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Upper School soccer, volleyball, and cross-country practices begin August 23
Join an Upper School Athletic Team
We encourage all students to join a Catlin Gabel team. Each year a number of students, particularly freshmen and sophomores, hesitate to come out for sports, believing they are too inexperienced to participate. Our no-cut policy allows for everyone to participate. We provide great opportunities for students to give new sports a try. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. We hope to see you on August 23, when preseason practice begins for soccer, volleyball, and cross-country.
If you have questions about Catlin Gabel athletics, please call Mike Davis, athletic director, at 503-579-4909 or 503-961-4037 (cell).
Upper School Athletics 2010-11 Preseason Schedule
Soccer, volleyball, and cross-country preseason practice begins on Monday, August 23. For conditioning, skill development, and team organization, athletes planning to participate in the first fall contests are required to attend preseason practices. Athletes missing practices or arriving after the starting date will be withheld from competitions until they have completed nine practices.
Once classes begin on September 2, practices are after school from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. There is no practice on Labor Day.
Boys' Soccer
Monday, August 23 – Friday, August 27, 8:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Monday, August 30 – Wednesday, September 1, 4:30 – 7 p.m.
Head Coach: Mike Davis, 503-579-4909
Girls' Soccer
Monday, August 23 – Friday, August 27, 5:30 – 8 p.m.
Monday, August 30 – Wednesday, September 1, 5:30 – 8 p.m.
Head Coach: Mark Lawton, 503-777-6324
Girls' Volleyball
Monday, August 23 – Friday, August 27, 4 – 7 p.m.
Monday, August 30 – Wednesday, September 1, 4 – 7 p.m.
Head Coach: Chris Snelling, 503-494-0238
Cross-Country
August 23 – August 27
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 9:30 a.m.
Head Coach: John Hamilton, 503-645-7198
Students should have their own footwear properly broken in by the opening day of practice to avoid blisters. Wear athletic clothes suitable for the weather. Soccer players should bring water bottles to carry with them to the field. It is wise to start some conditioning well before August 23 in order to build fitness gradually. This will help avoid muscle soreness and injuries. Please call Mike Davis or the head coach if you have any questions.
All emergency procedure forms signed by a parent must be turned in before the first day of practice. These forms were mailed in May, for you to update. Also, all 9th and 11th graders must complete the pre-participation physical examination with their physicians and turn in the required paperwork before the first day of practice. State law requires the school to have the forms on file before students may practice. The forms were e-mailed in May, and are available in PDF format on the website on the Upper School and the Athletics main pages. Please call the Upper School office at ext. 318 if you have any questions about the forms.
Catlin Gabel News Spring 2010
From the Spring 2010 Caller
AMAZING AWARDS IN SCIENCE
Yale Fan ’10 and Kevin Ellis ’10 both won top honors and $50,000 each by coming in second place with all-around prizes in the recent Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. This was the first time ever that two winners have come from the same school. Yale has also won a place on the 20-member 2010 U.S. Physics Team, and he placed ninth at the Intel Science Talent Search in Washington, D.C., earning him a $20,000 award for his research on the advantages of quantum computing in performing difficult computations. Kevin was also one of the 40 Intel STS finalists in Washington, D.C. and won a $7,500 award. At this year’s international Northwest Science Expo, Kevin Ellis ’10, Rose Perrone ’10, and Vighnesh Shiv ’11 each won special awards from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Rose also came in second place in electrical and mechanical engineering. Yale won first place in physics and astronomy and several other awards. Brynmor Chapman ’10 won statewide second place in biochemistry, and Lucy Feldman ’10 won statewide honorable mention in animal sciences. Kudos to all!
NEWS FROM AROUND HONEY HOLLOW
Catlin Gabel was selected by Oregon Business magazine as one of the 100 Best Green Companies to Work For in Oregon, honoring the school’s variety of green policies and the high value its employees places on sustainable practices. . . . An article by facilities director Eric Shawn, “Catlin Gabel School—a Focus on Food,” was published in the May 2010 inaugural edition of the Journal of Sustainability Education. . . . PLACE director and urban studies teacher George Zaninovich was nominated by the Coalition for a Livable Future for the Robert L. Liberty Regional Leadership Award for his significant contributions to Portland’s livability. . . . . The Oregon Athletic Coaches Association named Lerry Baker the girls track coach of the year and John Hamilton the golf coach of the year for 2009. . . . This year’s diversity conference in April offered a wide variety of workshops on issues that included homeless youth, blindness, race and American popular music, Southern African cultures, immigration, political diversity, masculinity, worldwide access to technology, and contemporary religious practice. The day was capped with performances by the Jefferson Dancers and the Maru-a-Pula Marimba Band from Botswana.
