was named its coach for the 1972 Summer Games in Munich.

Not long before Moore’s death in 2014, his daughter, Kimberly Moore Pressler, and his longtime friend and fellow West Point alum David Schorr P’80 ’82 ’88 H’02 agreed that Biss Moore’s Olympic medal should be willed to Lawrenceville. Today, his silver medal and collection of Olympic photographs and memorabilia are on display in the office of the Lavino Field House.

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John Edwin Brown Wofford Class of 1949

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longside John E.B. “Jeb” Wofford’s senior portrait in the 1949 Olla Podrida is printed a quote from Shakespeare’s Richard III that foretold his Olympic future: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

Unlike the ill-fated monarch, Wofford wasn’t about to meet his doom. On the contrary, he was just getting started.

Just three years later, the 20-year-old would be riding his father’s horse, Benny Grimes, to a bronze medal in the team eventing competition at the 1952 Summer Games in Helsinki.

Wofford, who was born in Washington, D.C., and lived in Kansas during his time at Lawrenceville, hailed from a prominent equestrian family. His father, John W. Wofford, competed in the show-jumping events in the 1932 Los Angeles Games before focusing on Rimrock Farm, the family’s horse farm in Milford, Kansas. Younger brother Jimmy Wofford won silver medals in 1968 and 1972 in Mexico City and Munich, and Jeb Wofford’s sister-in-law competed in show-jumping in Rome in 1960.

Formerly known as “combined training,” eventing involves a single horse-and-rider pairing that competes against other rider-horse combinations in events that span the three equestrian disciplines of dressage, cross country, and show jumping. If eventing can be compared to an equine version of the pentathlon, then team eventing adds an element of the relay, as competitors rely on the performance of their teammate to succeed. The eventing competition was considered to be more difficult

▲ Coming from a prominent equestrian family, Jeb Wofford ’49 was part of the trio that earned bronze in team eventing in 1952.

in 1952 than it had been in 1948, and Wofford, along with teammates Charles Hough Jr. and Walter Staley Jr. were outpointed by Sweden and Germany.

Wofford never again competed in the Olympics, but he remained active in eventing. According to Class Notes in the fall 1957 issue of The Lawrentian, Sports Illustrated reported that Wofford was competing in the Wofford Cup Three-Day Event, which it called “the decathlon of the equestrian world,” in Colorado Springs. Named for John W. Wofford, the cup had been won by Jeb Wofford himself or by another of the Wofford horses in every year but one.

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Michael Schoettle Class of 1954

M

ike Schoettle stands alone among his fellow Lawrenceville

Olympians as the only one who had yet to graduate from the School when he competed. In fact, the 15-year-old still had two more years of school after winning the gold in men’s sailing in the 5.5 meter class aboard the Complex II in the 1952 Helsinki Games. Contrary to what you might expect, however, Schoettle undertook his Olympic experience with hardly any fanfare.

“I’m just not that way. I didn’t show off or talk about it. I just left and came back, so I didn’t feel like a celebrity,” he recalls. “They had an article about it in the school paper, but no one else said much about it, and I didn’t either.”

In fact, according to The Lawrence of September 24, 1952, Sandy Gideonse ’52 was the Lawrentian most expected to compete that summer, but he did not qualify for the Olympic team. The story noted that “[n]obody noticed at the year’s end that Mike Schoettle was preparing his passport to Helsinki.”

Schoettle was raised on Philadelphia’s Main Line, but spent his summers on the waters of the Jersey Shore in Mantoloking and Bay Head, where he crewed for Dr. Britton Chance of the University of Pennsylvania.

“I sailed with him for three years, when I was 12, 13, and 14, and then he decided to sail in the Olympics. So we applied and were accepted. There was no Olympic trials, so we just went,” Schoettle says. Just like that, Chance, along with Sumner and Edgar White – twin brothers who had just graduated from Harvard – and Schoettle took off for Sweden in early June.

“I was 15, and sailed almost every day for nearly two months. We sailed our boat from Stockholm to Helsinki,” he says.

“The Olympics required someone to become the alternate, so that was me. There were seven races, and I raced in one race, the next-to-last race, and we won. We also won the last race, so we got a gold medal.”

Schoettle adds that although the records indicate that he earned a gold medal, he never actually received one. “In later Olympics, they gave medals to the alternates who competed, but back then, they didn’t.

