The Writing on the Wall

As the mural of my high school's great athletic moments was unveiled to the public in the fall of 2012, I divulged a few behind-the-scenes stories about its creation in our alumni magazine. Here was the product.

Eat as much protein as you like, Tom Higley ’86, but you’ll never grow as tall as you stand in our new Mulvena-Mazik Fitness Center.

There he is, a seven-foot, younger version of himself adorning the fitness center wall, perpetually breaking the tape at the 1985 county meet. He’d just erased a Dickinson runner’s lead in the final 30 meters. “Something inside me told me to go for it,” he said back then. “And I did.”

The mural that Higley graces is Salesianum’s own Ashburn Alley, walk of fame, and Division I stadium lobby rolled into one. Its pictures and narratives fill five walls. The long timeline relives our moments of athletic triumph—and those heartbreaks glorious because of the monumental efforts they elicited.

Granger ties the 2011 state final with only seconds left. Sallies would win in extra time.

You’ll see bits of the mural scattered throughout this annual report. Cameron Granger ’12 (pictured) finds himself in a chaotic St. Mark’s penalty area. He’s seconds from equalizing in the 2011 state final’s dying moments. Matt Kibblehouse ’12 (below) and last year’s swimmers are two- and seven-time consecutive champions, respectively. At every juncture we strained to capture the very moment in question, as we did with Granger, Higley (top of page), and with John Renzetti’s Baltimore Poly-slaying touchdown catch in the sixties (well below). It makes for an emotional journey.

Kibblehouse was one of the school's most decorated wrestlers.

There are the stories everyone tells. Tony Wolanski ’65 beamed with pride telling of the epic, two-day finals in the 1982 and 1993 soccer seasons. They got revenge in ’83 and won again in ’93. Guido Schiavi ’44, in turn, recounted the grand Catholic League finals at the Palestra that were once recounted to him. There are Triple Crowns won by track stars and two sets of footballers. On the bottom floor, Brandon Baffone ’93 is suspended in the air as he is most times we see him, rising from the hardwood with 1.2 seconds left, back when the Bob first became our state’s Palestra.

There are the comebacks everyone knows. Jim Brazill released a litany of names and plays describing the ’96 football victory over St. Mark’s. Three scores in the last minute to win, 18-17. Most of us know that story, but not like he does.

Likewise, I remember every step of the fiery sprint Doug Nowell ’91 ran as he waved around the winning run in the 2008 baseball semis, the frenzy that prompted Jeff Skorup ’06 to quip, “Nowell might have injured himself celebrating.”

Renzetti about to make one of the Sals' most reminisced-about catches.

We pay tribute to the great villains. Every drama needs an antagonist. The Red Sox’s Derrick Gibson at the mural’s end, CBS’s Ukee Washington during the ’75 basketball team’s Cinderella run, everyone from St. Mark’s. They beat us with class, bowed to us with pride, always pushing us more than we could have pushed ourselves.

Then there are the stories only you remember. Mike Hart ’70 once told a football team on the brink of the state championship that if they won, they could douse him with mud. He kept his promise.

Speaking of football, few know that we’ve switched the lockers in one room so that Locker No. 18 comes before No. 17.

Vic Zwolak ’56 ran at the Olympics, but before that, before we had cross country uniforms, he won the state meet wearing a sweatshirt from Southampton or Oyster Bay or some such place. “I had a girlfriend up there and one down here,” he once joked, “and they didn’t know about each other.” Imagine Olympians today, signing sponsorship deals with Long Island resort towns.

Tradition, that elusive, abstract thing, rarely transfers well to paper—whether wallpaper or uncoated magazine stock. But when our student-athletes train, they will read the captions detailing men like Eddie Michaels ’32 and study the likeness of Civil Rights pioneer Willie Jones ’54, the latter of whom integrated the school and only last month departed this life. Perhaps they will be filled with gratitude for the work and sacrifices of the alumni listed before them, just as I am when I leaf through your names in these very pages.