Viking Voice

A Message from Our Principal

Dear Families,

1) I have fond memories of playing CYO basketball back in the day. Our home gym featured wooden backboards and doubled as a cafeteria. The floor was hard tile with zero coats of wax on it. This made jump stops, hard pivots, or any abrupt change of direction an act of prayer to the gods of traction. Everyone's salivary glands were overworked from all the spit we applied to the bottoms of our shoes to keep from sliding. 

Our squad was pretty good, but we could never get past the powerhouse team featuring some of the best players in the city. One of those guys even went on to play in the NBA. 

The most imposing thing about this team was their height. Sure, they were skilled too, but not to the point of totally outclassing us. But the rebound advantage they had was obscene, and our ability to get off shots was limited by their size and smothering wingspans. 

After every loss, I remember thinking about what combination of plays, or what sequence of moves, could help neutralize their advantages. I always imagined it was some medley of baseline spin moves and reverse layups that was going to be the magic potion. It was not.

But that really isn't the point. My walk down memory lane is more about remembering the life lessons I learned from youth sports. 

In celebrating the success of our girls basketball teams this past week, we challenged the students to think of the virtues they have honed by playing sports. Some of the answers:

-humility

-fortitude

-self-control

-discipline

-justice

-selflessness

On the wall outside the Queen of Peace gym is a poster promoting the higher purpose of our athletic programs. The message summary is that the gym is just another classroom where our kids learn how to be good Christian disciples. 

2) Hang tight for another day or two on the Spirit Olympics schedule for Friday.

I will share that schedule, along with Holy Spirit Team info, so that you can time your arrival to whenever your student's team is scheduled to compete. 

No....you are not required to come for the action, but you are invited!

3) If you have been following the local headlines, you are aware of the cuts being implemented next year in the Hamilton City School District. Over the last couple weeks, I have heard a lot of people share opinions on the issue. 

My purpose in mentioning the plight of our Hamilton City Schools is not to wade into the debate over how this happened and what can be done about it. The district has already shared detailed info with the public and mapped out the game plan for adapting to their situation.

Instead, my purpose is to express solidarity with the educators in the HCSD. It is never a good thing for a community when its school district has to lay off staff and close schools to survive. This is not a statement of implied blame. It carries no subtext. It's just a fact. We all benefit when our public schools are strong. 

I also think that Hamilton benefits from its healthy Catholic schools. I haven't done a careful analysis of Catholic school closures over the last generation, but I think Hamilton may be an outlier in still having almost all of its legacy Catholic schools still in operation through the challenges of deindustrialization and demographic change. 

I am saying all of this because I don't want the narrative to be that Catholic schools and public schools can't be strong together. The success of one does not require the failure of the other. A political environment that defines proper and proportional niches for both systems is the ideal. 

To be more specific, the question in Ohio seems to be whether EdChoice is hurting public schools. More on this at a later time.

Christ in Self. Christ in Other. 

Sincerely,

Josh

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