But I nevertheless crewed on the gold medal-winning 5.5 meter. It was really a great experience for a young man.”

If there was one hitch in his Olympic encounter, Schoettle says it’s that he missed the Olympic parade. “My father didn’t want to spend the money to buy me the uniform, so I didn’t march in it,” recalls Schoettle, who was an alternate on the 1972 team with his brother, Ferdinand.

Schoettle maintained his relationship with the U.S. Olympic Committee, and by the end of the 1980s he had held a number of leadership positions within sailing, including team leader of the U.S. Olympic yachting team in 1992.

◀ Mike Schoettle ’54 (second from left) was an alternate on the Complex II (center boat at left photo).

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Harold Boyce Budd Class of 1957

E

ven as Boyce Budd was rowing toward gold in the men’s eight with coxswain during the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, his path to the finish line was anything but a straight line.

“I remember seeing an issue of Sports Illustrated that featured the 1956 Yale varsity team, which had just won the gold medal in Australia, and I had just been accepted at Yale,” Budd recalls. “And that picture just stuck in my mind. I thought, ‘God, what a bunch of studs.

I wonder what that sport is like?’”

Budd made the Yale varsity as a sophomore, but to his bitter disappointment, found himself relegated to the junior varsity as a junior and senior. With crew seemingly behind him, Budd spent a postgraduate year at Cambridge.

“One day, I walked down by my Trinity College boathouse, and there, sitting at the dock, was a four with coxswain. It had a coach and a crew, but nobody in the number four seat,” he says. “The coach asked, ‘Have you ever rowed before?’ I was about to give my apologia, and say, yeah, I rowed at Yale, but I was only on the JV, but he said, ‘Go inside and get some kit; then come out and get in this boat!”

Before long, Budd made the Blue Boat, the university’s top shell, which races Oxford in the Henley Boat Races. There, he was a member of their winning eight and shared the pairs title in 1962. He decided then that he would dedicate himself to earning a spot on the 1964

Olympic team. Budd and a partner from the Yale team joined the Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia, where club leader Jack Kelly was determined to assemble a club eight to compete for a spot in the Olympics.

“He talked a bunch of us, all of whom were there to train and race in small boats, into throwing our lot into the eight-oar trials,” he says.

It worked. Like his teammates, Budd could sense the instant chemistry in the boat. Even after just three days rowing eights, he knew it was special.

“I kept saying to myself, I can’t believe how this thing is going. I just felt it,” Budd says.

“The coaches refused to tell us what our time was. Later on they told us that they couldn’t believe what they were looking at.”

The team qualified for the 1964 Olympics, held that October in Tokyo. Budd’s squad lost in the first heat to Germany by .27 seconds.

“I remember being distinctly angry and happy,” he recalls, noting the crew still had a possible path to the finals. “Angry, because I thought we had a little bit more of a sprint in

▲ Boyce Budd ’57 found his stroke at Philadelphia’s Vesper Boat Club. Below: Budd (third rower from left) with the 1964 men’s eight champions.

us, and we only lost by about a yard. But then I thought, Well wait a minute: We had a little bit left in us, and we just about beat the fastest boat in the world.”

The finals were delayed for hours by the weather, but with adrenaline coursing through his veins, Budd and his team got off to what he recalls as “the most perfect start that we had ever experienced.”

“It was so dark, that the Japanese army was setting off flares to create some artificial light as we got toward the finish line,” Budd says. “I saw these flashes of light I didn’t understand, and then finally, our little Hungarian coxswain screamed in his accent, ‘You are vinning! You are vinning! You are the vorld champion!’”

Budd’s team of eight crossed the finish line in 6 minutes, 18.23 second, five full seconds before the Unified German team. The spark of imagination kindled by a magazine photo had become his reality.

“There is so much serendipity in this,” Budd concedes. “What if I hadn’t shown up on that dock in Cambridge that afternoon?

So many things have to go just right for it to turn out that way.”

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Philip Riker III Class of 1964, P’90

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he ink on Philip Riker III’s Lawrenceville diploma was barely dry when he competed in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo in the 200-meter butterfly. Swimming on a deep U.S. team, the 18-year-old Riker finished fourth, behind Australia’s Kevin Berry, and American teammates Carl Robie and Frederick Weber Schmidt, with a time of 2:11.0.

