As most everyone knows by now, Brother Rice is an athletic powerhouse. Our record of success and achievement is unprecedented in the state of Michigan. Our record this spring is worth noting:
1. Golf - Catholic League champions, Oakland County Champions, District and Regional Champions. At the regional, our five golfers shot 67, 69, 69, 71 and 73. Incredible. Today and tomorrow they are playing for the state championship.
2. Lacrosse - Catholic League Champions, Midwest Champions, District and Regional Champions, defending state champions, undefeated in the state of Michigan for the past 8 years, playing for the state championship tomorrow against our great rivals Catholic Central.
3. Track - Rice Relay Champions, Ambrose Relay Champions, Regional Champions
4. Baseball - Catholic League Champions, District Champions. The Warriors play in the Regionals at Novi on Saturday against Walled Lake Central at noon. If we win, we play the winner of Novi vs. Canton in the afternoon for the Regional Championship.
Our athletes and coaches are to be commended for continuing the legacy of success by their commitment to excellence. Congratulations on a great spring sport season and good luck to golf, lacrosse and baseball in their quests to become state champions.
I am the President of Brother Rice High School. I've decided to occasionally share my thoughts about education, students, teachers, faith formation, family, academics, athletics, administration, advancement, alumni, admissions and other school topics as appropriate. Feel free to respond to birney@brrice.edu
Friday, June 11, 2010
Great news to share about a Hall of Famer.
Br. David MacIntyre has been on the faculty at Brother Rice High School for the past 30 years. Two years ago, he celebrated his 50th year as a Christian Brother. He is a beloved figure at our institution and a member of our Hall of Fame. He is also my friend and someone that I have known and admired for 34 years.
Earlier this year, Br. Mac received news that he had cancer and required chemo treatments. It was a difficult and grueling experience that forced Br. Mac to leave the classroom in February. As we witnessed the inevitable impact of chemo on this wonderful man, we hoped and prayed that the treatments would work. Yesterday, we received the great news that he is clean of cancer!
I know that every member of our community gives thanks to God for this wonderful news. God has blessed Mac with health and He has blessed us with a very special man.
Earlier this year, Br. Mac received news that he had cancer and required chemo treatments. It was a difficult and grueling experience that forced Br. Mac to leave the classroom in February. As we witnessed the inevitable impact of chemo on this wonderful man, we hoped and prayed that the treatments would work. Yesterday, we received the great news that he is clean of cancer!
I know that every member of our community gives thanks to God for this wonderful news. God has blessed Mac with health and He has blessed us with a very special man.
Alumni World Tour Part 121 - Minneapolis, Minnesota
Two-thirds of our graduates live in Michigan. One-third do not, and when I travel, I try to make contact with alums who live in the city that I am visiting.
Last week, I held an alumni gathering in Minneapolis at the Minneapolis Hilton. Based upon our database, there are about 25 grads living in the Twin Cities, and on this night, 15 of them gathered together to laugh, network, and reconnect with their alma mater and their brother grads. As usual, there was a wide span of graduates in attendance - Tom Lelich '72 was the "senior" member of the group, while Joe Bahoora and Brett Heberer 2003 were the youngsters. John Luke '78 is the manager of the Hilton and as you can imagine he did a great job of setting up the venue and ensuring quality service from the wait staff!
We had a great time. I really enjoyed myself and was glad to reconnect with so many alums. The Twin Cities are beautiful and warm in June....don't expect to return for a winter alumni event anytime soon!!!
We had a great time. I really enjoyed myself and was glad to reconnect with so many alums. The Twin Cities are beautiful and warm in June....don't expect to return for a winter alumni event anytime soon!!!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Memorial Day Memories
Good leaders are proactive, right? Why wait for trouble? Head it off at the pass....show the community that you are in charge. Good advice to any new leader....
During the spring of my first year as principal in 2005, I met with the senior class on their first day back from Easter vacation. Aware of the recent history of pranks that were upsetting to the faculty and problematic to our public image, I met with the seniors and shared with them my concern about denying seniors the chance to walk at graduation based upon their behavior. I wanted to spare their parents the anguish of such a decision, so I encouraged the seniors to strongly consider this and to NOT do anything stupid before graduation.
Graduation came and went with no pranks. What a smart guy! What an outstanding leader! Everyone walked, everyone was happy, life was good.
Until....Memorial day evening, 2005. Yes, the seniors had listened quite well. They didn't do anything before graduation, so they all got to walk. Unfortunately, they were smart enough to recognize the fact that if they did something AFTER graduation, I had minimal leverage to punish. In other words, the safest time to pull a prank was when they were graduates and no longer seniors.....
I returned home from northern Michigan on the night of Memorial day 2005, blissfully unaware of what was to come. Five hours on I-75 that evening, all I wanted was a good night's sleep before the last week of school. I hit the sack around midnight expecting a good 7 hours sleep. And then the phone rang at 2:30pm and the caller asked me if I was the principal of Brother Rice. I answered yes, groggily, wondering what it could be. The voice on the other end of the line brought a sudden end to my semi-conscious state when I was informed that the Bloomfield Township police were at the school and I needed to get there as soon as possible.
When I got to the school, I was shocked to see seven police cars in the parking lot, each one with a recent graduate handcuffed in the backseat. Can you say turkey shoot? Police 7, graduates 0. (I found out later that one graduate avoided capture and ran home in the middle of the night, so I guess the score was really 7-1.) Their crime? They left a few mice, a few crickets, and a lot of candy (yes candy) that spelled out statements such as Greetings from the Class of 2005. A tough bunch, eh? Hardened criminals? Hardly. But they were in custody because they had been in our building without permission.
