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GROWING UP AT PARK: ALEX ’13 AND LANIE ’16 CHERRY From an interview by Bob Little, Director of Athletics
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lex and Lanie Cherry both arrived at Park as tiny PreK students and so Park was where they found their first friends and their earliest mentors. Both grew as exceptional scholars on a journey that led them both to the Ivy League—Alex to Princeton, and Lanie to Brown—and they both reflect on the value of their Park athletic and Physical Education experience in helping support their way forward.
Lanie says, “Sports helped me get out of my shell.” She was naturally quiet and somewhat shy, but on Park’s playing fields, she found her voice, her confidence. By Grade 8, she was captain of her team, and when she entered Milton for secondary school, she was confident in herself, and in her abilities. Team sports was a place where she could be both competitive and social, and there was joy in that. For Alex, his most powerful Park memories come back to his 6th grade undefeated soccer team. “We were just a powerhouse that year,” he recalls. “It was super cool to reach that high standard at such a young age, and to be playing with so many other good players.” Yet some of the very best experiences came about through P.E. and even recess, when he and his buddies would play together. “It was so joyous that we could just go out and play,” he says. Recess became the place where he and his friends learned to work together on competition without the guidance of coaches, figuring out how to collaborate and manage the games themselves. The through line for Alex came down to the wonderful connections with classmates, teammates, teachers, and coaches. “It was really fun that after
games, the next day, my teammates were my classmates, and my coaches were my teachers. It was a close knit, tight group.” The value of that student-teacher/coach relationship at Park particularly stands out for Alex. “It felt comfortable going to those adults who knew you so well for guidance,” he says. The teacher who is also your coach gets to know you in a multidimensional way–and you can go to that person with anything. Lanie recalls the empowerment that came out of the collective celebration of student accomplishment at Morning Meetings. “We’d get up at Morning Meeting and say ‘Our team has a game today,’ and then the next day we’d report the results. The school acknowledged and praised our participation.” The culture of athletics at Park was strong and supported by the community. For both Lanie and Alex, a key takeaway from their experience as student-athletes at Park was the time management skills they learned. Alex recalls that even in 6th grade, he understood that, when he was “in season,” school-practice-homework-sleep became a structure that really supported him. He says, “You needed that time management—you didn’t have time to use time inefficiently. That continued beyond Park.” Lanie reflects
L A N I E SAYS , “SP ORT S H E L PE D M E G E T OU T OF M Y SH E L L .”
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THE PARK SCHOOL