After finishing third in the Olympic trials with a time of 2:09.5, just fractions behind Schmidt and Robie, Riker was considered a good candidate to medal in Tokyo, even as one of the youngest male competitors. After setting high-school records as a student in Paterson, New Jersey, Riker arrived at Lawrenceville in 1962 and immediately began rewriting the record books. In 1963, he broke the national prep-school record in the 100-yard butterfly, according to the September 25, 1964, issue of The Lawrence, which previewed Riker’s upcoming performance that October in the Summer Games.

The Games were not held until October of that year, so Riker left Lawrenceville without any assurance that he would be among the athletes traveling to Tokyo. Still, he had hope.

“The trials were later that summer, so I still had to compete and qualify,” Riker recalls.

“And right out of Lawrenceville, I was still very young to be competing against a lot of

older guys who were graduating from college.

That’s a big step. But that’s always every kid’s dream, right? You want to go to the Games.”

It was a sports-oriented friend from Lawrenceville who played a hand in encouraging Riker to realize he had the talent for the big stage.

“Bob Ryan [’64], who we called ‘Scribe’ – he was the sports editor for The Lawrence – came up to me and said, ‘Phil, you’re going to try for the Olympics, right?’ I said, ‘yeah, sure, I’ll try,’” Riker recalls of his classmate, now the acclaimed sports journalist for The Boston Globe and ESPN. “But he followed sports very closely, and it was him who gave me that first inkling that I could actually do it. From then on, I stayed positive about it.”

After returning from Tokyo, Riker enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he captured the 1966 NCAA championship in the 100-meter butterfly, clocking in at 51.19 seconds. He won Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) championships in the 100- and 200-yard butterfly for three straight years and was a member of the ACC record-breaking 400-yard medley relay team. For his exploits, Riker earned first-team All-America recognition six times. Today, he is a member of the North Carolina Swimming Hall of Fame, which honors the state’s all-time greatest competitors.

▲ The 18-year-old Riker narrowly missed a medal in the 200-meter butterfly, finishing just behind two older teammates and a world-record holder.

Riker also continued competing for the U.S. swim team after his Olympic moment, earning the opportunity to transcend athletics at the 1966 World Collegiate Games in Budapest.

“We were actually the first Americans to go behind the Iron Curtain,” he explains. “They are still going on, but now it’s just another event that everyone goes to. Back then, it was all very different. They thought it was all a big Communist plot [to get us to compete there], and a lot of people didn’t really want us to go.

We all had our interpreters, who were really just our Communist handlers, but they were just regular guys. It really wasn’t what it was built up to be. It was great fun, and it was great competition.”

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Planned Giving

is for Young Alumni/ae, too!

Victoria Von Hessert ’91 came to Lawrenceville as a second former in the fall of 1987 – the first year of coeducation. It was a love affair from day one. “Lawrenceville was the best four years of my life,” she says. That’s why she has supported the Annual Fund consistently, including when she was a graduating fifth former in 1991, and every year since graduating from Middlebury College.

But she also recently completed an estate plan in which a percentage of her estate comes directly to Lawrenceville, even if she’s survived by her husband and children. Victoria knows how important planning is – she experienced the tragic loss of a dear Lawrenceville classmate, and her gift is in memory of him.

“Lawrenceville is such a special place. I want it to be available to the most deserving students regardless of their families’ financial circumstances. So my bequest is designated for financial aid.”

For more information on leaving a bequest to Lawrenceville or for other planned giving opportunities, or if you’ve included Lawrenceville

in your will but not yet informed the School, contact Jerry Muntz at the Lawrenceville Office of Planned Giving at 609-620-6064 or Summer 2016 jmuntz@lawrenceville.org, or go to www.lawrenceville.org/plannedgiving.

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g n i d n i F

renceville s to her Law n r tu e h s , d all.’ oo e ‘having it es of adulth in ic ef o h d c p e el h th n dow forebears to rmer stares As a Fifth Fo

by Christina

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? ould y h a s d I r to ay – a d e h t w ill I s bir ’ w t n t y au Wha m s ’ It I have a Spanish quiz tomorrow and I am way behind … and I

I

, like most other Lawrentians, spent the initial part of my high school career focusing on the urgent, day-to-day concerns of my academic demands and my social life.

