Back to School at Last

ON CAMPUS

back to school at last

While students officially were back on campus last spring, this semester has brought a sense of normalcy back to SHC. Masks aside, the sounds of students laughing and talking energetically around campus has replaced the hushed, muffled tones of the students who returned from the pandemic, unsure of so many things. This spread of photos is a salute to our students and to youth in all of its energetic glory.

FEATURES

Neil

Sweeney ’44

A classmate of Jerry Mahoney ’44 reflects on a life of achievement and service. By Mark Pardini ’88

When attending Sacred Heart Cathedral, one joins a family that extends back 170 years, including tens of thousands of alumni and spanning multiple generations of some families. In this context, when SHC Magazine was presented with the opportunity to interview a teammate of the famed Jerry Mahoney ’44, we jumped at the opportunity, knowing full well that this opportunity to capture history might not present itself again. What we couldn’t have known until talking with Neil Sweeney ’44, a charming man with a twinkle in his eye who is one of our oldest living alumni, was just how much of a history lesson we would receive that day, a snapshot of a time not only in the history of SHC, but of Northern California, and our nation as a whole.

In his 92 years of life, Neil has been in turn a student leader, an athlete, a soldier, a coach, a teacher, and an administrator. With his charming wife of 70 years, Beverly, by his side, he is also a father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and a community stalwart. His imprint can be seen in his eight children who still live in the area and the multitude of grandchildren and great-grandchildren they have produced. The influence and wisdom he has shared lives on in the thousands of youth whom he coached, taught and mentored. “When I was a sophomore at SH I saw the film Knute Rockne, All American, and from then on I wanted to be a coach. I figured out that in order to be a coach, you had to be a teacher, so that was my goal from then on.” Lastly, through his son Matt, a renowned coaching icon in the Tri-County area, Neil’s legacy of affecting youth through athletics and education continues to this very day. Neil Sweeney was a St. Paul’s boy growing up in Noe Valley during the Great Depression, the fourth of five sons, all of whom attended Sacred Heart High School (Tim ’34, Joe, Robert ’39, and Bernard ’46). His brother Joe even left SH after his freshman year to become a Christian Brother, serving for twelve years. Neil remembers his eldest brother, Tim, choosing to skip college to help the family out financially during the Great Depression, still finding time on his one weekly day off from working for the Examiner to take Neil and neighborhood pal and SHC legend Bill Henneberry ’48 down to swim near Palo Alto. It was a different, quieter time in the Bay Area, pre-tech, before the strip malls, when families buckled down, made do with what they had, and stuck with friends from their parish for their entire lives. Asked if he was good friends with Mahoney, a Star of the Sea boy from the Richmond, Neil replied “As a teammate, mostly. He was kind of all business … Mostly the guys I hung around with were the guys from the Mission, from St. Paul's Parish. Tim O'Regan ’44 was from there. Joe Ryan ’44 was from down in St. Peter's area, Lower Mission, Bill Nightingale ’44 was out in my area. I was mostly friendly with them.” A “Brothers’ Boy” through and through, Neil shared, “Yeah, I had a great experience with the Brothers, I can't say that enough.” Remembering his time at SH, Neil recounted some of the most influential of his mentors.