FESTIVE GAMBOL BRINGS IN GREAT SUPPORT FOR FINANCIAL AID
Thanks to enthusiastic bidders, donors, volunteers, and supporters, the celebratory 2010 Gambol auction at The Nines hotel raised $345,000. Derrick Butler, M.D.
’86 brought the crowd to its feet when he spoke at a special appeal for financial aid. Many thanks to co-chairs Gina Wand and Heather Gaudry Blackburn ’90 (right).
’86 brought the crowd to its feet when he spoke at a special appeal for financial aid. Many thanks to co-chairs Gina Wand and Heather Gaudry Blackburn ’90 (right).OUTSTANDING SERVICE WORK
Middle School students, staff, and families contributed 1,152 pounds of food to the Oregon Food Bank for Project Second Wind. . . . The Upper School Environmental Club raised enough funds through sales of smoothies and baked goods to help provide 641 Iraqi students with clean, safe drinking water through Water for Peace.
KUDOS TO OUR STUDENTS
Mariah Morton ’12 jumped 18 feet at track and field districts to break the school long jump record set by Wendy Miller Johnson ’68 in 1968. . . . The Upper School mock trial team won its third state championship competing against high schools many times our size. . . . Cody Hoyt ’13 won an Oregon Driver Education Center video contest about safe driving with a spoof of the Old Spice commercial. . . . The Flaming Chickens robotics team won the regional Chairman’s Award this year, the highest honor. They also won the Innovations in Controls award at the Colorado regional competition.
For their senior prank, the community-minded class of 2010 converted the Upper School quad to a petting zoo for the young ones
The Little Things and the Big Thing About Baseball
By Chris Potts
From the Spring 2010 Caller
The argument that “baseball is a game of little things” is, to me, unassailable, as is the philosophy that high school sports should be used as vehicles to teach students lessons that can carry them through the rest of their lives. Holding these truths in tandem, you quickly realize that the avenue to reach these larger lessons is to build a cohesive team, a community of ballplayers. Unfortunately, there’s no handbook for this, there’s no one way to do it. Just like baseball, it’s putting all of the little things together in the right way.
When I interviewed for this job, I was told, “Baseball at Catlin Gabel is on life support.” But when I first met the team, I realized that they were a great group of young players who needed somebody to give them some discipline, some foundation.
We’re not a winning program. In my five years at Catlin Gabel, we’ve lost many more games than we’ve won. It’s not even close. I would argue, however, that we’re an extremely successful program. Each year, this group of students comes together. We’ve grown in numbers every year. Our baseball team is an inclusive and incredible, albeit unique, community.
What follows isn’t that elusive handbook for team-building. It’s a look at a few of the little things that we’ve done together.
Each year I choose a theme around which to build our team mentality. The theme for our first year was “Building Something We Can Be Proud Of.”
When we won our first game, I worried that our players were so excited that they’d offend the other team. Then again, when you haven’t won a baseball game your entire high school career, wouldn’t you jump up and down and scream when you got your first “W?”
February 26—Manhood—Outside the gym, after practice, I pull one of the new players aside. He’s been struggling this week. He’s a good player (we’d say, “he’s got a lot of upside”), but we need to rebuild some of his fundamentals. He’s also never had to work this hard, physically, ever.
There’s a big transition between middle school sports and high school varsity athletics. We’ll be playing against 200-pound gorillas looking to play in college. Wrestlers. Linebackers. The kid I’m talking to is 14 and could probably make the scale hit 140 if I handed him a 20-pound dumbbell.
We do a lot of physical conditioning. The younger players typically take some time to adjust. During this physical adjustment period, the boy I’m talking with has lost all accuracy with his throwing. We’d say “he couldn’t hit the ground if he dropped the ball.” I’ve been playing catch with him during warm-ups to protect the other players. I’ve seen tears well up in his eyes during three of these first four practices. Time for a chat.
At one point in the conversation, I say, “This is why I love baseball, because you can learn lessons through the sport that you can apply to the rest of your life. Right now you need to learn to make the adjustment from 8th grade baseball to high school baseball. Just like how you’re making the transition from 8th grade academics to high school academics. In both things you’re going to have to get tough, you’re going to have to work harder than you’ve ever had to before and you’re going to have to learn to control your emotions. I think you can do it.”