For the record, they didn't break anything. They put a ladder on the roof, jumped into the courtyard and got in through one of the interior windows that was open. We would have gotten them eventually as the building is videotaped, but the drama of the moment was that their laughter had woken up the neighbors and they were handcuffed by the time I got there. I wasn't exactly in a position to say let them go, nor do I think the police would have appreciated that given their efforts. It was a harmless prank, but when you're trespassing at 2am in a school, you've got a problem when the police show up.
Demonstrating either historic naivete or stupidity or both, one of the grads had actually videotaped the entire event. Once this was discovered, the police on site enjoyed their discovery with a degree of humor that I suspect that graduates will never forget. As if being caught red handed wasn't bad enough, there was further visual evidence if necessary. Thankfully, there was no damage. In fact, these grads admittedly loved the school and would never have done harm.
They did, however, want to have some fun. Surprise! Ever heard of unintended consequences? The police took them to the station at around 3:30am, processed them and then called their parents and released them sometime between 4 and 5am. One sat in a jail cell with an individual who had been arrested that evening for attempted murder. Don't think they'll ever forget that night, even though we laugh about it today. Their parents were mortified and the grads were horribly embarrassed. One of the parents reportedly asked his son upon picking him up at the jail what he intended to study in college. The shocked grad, completely taken aback by the first words from his dad, asked why he would ask such a question. The dad replied that it had better not be criminal justice because he was clearly a horrible failure as a criminal....
Their penalty? I dropped the charges (Breaking and entering - a felony!) and instead assigned community service. I wasn't really angry with them, though I was upset that I lost out on a night of sleep! After the police dog was summoned to search the building one last time (no kidding), and the police finally left around 4:30am, I spent an additional hour or so trying to capture the few white mice. Thought I got them all, but of course, I wasn't given a manifest/inventory of the count ahead of time. Naturally, two were undiscovered by me - one ended up in Coach Kal's class and the other was discovered in the women's rest room. Neither made a very good choice...
During the spring of my first year as principal in 2005, I met with the senior class on their first day back from Easter vacation. Aware of the recent history of pranks that were upsetting to the faculty and problematic to our public image, I met with the seniors and shared with them my concern about denying seniors the chance to walk at graduation based upon their behavior. I wanted to spare their parents the anguish of such a decision, so I encouraged the seniors to strongly consider this and to NOT do anything stupid before graduation.
Graduation came and went with no pranks. What a smart guy! What an outstanding leader! Everyone walked, everyone was happy, life was good.
Until....Memorial day evening, 2005. Yes, the seniors had listened quite well. They didn't do anything before graduation, so they all got to walk. Unfortunately, they were smart enough to recognize the fact that if they did something AFTER graduation, I had minimal leverage to punish. In other words, the safest time to pull a prank was when they were graduates and no longer seniors.....
I returned home from northern Michigan on the night of Memorial day 2005, blissfully unaware of what was to come. Five hours on I-75 that evening, all I wanted was a good night's sleep before the last week of school. I hit the sack around midnight expecting a good 7 hours sleep. And then the phone rang at 2:30pm and the caller asked me if I was the principal of Brother Rice. I answered yes, groggily, wondering what it could be. The voice on the other end of the line brought a sudden end to my semi-conscious state when I was informed that the Bloomfield Township police were at the school and I needed to get there as soon as possible.
When I got to the school, I was shocked to see seven police cars in the parking lot, each one with a recent graduate handcuffed in the backseat. Can you say turkey shoot? Police 7, graduates 0. (I found out later that one graduate avoided capture and ran home in the middle of the night, so I guess the score was really 7-1.) Their crime? They left a few mice, a few crickets, and a lot of candy (yes candy) that spelled out statements such as Greetings from the Class of 2005. A tough bunch, eh? Hardened criminals? Hardly. But they were in custody because they had been in our building without permission.
For the record, they didn't break anything. They put a ladder on the roof, jumped into the courtyard and got in through one of the interior windows that was open. We would have gotten them eventually as the building is videotaped, but the drama of the moment was that their laughter had woken up the neighbors and they were handcuffed by the time I got there. I wasn't exactly in a position to say let them go, nor do I think the police would have appreciated that given their efforts. It was a harmless prank, but when you're trespassing at 2am in a school, you've got a problem when the police show up.
Demonstrating either historic naivete or stupidity or both, one of the grads had actually videotaped the entire event. Once this was discovered, the police on site enjoyed their discovery with a degree of humor that I suspect that graduates will never forget. As if being caught red handed wasn't bad enough, there was further visual evidence if necessary. Thankfully, there was no damage. In fact, these grads admittedly loved the school and would never have done harm.
They did, however, want to have some fun. Surprise! Ever heard of unintended consequences? The police took them to the station at around 3:30am, processed them and then called their parents and released them sometime between 4 and 5am. One sat in a jail cell with an individual who had been arrested that evening for attempted murder. Don't think they'll ever forget that night, even though we laugh about it today. Their parents were mortified and the grads were horribly embarrassed. One of the parents reportedly asked his son upon picking him up at the jail what he intended to study in college. The shocked grad, completely taken aback by the first words from his dad, asked why he would ask such a question. The dad replied that it had better not be criminal justice because he was clearly a horrible failure as a criminal....
Their penalty? I dropped the charges (Breaking and entering - a felony!) and instead assigned community service. I wasn't really angry with them, though I was upset that I lost out on a night of sleep! After the police dog was summoned to search the building one last time (no kidding), and the police finally left around 4:30am, I spent an additional hour or so trying to capture the few white mice. Thought I got them all, but of course, I wasn't given a manifest/inventory of the count ahead of time. Naturally, two were undiscovered by me - one ended up in Coach Kal's class and the other was discovered in the women's rest room. Neither made a very good choice...
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