Neil Sweeney ’44

“Brother Lawrence Corey, he was a chemistry teacher, he was just a young Brother, he was also the Athletic Director (AD). He later went on to St. Mary's and had a long tenure there. Even after he left the brothers he stayed on at St. Mary's as a science teacher, quite a guy. He just died a couple years ago. When he was the AD at SH, we played Mission one year (Neil was primarily a left guard, nicknamed “the Ripper” for his forearm shiver). They had an unbalanced line with a single wing, and I was a middle guard and I had a good game. We had no plastic helmets in that era, and we went both ways. We had no face mask and we had leather helmets. Anyway, I got my mouth all beat up and I had to go to the emergency on the way home and get stitches in my mouth. We were playing the next week at Poly, and Brother Lawrence got two nose guards and sandwiched one on top of the other, so I couldn't even get the helmet off during the game. I got one penalty in that game because I was over the line of scrimmage with that facemask! Brother Lawrence was great. Our principal was Brother Alfred who later became the provincial because he was at the college too. Brother Michael, who left later, he became a teacher and coach in San Ramon. A lot of them were in my brother's class in Mont La Salle and they all treated me pretty well. I had a great experience at SH.” Returning to Mahoney, the all-city football and basketball player who died in combat shortly after joining the war effort, Neil remembered, “He was quite a good athlete. He had a similar build to Chris Mullins (Golden State Warriors Hall of Famer), same kind of ruddy complexion.” Recalling the WWII era in general, Neil said, “... it was a very patriotic time, and there were even a couple of sophomores that left school and went into the service at that time. The Brothers came up with a plan that you could get your diploma in three and a half years rather than four, so almost half our class left after the end of the fall semester in ’43, and Jerry Mahoney played both football and basketball that school year before enlisting. I can't remember when he left … definitely before the end of the spring semester. He went into the Navy right away.” Savoring his tenure as SH student body president, Neil would wait to enlist in the Naval Air Crew program until after Thanksgiving of his first semester at St. Mary’s College, during which he continued playing football. With many of the top college players off in combat, Neil got a taste of big-time college football with the Gaels as a 160 lb. lineman. “We played USC, Cal, UCLA. So I played two games in the Coliseum that year. We "The Ripper" didn't win a game, we weren't very good. Pretty much most of the [previous year’s] team disbanded.” After an especially-lopsided loss to the Coast Guard team, Neil remembers his former Coach Phelan ribbing him and his teammates. “After the war, you guys wanna get in the stadium, you're gonna have to sell programs!" Once he joined the war effort, Neil showed an aptitude for communications work in his initial testing at his Millington, Tennessee base, and he was accepted into the radio training program, manning that part of the flight crew. Recalling those times, Neil shared, “My first assignment was the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida naval air station. I was assigned to a squadron there … we flew TBMs (torpedo bombers). I was on a three-person crew, a pilot, a gunner, and a radio man, me, and the only space for the radio man was in a small little cabin right behind the torpedo!” During his time in Florida, Neil would frequently go to the end of the base tarmac during his spare time and watch the squadrons take off. It was during two of these sojourns that Neil watched squadrons depart never to return, alleged victims of the infamous Bermuda Triangle. With the war winding down, Neil had decisions to make. While tempted to reenlist, Neil says “I was anxious to go back home, though, so they sent me to Livermore, which had a naval air station, the site of what’s now known as the Lawrence Radiation lab.” From there, he would return to St. Mary’s to finish his education and again play football. With the players from the war returning, however, Neil revisited his childhood coaching ambitions. “I asked coach (Joe Verducci), if I could help out with the freshmen,” Neil recalled. “‘He says ‘Sure,’ so I helped coach the freshmen in ’48 which was a great experience.” Through good friend Jack Hanson, a teacher at St. Elizabeth’s in Oakland, Neil got a job as a teacher and coach. Ironically, Neil faced Mahoney (#33) lines up behind Neil (front row, third from the right) notable challenges

FEATURES

neil sweeney ’44 (cont.)

“I'd tell them to enjoy the era they're in, and don't be afraid to hit the books and be as outgoing as you can as you get through it.”

with the football program there. “The facilities were terrible. It was a dirt lot behind one of the buildings. In the fall, we'd rent trucks and go to the Chevrolet plant where they had a big field and that’s where we had to practice our passing game.” In one year’s time, though, Neil had changed the culture at the school. “In ’49 we won the Catholic Athletic League Championship. We beat Serra, St. Mary's High of Berkeley and St. Mary's of Stockton. I think it's the only time St. Elizabeth's ever won a football championship.” By June of 1950, Neil had married Beverly, also a teacher, from Hilo, Hawai’i, and had gotten his own teaching credential from San Francisco State, quickly accepting a job at Amador Valley High in Pleasanton. The couple quickly established roots in the then-rural community. “We came back to Pleasanton as newlyweds so this was our first home together. Beverly had a credential too, and she wanted a job, but there weren't any available. She gave up quite a bit to come, but the good person she is, she made the best of it,” Neil recalled. “The community of Pleasanton was about 2,500 people total, pretty rural. In fact, my wife was walking down main street, and she says, ‘What am I doing in this hick town?’” Neil continued, “When we came here, there were five large dairies. They milked 800 cows twice a day. Then it was a lot of ranch land. This was all pasture land where we are now. The old owners used to be hay farmers. There are huge deposits of gravel in this valley. When we first came they'd be shipping 28 trainloads of gravel every night from here.”