Near the tail end of my Second Form year, however, I happened to read Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” in the July/August 2012 edition of The Atlantic. In it, Slaughter argues that factors such as rigid work and school schedules, a woman’s instinctive desire to provide for her children, and a culture that rewards work done in an office setting prevent a woman from simultaneously achieving a leadership role in her career and enjoying a balanced, happy family life. Slaughter revisited the phenomenon of “having it all,” a term coined by Helen Gurley Brown in her book, Having it All: Love; Success; Sex; Money, which questioned a woman’s ability to balance her place in the workforce with her role in the family. Slaughter’s controversial article introduced me to this long-running debate, prompting me to consider, for the first time in my life, what I want in my future – that is, once I no longer have to worry about SAT vocabulary words. Was Slaughter right about the impossibility of having a fulfilling career and a satisfying family life?

Luckily, I read the article right before the commemoration of Lawrenceville’s twenty-fifth year of coeducation. At one of the all-school events, I realized that women who had attended Lawrenceville before me might have some worthwhile thoughts about “having it all.” Perhaps speaking with female graduates of Lawrenceville and learning what career and family-related decisions they had made could help me plan for my own future.

To find potential interviewees, I first contacted members of Lawrenceville’s Coeducation Committee. Nearly every woman with whom I spoke then recommended names of other women with whom they thought I should talk. Ultimately, between October 2013 and August 2014, I interviewed more than two dozen women, all of whom graduated from Lawrenceville between 1988 and 2001, and live in locations ranging from Princeton to Houston to Northern California. Some interviews were conducted in person and some via Skype; most conversations lasted approximately 45 minutes, though some lasted up to two hours.

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Of the women with whom I spoke, 92 percent are married, 96 percent have children, and 4 percent are divorced. Currently, 60 percent are working full time, 4 percent are working part time, and 36 percent are not working.

While I was reflecting on the stories shared by these alumnae, it dawned on me that Slaughter’s thesis might be too narrow. She seemed to assume that all women define “having it all” as possessing a successful and high-profile leadership role in a chosen professional field, while simultaneously enjoying a fruitful relationship with her family. From my conversations, however, I learned that women define “having it all” much more broadly.

Many of the women with whom I spoke told me that they believe it is possible to “have it all,” but that definitions of “all” differ depending on what each woman wants from her life. Ultimately, the probability of achieving “all” seemingly increases when some or all of the following conditions are met: ▶ F inding

someone who will support your efforts to pursue your interests.

▶ B eing

flexible in your time horizons.

▶ F iguring

out who you are and what you really care about, then pursuing it.

“I have a lot to do, but I don’t spend too much time worrying about it!” Celeste Mellet Brown '94 said.

“I am 100 percent focused on my kids and family when I’m at home and 100 percent focused on my job when I am at work. In fact, since I had children, I have been more efficient and better at my job, because my life has better balance.”

need to study for SATs.

Over half of the women mentioned the impact a supportive partner had on their ability to balance a meaningful career and an enjoyable family life. Joanna Weinstein Partridge ’91, M.D., for example, explained that she might not have been able to complete her residency and pursue a career in surgery had her husband not become a stay-at-home dad for four years.

“I don’t think my career would have been possible if he hadn’t been so supportive,” she said.

Additionally, a number of women shared that it is possible to “have it all,” but not all at the same time.

“It’s just too much to do at once,” said Lisa Burnett Garnett ’98.

Yet, the third and most repeated point among the interviewees resonated particularly: a woman who enjoys what she does is more likely to configure a life where she can “have it all.” As Meghan Hall Donaldson ’90 commented, “If you do what you love, you’re going to be happy no matter what.”

The Critical Importance of Enjoying What You are Doing Of the fifteen working mothers with whom I spoke, fourteen were passionate about their careers. Jennifer Rose Savino ’88, now the director of external relations at Phillips Andover Academy and who was serving as the director of alumni engagement when we spoke, explained that after having two boys, she stayed in the workforce because, “I had a job I loved and decided to try doing both.” In finding a job where she helped keep graduates engaged with the school and their classmates, she pursued her passion of forging and fostering connections.

Another mother, Corrente Schankler ’98, left the corporate world to follow her passion for creativity through floral design by opening a flower shop in Manhattan.

“Although my work can be exhausting, it is key to my happiness,” Schankler said, adding that in trying to balance a career and family, “It is important to feel fulfilled. I need the creative outlet that comes with my work and it makes me a better parent.”

Rebekka Levy ’01, a financial adviser at Deutsche Bank and

mother of a young child, similarly described time spent at work as a privilege because, “I’m doing things that make me feel like a whole person, and therefore I can be more present with my son.”

