To the Great Class of 1969:
News
of the Academy
The Fall Term ended Friday, and the school is now
in recess for the week.
Enrollment for the 2013-2014 year totals 646
students, slightly north of the target, with 42 states and 37 countries represented.
The admissions rate this year was 17%, up slightly from recent years, and 65%
of those admitted chose to enroll. Room and board, for the first time, topped
$50,000. One-third of the student body receives financial aid, which totals
$7.8 million this year.
It was a tale of two seasons on the Lower Level
this fall for the football team. After winning its first three games, the team
succumbed to the next five opponents by a cumulative margin of 192-45. The coup
de grace was the Choate Game on November 9th which was streamed for
the third year in a row. Sadly, past proved prologue, with Choate winning 27-0
on Jim Smith Field. This marked the fifth consecutive loss to Choate which now
holds a 43-42-10 lead in the series.
The 1797 Dinner was held at the New York Public
Library this fall where David Koch announced that Rob Hale ’84 had pledged $25
million to the endowment for financial aid. That gift, together with others,
brings the Imagine Deerfield Campaign to $167 million. At the dinner, Rob
raised the bar and challenged parents and alumni to surpass the goal by 20% to
$240 million which, if successful, would be more (he said) than had ever been
raised by any college or prep school per alum.
News
of the Class
Neil
Jacobs has returned to teach, this time for the full
year. You may recall that Neil taught Ethics and Virtue in the spring of 2012,
while living in Hitchcock House. Neil will also be coaching Boys Thirds
Basketball and providing tips to NBA aspirants. Neil is long-time counsel to
the Celtics.
 |
| "I coulda been a contender!" |
Recognizing his calling as a long distance runner only after graduating, Brian
Connery came to New York this fall and joined over 50,000
runners in the Marathon. Here’s his account:
I'd been trying/planning to run the
NYC marathon since 2009, when it was one of the two final marathons on my
bucket list -- and I'd decided I could live without running London. (I'd
run 7 others since 2005). So I entered the lottery for 2009 and lost, for
2010 and lost, and for 2011 and lost. The rule was that if you entered
and lost three times consecutively, then you got guaranteed entry and so they
guaranteed my entry in 2012. But, of course, Sandy hit, and after I'd
been down to the Javits Center to pick up my bib number, I went back to the
hotel, turned on the tv news, and found out that the race was canceled.
That was a pretty
interesting experience in itself. A lot of us who were in town anyway
went out to Staten Island on the Saturday to help out. And then on the
Sunday a lot more (like maybe10,000) put on our shorts and bibs and ran up and
down West Side Drive and around Central Park for a few hours.
So then it was guaranteed entry for
this year -- 2013. I was five years older than when I first started to
try to get entered, and it was five years since I last ran a marathon, and so I
was a little apprehensive. But I trained well and didn't injure myself
too much in the run up. I ran strong and well though not fast. But as
Meatloaf used to sing (and maybe still does), two out of three ain't bad.
Finishing time 4:39:33. Not my fastest but not my slowest either.
Oddly, I was kind of sad when it was all over!
New York was absolutely the best urban marathon
I've run. The route, the bridges, the crowds, the organization -- all
absolutely fantastic. And the field is far more international than
anything else I've run: Ecuadorans to the left of me, Welsh women to the right
of me. Really a fabulous experience. Things you wish you had known
thirty years ago so you could have done them more often.
Rusty
Young was a volunteer cyclist in this year’s
Marathon, an annual ritual for him. Rusty accompanied an elite wheelchair racer from Japan whose time of
01:45:23 earned him a ninth place finish, but no prize money. Rusty wrote:
“As
his escort, it is my job to ride 10-15 yards ahead of the racer and to
"clear" the course for him….as we are the fastest competitors
our race starts and finishes before the elite runners….The course is often not
fully set up by the time our racers come through, and there are near misses
with cabs, cars and peds every year. This year’s race was made more challenging
by 15-20 mph headwinds and freezing temperatures. I felt great after the
race…It’s so exhilarating being 'inside the ropes' for 26 miles that I hardly
remember riding any of it…and that was after we rode from Manhattan to the
start to meet up with our racers….
It
wasn't the race that got to me…it was being run off 9th Avenue and onto the
sidewalk as I was riding back to my car …by a driver that was being squeezed by
a cab. He/she moved left and I got clipped and was on the pavement in no
time…Driver never stopped, although the pedestrians that saw it happening gave
the driver pieces of their minds. Ah….
New York!”
I hope that you have marked your calendars for our
45th Reunion June 6-8. John
Lacey will be reprising his role and sending reminders as the date
approaches.
Happy Thanksgiving and best wishes to all.
DWS