Neil would serve at Amador for 21 years, watching the school enrollment grow from 200 to 2,600, coaching for just six before serving as vice principal, then principal, later moving to the newly-opened Foothill High School as principal. “And then I went to the district offices,” Neil recalled, “Director of secondary education, and assistant superintendent. When I retired in 1985, I was deputy superintendent of schools and I was only 58 years old.” Later, he would serve as the assistant commissioner of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), currently headed by fellow SHC alum Ron Nocetti ’86. “Seventy years in Pleasanton, and 70 years married. Pretty fortunate … plus,” he adds, mischievously eyeing Beverly, “I still like her!” During this time, Neil and Beverly still managed to start a family, with children Joe, Pat, Anne, Matt, Liz, Tim, Fran, and Dan keeping the couple busy. Eventually, seven of the children would attend Catholic colleges, six attending St. Mary’s and Joe choosing Notre

NEIL SWEENEY ’44

Beverly proudly showing off a Sweeney family photo album

Dame. While all of the children were accomplished athletes and have had successful professional careers in a number of differing fields, coaching still runs in the family blood. Neil’s youngest son, Dan, is currently the girls basketball coach at Foothill, balancing that with his job in the tech industry. Perhaps most recognizable in the local coaching community is Neil's son, Matt, an Amador Valley alum of 1978 who would later coach both football and softball at Foothill High. Over 31 years coaching football, Matt’s 265 wins put him third all-time in the North Coast Section. He won 13 EBAL titles, four sectional titles, and coached future pro athletes Sean Mannion and the San Francisco Giants legend Brandon Crawford. While briefly courted by the 49ers as a quality control coach, Matt prioritized his family and stayed at Foothill. And as if that weren’t enough, Matt was voted 2019 state softball coach of the year, leading Foothill to a 28-0 record and no. 3 national ranking. The kind of characteristics required to lead sports programs of both genders to these levels of excellence can only be taught, and the tutelage of his father and, by extension, the Christian Brothers (Matt also graduated from St. Mary’s), seem instrumental in his development as a leader.

When asked his thoughts on the recent inclusion of girls sports into the Bruce-Mahoney competition between SHC and St. Ignatius, Neil approved wholeheartedly and extolled girls athletics in general. “I saw that in the email. That's good, I think that's great!” he cried of the change. “The girls are the athletes in our family. Matty had a daughter up at Oregon on a soccer scholarship, Joe's daughter went to Notre Dame in swimming. One daughter went to Michigan in water polo, and [Tim’s] gonna have a daughter going up to Oregon for lacrosse … and [Matt’s daughter] Kelly played softball at Boise State.”

When asked for any advice he would give to current SHC students, Neil alluded to the pandemic-induced travails experienced by today’s teens. “I'd tell them to enjoy the era they're in, and don't be afraid to hit the books and be as outgoing as you can as you get through it.” He recounted trying times in his own professional career for context. “In 1967, I was the vice principal and we had about 1,200 students in a facility that was built for about 600, then the following year, we had 1,800 in a facility that could handle 600. We had three starting times, three lunchtimes, and three ending times. We went from 7 am until 5 pm every single day. One administration, I was the VP and I handled all the discipline.” Neil paused. “When I left my house in the morning, I had to put my lips up in a smile, force myself to smile, and I said the peace prayer of St. Francis: ‘Lord let me not be consoled but to console, not to be loved but to love.’ I said that every morning, and at the end of the year, I was stronger than when I started the year.” As our nation and world struggle out of COVID, we can look to the perspective of people like Neil Sweeney for guidance. Undeterred by financial chaos and world war, they faced the future with resolve and forged lives for themselves fearlessly, undaunted by what the future might bring. Along the way, these stalwarts passed along not only their wisdom, but the wisdom of those who influenced them. In Neil’s case, this influence was provided by the Brothers at SH and St. Mary’s, and in his lifelong service to youth, these teachings in turn reached new generations. When celebrating the legacy of service represented by Jerry Mahoney and his sacrifice, we should never forget the contributions of those like Neil Sweeney who served a quieter, more day-to-day mission of influencing young peoples’ lives one day at a time.