Each of these women loves her family dearly, but pursuing a career allows each to engage in a job she loves, as well. To them, the benefits outweigh the many difficulties. In fact, Celeste Mellet Brown ’94, a global treasurer with Morgan Stanley Co., and a Lawrenceville trustee, as well as the mother of three boys, agrees.

“I have a lot to do, but I don’t spend too much time worrying about it!” she said. “I am 100 percent focused on my kids and family when I’m at home and 100 percent focused on my job when I am at work. In fact, since I had children, I have been more efficient and better at my job, because my life has better balance.”

Raising children is extremely difficult, particularly while working. The women most likely to maintain their careers, even during the most exhausting and challenging phases of child rearing, are those fulfilled by what they do for a living. As Manoush Zomorodi ’91 explained, “In order to be away from my kids I want to do something that really counts, that has true meaning to me, because otherwise it’s not really worth it.”

Many Nonworking Mothers Feel They, Too, ‘Have it All’ Working mothers are not the only women who are pursuing their passions. Many of the stay-at-home mothers I interviewed find profound personal fulfillment in being at home with their chil-

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dren. Shannon Halleran McIntosh ’93, ardent about athletics and teaching, left her job as a teacher to raise her children. She has found that she still cultivates her love of sports and education by offering her children both academic enrichment and athletic training.

“I don’t get paid or acknowledged for my work, but I look at my life as a success,” she reasons, “because I am able to stay home with my kids, doing what I want to do, and am happy doing.”

External Factors Can Challenge the Pursuit of ‘All’ Other mothers cared deeply for their professions but encountered logistical difficulties when trying to do both. Ellen Halleran Morey ’91 chose to take a break from her job to raise her children. Avid about database design and computer programming, Morey pursued a career as a developer for CIO magazine and continued to work after her child’s birth. She recommended that women who have or plan to have children while maintaining careers find ways to make themselves indispensable to their workplaces. In her case, Morey found that her dedication at work prior to her daughter’s birth encouraged her boss to accommodate a more flexible schedule, allowing her to do both.

Yet, when her husband’s job moved the family to Houston and working from home became too difficult, Morey shifted her focus to raising her children.

Similarly, Michel Faliero ’88 loved pursuing law and even managed to keep practicing after the birth of her first two children.

However, a third child made it impossible for her to balance an involved family life with the hourlong commute, demanding hours and challenging, albeit stimulating, work.

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To Whitney Hailand Brown ’91, a current member of the Lawrenceville Board of Trustees who formerly worked in crisis communications, “Life is like a wave; sometimes it pushes you around and makes decisions for you, and sometimes you have to ride it and make decisions for yourself.” This metaphorical wave initially pushed women like Morey and Faliero away from careers they valued, yet each found a way to ride it by using the talents she had acquired during earlier professional work.

Morey, for example, designed the website at her children’s school in order to stay up to date with her programming skills.

Similarly, Faliero asked for, helped draft, and negotiated a bill requiring South Carolina to catalogue people diagnosed with mental illness in the national background-check database for firearm purchases. A failed shooting attempt by a mentally unstable person at her daughter’s school compelled her to act.

The bill was passed, and South Carolina is now a participant in the national registry. Even though external events forced these mothers to leave careers each had planned to pursue throughout her adult life, both used the skills from previous jobs to continue enacting meaningful and fulfilling work.

What Else Can We Learn?

The pressure Lawrenceville students face to focus on immediate concerns, often related to college admission, may not be in their best, lifelong interest. Based on my interviews, it appears that rather than asking how they can make themselves more attractive candidates for admission to a university, bigger questions related to passions and personal interests may provide a greater long-term benefit. Instead of constructing an inauthentic “perfect résumé,” students would learn more about themselves, better equipping them to later ride life’s metaphorical wave, rather than be pushed around by it.

It is also important to mention that a passion is not necessarily a single objective to which someone dedicates her entire life.

Instead, as Jennifer Ridley Staikos ’91, president of Lawrenceville’s Alumni Association, said, “As long as you’re inspired by what you’re doing, that can be your passion at the time.”

If this is true, then what might Lawrenceville do to help students ask and potentially answer such big, important questions as “What do I love?” and “What do I want to do with my life?” that may turn out to be crucial to students’ lifelong happiness?

