Tony Chapman, Holy Ghost Prep alum and longest-serving faculty member, addresses students during Founders Week 2022.
I have been asked to reflect on my years here at Holy Ghost Prep and specifically to address the impact of the Spiritans on our institution.
The first question is how I feel the Spiritans define success? To me Spiritan success is defined by helping people. Often times success is calculated by tangible goals. How did a student do in a test? Did the team win the game? Did the senior get into his college of choice?
But how do you determine success in helping poor people deal with poverty? In helping people overcome sicknesses, deaths in families, broken marriages? Sometimes success in these situations are in GREY areas but often times, in my opinion, success that is immeasurable. Only those who have benefitted from the help of the Spiritans will truly know the impact they have had on them and their families.
Second - What impressed me about the Spiritans I knew at Holy Ghost during my years as a student? In 1968-69, my sophomore year at HGP, I was taught by 6 Spiritans. I had Spiritans for ALL of my classes. At that time, and actually I believe still today, most Spritans are involved in either parish or missionary work -not education. The Spiritans run only Duquesne University and Holy Ghost Prep. They are not educationally centered like the Jesuits or Franciscans. So for those priests to take up teaching high school students when most of them were not greatly trained for what they were asked to do, was incredible. The fact that they did that - saved Holy Ghost Prep. There was much discussion at that time about whether to change Ghost from an apostolic college (really a seminary) to a Prep School OR close the school. The numbers of seminarians was quickly decreasing and the chance of closing was very real. These men took education classes, observed professional educators and worked tirelessly to improve themselves.
I felt that I received a quality education for the whopping total of $500 per year. I can still remember Fathers View, Curtain, Falvey, Kanda, Ketl, and Gallagher. I can remember Fr. Hanley who was the Headmaster of the School and Fr, Brown who was the Dean of Students. I work out of the same office as Fr. Brown.
Fr. Dan last week explained to the Administrators that the term “organized chaos” was used to apply to the Spiritans because of the unusual variety of jobs they have done over the years. I think this aptly applies to my time as a student here. The determination, wisdom and dedication shown by those priests and those since their time are characteristics that I try to emulate and that ALL people should try to emulate.
Finally how do I incorporate the Spiritan ethos into my coaching? We pride ourselves here in our sense of Community. It is something that you feel here and sometimes outside people have a hard time understanding because you have to BE HERE to appreciate it. I have had a number of opportunities to leave HGP both for a teaching or possibly administrative position or coaching position. I have seriously considered some things over the years but when all was said and done I felt - why would I leave an institution that is SPECIAL?
We try to incorporate community into the basketball program as best we can. Coaching is understanding Players, their personalities, what makes them tick and how can I as a coach give a player a solid life experience? Yes, it is nice to have tangible wins but I have never been in this for winning. I have always hoped that our program can teach values and some experiences that will benefit our student-athletes later in life. The tangible number of victories is not nearly as important as a former player coming back tosay thanks for the help as I was growing up in high school. That is what i have learned from the Spiritans and I will always be grateful for their impact on my life.