Neil and Beverly

SHOWCASE

1984

The SHC Theater Department truly reached new heights this fall with its adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984. With its use of set and costume design, lighting, video, and of course, our student actors, Director Spenser Morris and Technical Director Tim Mahoney created an inescapable environment of repression and groupthink. Hats off to the entire cast and crew of this performance and many thanks for making SHC Drama the top program in the City.

SHC ROUNDTABLE

Parent Talk

The Roundtable brings together a cross-section of SHC community members to offer their perspectives on compelling issues. In this edition of The Roundtable, we ask some SHC parents about why their child chose the school as well as their experiences in the community.

WHY DID YOUR FAMILY CHOOSE SHC?

David: SHC has a rich history of being a key contributor within what makes San Francisco such a special city. The school's reputation for providing an excellent education while also developing and nurturing socially and spiritually-responsible young adults was an especially critical reason why we knew SHC was the perfect fit for our daughter. Mailine: We SHC chose because of the diverse community, quality education and the incredible teachers and college counselors. Chris: We chose SHC for the academics, faculty and staff, and competitive sports. Richard: We chose SHC because it’s a great school, and my children were very excited about the wide range of options and opportunities.

HOW HAS SHC EXCEEDED YOUR EXPECTATIONS?

David: While we've only been at SHC as a family for a little over two months, the faculty and staff have been extremely welcoming. Additionally, my daughter is already extremely proud to be part of the SHC community due to how much she enjoys her classes. Mailine: The faculty and staff at SHC are extremely responsive. An email will be responded to often within an hour, but certainly within 24 hours. Chris: The school’s overall communication and level of support has been fantastic.

Richard: Our children have made lifelong friendships and my wife and I have made a number of great friends with other SHC parents and faculty. I am always impressed with the great lessons my children learned in showing empathy and being selfless.

AS A PARENT, HOW DO YOU CURRENTLY CONTRIBUTE TO THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY?

David: I've already volunteered for the Walkathon, Bruce-Mahoney football game and Open House and look forward to becoming even more involved within the community. Mailine: I attend various sports and performing arts events, and I also donate to the various fundraisers. Chris: I participate in the SHC Parents Association and volunteered at Open House. Richard: I currently serve on the SHC Board of Regents.

IF YOU ARE THE PARENT OF AN ALUM, HOW DID SHC PREPARE YOUR STUDENT FOR LIFE BEYOND HIGH SCHOOL?

Mailine: SHC has taught my child to not be afraid of asking questions and following up. Richard: Both of my children are thriving in college. Richie is at San Francisco State University, and Lucie is currently at the University of Washington.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT SHC STUDENT’S EXPERIENCE AT SHC SO FAR?

David: Cassidy looks forward to school each day as she greatly enjoys all of her classes. She's particularly happy with how engaging all of her teachers are. Mailine: It is a second home community for my child. Chris: Overall, his experience has been very good and academically challenging.

WHAT IS YOUR HOPE FOR YOUR STUDENTS AS THEY CONTINUE THEIR HIGH SCHOOL JOURNEY?

David: Our hope for Cassidy is that she continues to learn and develop both as a student and overall person. The SHC community continues to impress us as it's more than just a high school; it's been wonderful to see SHC alumni remaining involved with the community for life. We look forward to seeing Cassidy contribute to the school's rich history and legacy. Mailine: My hope for my child is to discover new interests and to learn and share her talents.

OUR PANEL:

DAVID DRUTZ

Father of Cassidy Drutz ’25

CHRIS THOMAS

Father of Zachary Thomas ’24

MAILINE WONG

Mother of Michael Carriere ’21 & Christine Carriere ’25

RICHARD CUTLER

Father of Richard P. Cutler ’17 & Lucie Cutler ’19