Lawrenceville has already implemented initiatives to encourage self-reflection, such as meeting with students, particularly Second Formers, to help them identify term-long, yearlong, and four-year goals, as well as the means to achieve them. In

addition, Lawrenceville invites speakers, including alumnae, to impart advice and generate discussion within the student body about the nebulous world of life after Lawrenceville. Still, as a recent Lawrentian, I believe more can be done. Perhaps students interested in learning about themselves might have the opportunity to take a skills or personality assessment endorsed by the School, or be encouraged to pursue an internship for experience alone. Alternatively, they might work with a career counselor to identify possible future professions aligned with their interests.

What Have I learned?

Now, I do not mean to imply that such small adjustments will enable every Lawrenceville graduate to “have it all” (yes, including the boys), for after spending two years considering the likelihood of my someday “having it all,” I am no longer sure that it is the question I should be asking myself. Instead, I wonder what is my all. The “having it all” debate assumes that throughout life, all women want the same thing: a successful career and a happy, involved family life. Yet, my conversations with the alumnae indicated that this is not the case. Despite all having graduated from one of the nation’s most selective and rigorous high schools, each woman wanted something different, whether that be to raise her children, to work while doing so, or to not have children at all. Instead of examining the possibilities of having one woman’s “all,” why not support everyone in identifying her or his all? And what better time to do so than during high school?

However, identifying “all” is not always an easy process. I know because, in part due to the encouragement I received from the Lawrenceville alumnae I interviewed, I decided to spend my Fourth Form year studying abroad in Beijing. Although I expected to confront challenges that would help me identify my values, I did not expect my adjustment to life in China to be so difficult. In a new city, surrounded by twenty-two million other inhabitants, where the customs vastly differed from any I had previously experienced, and where I could not communicate with my host family, I felt miserable at first. However, when exhausted from the language and the unfamiliar customs, I remembered the advice of these women: “You’re never as trapped as you think you are.” “There’s nothing as painful as growing up; be brave.” “Make decisions day by day. These won’t seem as life-changing and won’t cause as much stress.” I persevered through my adjustment period and, buoyed by these words, eventually fell in love with Beijing and returned home with discoveries about myself.

When sending my first interview request to an alumna, I hoped that speaking with past Lawrentians could help me understand the decisions I will face later in life and better prepare me to balance my choices. At the time, I only expected this project would affect my future. However, after three years of reflecting on these stories, I realize that this project has altered the way I currently engage with the world. In part because of the advice I received from these women, but also because I hope to determine the future I want, I no longer view the present as a means to get to the future; I now view it as a means in and of itself, an invitation to define and create my own happiness.

The Lawrenceville alumnae I spoke with taught me that the best preparation for my life ahead might be finding joy in the present, for then, I can hopefully find fulfillment regardless of where the wave of life pushes me.

Framing Choices In researching this story, Christina Neiva de Figueiredo ’16 was cognizant that Lawrenceville alumnae have been empowered by their education in a way that often presents options not available to all women, even in the United States.

“It’s critical to point out that this is a ‘First World’ perspective on the life and decisions of America’s working mothers. Many mothers do not have the luxury of staying home with their children; other mothers do not have the luxury of pursuing a career in a profession about which they truly feel passionate,” explains Christina, who will study international politics and business at Yale University. “It is, however, a reality that Lawrenceville women are receiving a ‘First World’ education, so it makes sense that issues of whether to work or stay home or the issues related to what kind of profession to pursue would be relevant to them.”

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New Honorary Alumni/ae The Class of 1956 ▸ Jo Brewster Devlin H’58 ’59 ’60 ’66 P’71

The Class of 1961 ▸ John Gore H’64 ▸ Mary Weeden Winants H’64 ’65 P’77 ’79 ’87

The Class of 1966 ▸ Roger D. Brink H’67 ▸ Virginia “Ginnie” Chambers H’59 ’60 ’61 ’62 ’80 ’89 P’77 ▸ Edith Eglin H’52 ’65 GP’19

The Class of 1971 ▸ R. Graham “Gray” Akers H’72 ’74 P’94

The Class of 1981 ▸ H. Carty Lynch Jr. H’71 ’84 (posthumously)

Alumni Weekend 2016

The Class of 1986 ▸ Samuel P. Harding H’85 P’87 ’89

The Class of 1991 ▸ Josiah “Si” Bunting III H’37 ’59 ’88 P’88 ’97 ▸ Katherine Mittnacht H’90 P’03

