Feature: Athletics
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passing activities, and a modified game, all in preparation for their play on our Upper School teams.
North Gym Opens
By Rich Alifano, Director of Athletics and Physical Education On January 27, we opened the North Gym to the cheers and smiles of our boys. Entering the massive gym with wide eyes and an endless source of energy, the boys began the journey through our exciting physical education curriculum. As you can imagine, it wasn’t only the boys who were full of excitement and energy; the PE teachers were as well. For both groups, the new gym meant there would be the ability to teach a greater variety of skills, activities, and games. Also, we could now bring together groups of students who previously, due to the pandemic, had to remain separated. The sheer size of the gym had an immediate positive impact on the way we could safely teach physical education classes.
This gym also allows us to have full-sided indoor soccer and lacrosse games with regulation indoor goals. The ability to now have practice, regardless of the weather and outdoor field availability on Randall’s Island, immediately allows our teams to advance their skills and game preparation. In fact, all of our teams will benefit from our gym’s size and its availability to our athletes. Speaking of our athletes, I was fortunate enough to speak with several of our alumni who have played or are playing collegiate athletics. Nick Silber ’13 just finished a pitching career at Rice University, Adam Donaldson ’05 is currently Assistant Athletics Director for production and media partnerships at the University of Notre Dame and played tennis at the University of Louisville, and Will Milne ’01 was a standout football lineman for the University of Pennsylvania.
Mary Leonard, Math Teacher, chatted with current University of Michigan track member Derrick Simmons ’15, while other We have opened up our kindergarten athletes spoke with our Alumni Department curriculum to movement games that allow and are featured on the boys to explore the following pages. the entire gym while They include: Larry using a variety of balls, Greer ’81, the hula hoops, scarves, Assistant Basketball floor spots, pinnies, and Coach for the New so much more. They York Knicks, who are diving deep into played basketball at collaboration, Northeastern communication, University; Chris movement directions Brooks ’98, who and levels, hand-eye, played hockey at Yale foot-eye, and so much University, as well as more. professionally for four years; Alex Currently, the firstShuman ’97, a coach through sixth-grade for the football and boys are discovering all ice hockey teams at of the skill levels and The Taft School and game strategies that go who played football along with basketball. himself at If you entered the gym St. Lawrence during a first-grade Agility training for US boys University; Hasani class you would see Figueroa ’10, who each boy with his own played football at Amherst; William Morris basketball, appropriately sized for their age ’15, a lacrosse midfielder at St. John’s and skill, with the baskets lowered to eight University; and Dylan Porges ’16, a swimmer feet. All of the six backboards can be for Princeton University, who has qualified adjusted to any height between eight and for the US Olympic Trials this summer. ten feet. This feature allows us to teach the proper mechanics of shooting at a very All of these athletes have fond memories of early age. A-S Athletics and attribute the foundation for their success to the A-S program and Entering the gym during a fifth- through coaching they received. We hope to have eighth-grade class, you might also see each them all back in the near future to celebrate boy with his own ball; however, these boys our new athletics facility and the proud would be working on their power, control, tradition of A-S sports. and speed dribbles. They would be competing in shooting games, dribbling and
