Directness of Purpose

My first year of high school was spent at a small private all-boys boarding school tucked away in space and time along the western edge of Connecticut—a place called South Kent.

We called it, "The Hillside." I was a midfielder on our lacrosse team, point guard on our basketball team, and running back on our football team. Our Freshman class had about 20 boys total. We were called, "Third Formers" and we all lived together.

Each one of us had to play multiple sports in order to represent our school across Northern New England high school athletics. There was no such thing as a "JV," or "Varsity," team. Anyone who could play, from any level of the school, played. We played sports against other schools like Choate (where JFK, the 35th President of the United States attended) The Hotchiss School, and NYMA (the New York State Military Academy).

At the time, these schools were all 2 to 3 times our size, in terms of total student population. South Kent had just over 150 boys in attendance, including me.

The school itself was founded in 1923, and the Head of School while I attended was a man named George Hodges Bartlett. A former Air Force pilot and the school biology and latin teacher, Bartlett was South Kent School's 3rd-ever Head of School. His father, Samuel Bartlett, was the school's founder. And a majority of the student body were descendants and relatives of South Kent School alumni.

I received an art scholarship to attend the school, and my art teacher was Ms. Morse—a relative of Samuel Morse, developer of the Morse Code system. All of our teachers lived on the premises of the school, along with their families. It was an amazing place.

There were many solid lessons learned, and I owe a great deal of gratitude to the school for having taught me so much while there. As I look back on my time at South Kent, I have nothing but great memories of the many people I grew up with, and the many things done and learned on the Hillside.

Waking up at 6:50 on a cold, snowy morning to run up the hill, dawning my winter coat, boots, and pajamas, to ring the school's bell by 7am to wake the rest of the school and start the day.

Weekend hikes around the school's hills and ponds, picking fresh mint leaves along the way. The fireside chats with George Bartlett and visiting alumni, goofing around in Chapel during evening services before dinner, and of course that dreadful memorization of the Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales;

Whan that April with his showres soote

The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veine in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flowr;

Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breethe

Inspired hath in every holt and heethe

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye

That sleepen al the night with open ye--

So priketh hem Nature in hir corages--

Thanne langen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seeken straunge strondes

To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende

Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende,

The holy blisful martyr for to seeke

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke

(I still can not believe that this is actually the English language...)

If you ask anyone who has ever gone to South Kent School to recite the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, you'd better duck. You needed to memorize it, then stand before your classmates to recite it, when your time came to do so. It was the only way to gain your rite of passage into the South Kent School, especially amongst the elder classmen.

South Kent School's guiding principles, its core values, include what is known as the Trinity of Values; Simplicity of Life, Self-reliance, and Directness of Purpose.

Simplicity of Life requires us to embrace simplicity, and focus on what truly matters in life.

Self-reliance gives us the skill and confidence needed to navigate life’s challenges with resilience and grace.

Directness of Purpose empowers us to pursue goals with determination and integrity, guided by a commitment to making meaningful contributions to the world.

The lessons throughout the day would often weave their way around the trinity of values at South Kent. Even the most forgetful of us recognized the many reminders of the school's guiding principles.

For that year, all seemed right.

All seemed well.

I worked hard, tried to learn my latin, and laughed a lot.

But it was the school's motto, "Directness of Purpose," that would become the very basis for my decision to leave the South Kent School. As my own goals began to take shape, I remember not just wanting to be a good student, but also a great athlete. Those of us who matriculated from South Kent could expect to attend the Ivy League schools; Yale, Princeton, and Brown which seemed to be the most popular destinations for us.

However, being a good student was not my foremost goal because I felt at that time that being a good student was only natural, given the requirements needed to become a top athlete within a Division 1A school. You HAD to be a good student. My goal, my directness of purpose, was to become the best football player on Long Island by the time I was ready to graduate from High School. And this could never be realized or achieved from the Hillside at South Kent. My fear at the time was that it could never become a reality for me if I chose to stay. I felt like I was a spectator within an arena where I needed to be on the field of competition in order to achieve my goal.

I left South Kent to go to a large, competitive public high school, just one block away from our home on Long Island.

South Kent today, has an amazing legacy of professional hockey and basketball alumni, but football was eliminated by my former coach, and the schools 7th Head of School, John Carnochan Farr. Coach Farr was another great teacher and coach, but most importantly, he was an even greater man.

I enjoyed every minute of my time at South Kent. My directness of purpose navigated me away from the very school and people who taught me how to live it. I moved onward to reach that goal to become the best football player on long Island. And by my senior year, I reached that goal. Achieving it paved the way forward to new and greater opportunities, thanks to the Trinity of Values and the guiding principles of a very special school that was filled with some of the most humble overachievers in the world today.

As players, coaches, coworkers, friends, and parents, we all have our own ways of pursuing our directness of purpose in life.

I wish you the best in your pursuit.

Thank you South Kent School.