The Class of 1996 ▸ Michael “G” Goldenberg P’05 ’10

The Class of 2001 ▸ Michael S. Cary H’47 ’03 P’01 ▸ Rabbi Lauren Levy H’97 P’01 ’02 ’09

The Class of 2006 ▸ Benjamin C. “Champ” Atlee ’62 H’74 ’75 ’79 ’83 ’84 P’92 ▸ Colin Day H’04 (posthumously)

The Class of 2011 ▸ J. Regan Kerney H’49 ’95 ’98 ’03 ▸ John Shilts H’93 ’13

The Class of 2016 ▸ Stephen S. Murray H’55 ’65 P’16

Admirable Achievement Award ▸ Sandra C. Allen P’14 ’16 ’17

Presented by the Alumni Association to a nonalumnus/a, this award is inspired by the many years of devoted service, achievement, and demonstrated affection for Lawrenceville exhibited by Arthur Hailand Jr. H’34 P’69’70 GP’91. Candidates must display a substantial history of significant volunteer efforts over the years.

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▸ Jason VanBrundt

New Alumni Selectors ▸ Martha “Perry” Nelson ’96 ▸ John C. Walsh ’99

New Alumni Trustee ▸ Michael T. “Tim” Wojciechowicz ’78 P’06 ’10 12

Meritorious Service Award ▸ Albert D. Brown ’71

Presented annually by the Alumni Association of The Lawrenceville School, this award acknowledges and recognizes extraordinary volunteerism and/or service to the Lawrenceville Community. Candidates may be alumni, honorary class members, faculty and family, or School employees and family.

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Photograph by Fred Fields

Loyal W. Wilson ’66 P’05 ’12 Named Distinguished Alumnus Loyal W. Wilson ’66 P’05 ’12 was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award during the Alumni Association Induction Ceremony at Alumni Weekend 2016. This prestigious accolade is conferred annually by the Alumni Association to a Lawrentian in recognition of exceptional efforts to promote the best interests of the School.

Wilson entered Lawrenceville in 1962 in the Second Form to discover life in Thomas House in the old Lower School. He was a member of Cleve House, serving as its vice president from 196465. He played House sports and junior varsity football, and he won a major L as a member of the varsity wrestling team in 1965-66. He lived his Fifth Form year as a member of The Lodge, across from the main entrance to campus. Wilson earned a B.A. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.B.A. with an emphasis on comparative economic systems from Indiana University. He also served for seven years in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

As an alumnus, Wilson served as an alumni trustee from 2003-07, and was a member of the reunion committees for his 40th, 45th, and 50th, 42

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serving as special gifts chair. He has interviewed prospective students for admission and served on the Alumni Association Executive Committee. He earned the Stanley Pin in June 1997.

Wilson’s professional career has been focused on economic development, new company formation, and growth-stage companies. In 1984, he founded Primus Capital, a private-equity firm with offices in Cleveland and Atlanta. Wilson is also the director of Steris Corporation, a global leader in sterilization and infection control, surgical, and critical care technologies, and serves on the board of The Cleveland Clinic and the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. He is an advisory board member for Honors Carolina at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was formerly president of the board of Hathaway Brown School.

Wilson and his wife, Margaret, reside in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where she is a trustee of the Cape Eleuthera Foundation. They are the parents of four daughters, Margaret, Emily ’05, Ann, and Catherine ’12.

Hall of Fame Honors big red trio The Alumni Athletic Hall of Fame added three esteemed members when John A. Ballantyne ’66 P’04, Geoffrey C. Bennett ’91, and John Shilts H’93 ’11 ’13 were inducted during Alumni Weekend 2016.

John Ballantyne was already a standout threesport athlete when he enrolled at Lawrenceville as a postgraduate in the fall of 1965. He made an immediate impact on the gridiron, scoring 14 touchdowns, including six in one game versus Peddie. He also rushed for over 1,000 yards and passed for another 700. That fall, Ballantyne was named an NJISAA All-Prep, Hall of Fame Scholar Athlete, and All-America honorable mention. During the 1965-66 basketball season, he earned the School’s Most Outstanding Player award, as well as a second-team all-state nod.

As a collegian, Ballantyne excelled at Harvard, earning letters in football and baseball. He started at halfback in the famed Harvard-Yale game in 1968, an epic tie The Harvard Crimson headlined as “Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29.” His career in athletics continued when Ballantyne was named the head coach at Canterbury School before he embarked on a successful career in magazine publishing.

In his four years at Lawrenceville, Geoff

Bennett was a three-sport letter-winner who co-captained the varsity soccer and baseball teams. As a soccer star, Bennett was a threetime all-state selection who earned the John W. King Soccer trophy as the team’s MVP in 1989.

Bennett also excelled in the high jump, winning the NJISAA title in the event on his way to firstteam all-state honors. He found similar success on the diamond, earning first-team all-state and first-team NJISAA honors in baseball. Bennett continued his dominance in college at American University and Hartwick College before being drafted by the Milwaukee Wave of the National Professional Soccer League in 1994. As a coach, he earned the Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year award at both St. Bonaventure in 1999 and at Rhode Island in 2002. The winningest women’s soccer coach at Colorado College, Bennett was a two-time Conference USA Coach of the Year, and was the head coach of Team USA in the World University Games in 2015.

John “Doc” Shilts began his legendary career at Lawrenceville in the fall of 1988, coaching Big Red football. That December, he began coaching track and field as an assistant, and was the head coach for both indoor and outdoor track from 1993 until his retirement in 2013. Under

his leadership, Big Red track won 25 NJISAA championships, 20 MAPL championships, and three Mercer County championships. His teams also took the 4x400-meters at the Penn Relays and the Eastern States 4x800. In 2009, Shilts’ 4x800 competitors qualified for the Championship of America race at the Penn Relays for the fifth straight year before finishing sixth at the Nike Outdoor Nationals. In all, Shilts’ indoor and outdoor teams amassed more than 360 dual-meet wins over the course of his career, including a streak of 100 consecutively. At least five of his individual athletes and one relay team achieved All-America recognition. A graduate of Western Reserve Academy, Shilts earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a doctorate from Penn State.

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Alumni News ◀ The Admission Office organized a reception for accepted students in Shanghai on March 19, which was hosted and sponsored by Xiao Yong (Shawn) Li and Wan Min (Becky) Xing P’18. Alums Peter Koo ’86 and Rudi von Meister ’75 P’05 ’08 also said a few words to the prospective Lawrentians.

▼ Garden State alumni enjoyed the Northern New Jersey Regional Club’s inaugural event at the MoonShine Modern Supper Club in Millburn on April 6.

▲ The Class of 2001 reveled at their Reunion Kickoff Party at the Park Avenue Tavern in New York on March 10.

▲ B Bar & Grill in New York City was the place ▲ There was good fun on tap when the Young Alumni Council

for friends from the Class of 2006 to get caught

sponsored an event at Brooklyn Brewery on February 4.

up as they kicked off their 10th reunion.

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By the Numbers

Fun Under the Sun The Lawrenceville School doesn’t go into hibernation after Commencement. In fact, things really get busy in June, July, and August as a robust schedule of summer programs keeps the campus buzzing with activity.

33 Total summer programs set for 2016, including the Lawrenceville Summer Scholars.

14

The age range of children who enjoy the ESF ( Education, Sports, Fun ) summer camps.

4-15

Sports camps for children, including six sponsored by Nike.

$800,000

7

Approximate amount of

net surplus earned by Summer Programs in 2015, similar to what would be created by an endowment of $16 million.

Lawrenceville-supported camps and programs:

2,004 Total summer campers in

2

residence in 2015.

Summer programs for adults: The Klingenstein Summer Institute, which offers training for independent school teachers, and the Princeton Festival, a performing-arts competition.

17

Residential houses being used by residential summer campers in 2016.

32

Course offerings for the Lawrenceville

▶ Hutchins Scholars

Summer Scholars, an

▶ Heely Scholars

educational program

▶ New Jersey Scholars ▶ Lawrenceville Summer Scholars ▶ Rising Scholars

that produces innovative leaders, breakthrough thinkers,

▶ Arete

and imaginative

▶ performing arts camp

problem solvers.

10

Lawrenceville students employed by the Summer Programs to coordinate campus

1,085

Total summer day campers in 2015.

traffic routes, add beds to rooms, and organize signage.

168

A d d i t i o n a l b e d s t o b e a d d e d t o r e s i d e n t i a l h o u s e s t o a c c o m m o d at e p r o g r a m s i n 2 0 1 6 .

Student Shot

by Phu Jaitrong '16

Lawrentian THE

usps no. 306-700 the Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648 Parents of alumni: If this magazine is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us at vavanisko@lawrenceville.org with his or her new address. Thank you!