I do think he can do it. I need a #3 starter.
During my second year, the theme was “Playing the Game with Class.”
March 1—Playing in the Mud—It’s still a little wet to be using the whole field, but we need to put in defense and relays as soon as possible. The first game is two weeks away. The field is still holding too much water.
The players circle around the third base cutout, and we talk about the geography of our field. There are three layers. First, there’s the soil underneath everything. That’s what the grass grows out of. Surrounding the bases, there’s a layer of clay that builds the foundation for the cutouts. On top of that is a top-dressing. I explain to the players that this stuff is baked at like 5,000 degrees so that it becomes porous and can absorb three times its weight in water. This, I believe, is the science portion of baseball.
We squat around the perimeter of the cutout, grabbing chunks of clay that we’ve churned up during defense and conditioning, and rolling them into balls. When we’ve grabbed the biggest chucks, I have the players throw them so that I can lay them out for one of my captains to tamp back into the clay foundation.
One of the sophomores says, “I get to throw mud at my baseball coach.” I’m not too fond of how this sounds, but I don’t think I can argue with him.
The theme of my third year was “Learning to be Competitive.”
We drive a long way to get to some of the games. To the Pacific Ocean, literally. The team was shocked when I instituted the no-headphones, noelectronics, human-interaction-only rule. “Why can’t we listen to our iPods?” The answer was no.
In deference to my totalitarianism, a group of students began singing on the bus rides home. They got very into it, going so far as to print out lyrics.
It was awful: adolescent boys screeching the lyrics to Britney Spears, NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys. It was an assault on human musical aesthetics. It was the sound of my group of boys coming together. It was music to my ears.
The dynamics always change after our first road trip.
During my fourth year, our theme was “Working as a Team.”
Close to the deadline for this article, I get an email from a former player. He’s hoping to be in town and catch the end of a Friday double-header. I want him to come to the game, to cheer us on, and for the younger players to realize that they’re a part of something bigger than the second game of a double-header.
This year’s theme is “Respect for the Game.”
April 26—Heart—An unusually large wet-weather system has rolled in. We’re in the gym, hitting practice balls, tennis balls, softies, and whiffles. We’re looking ahead at the season: 8 tough games in 11 days. The arms are ready. Though we’re having difficulty getting on base, I’m fielding the best defense in my time at Catlin Gabel. We’ve seen each of the teams in our league. We know we’re the underdogs, but there’s a palpable sense that we can put it all together and make a run at the playoffs. I’d say our biggest asset is our cohesiveness. This team is all heart.
Chris Potts is an outdoor education teacher at Catlin Gabel and is in his fifth year as the head baseball coach.
Boys golf team advances to state after winning sixth consecutive district title
Congratulations, Eagles!
Catlin Gabel won the district title at a two-day tournament at Quail Valley in Banks. Individual honors include league MVP for senior Matt McCarron, first-team all league honors for junior Philip Paek and freshman Conor Oliver, and second team all-league honors for sophomore James Furnary, and co-coach of the year for John Hamilton.
The Eagles established several records on their way to state. In round two the team recorded Catlin Gabel’s lowest 18-hole score of 311 breaking last year’s 315. Combined with the day one score of 330 the team achieved a new 36-hole record of 641, eclipsing last year’s 658 record. Matt McCarron shot a sizzling 69 on day two beating the previous record held by Gary Coover ’00, who shot a 71 at the 2000 state tournament.
Sophomore Mariah Morton breaks CG's longest standing track and field record
Mariah jumped a whopping 17 feet, 2 ½ inches at the Lake Oswego Classic to break the school record set by Wendy Miller Johnson '68 in 1968. Mariah came in second at the meet.
An Eye on the Goal
Longtime soccer player Eric Watson '93 is now an award-winning coach
From the Winter 2010 Caller
By all accounts Eric Watson ’93 was a superb athlete at Catlin Gabel. But he knows he didn’t just go it alone, and that great coaches make great players. Now it’s his 
turn. A teacher and soccer coach since his college days, Eric loves working with his student athletes to realize their potential to become better players—and better people.
turn. A teacher and soccer coach since his college days, Eric loves working with his student athletes to realize their potential to become better players—and better people.Eric had some fine role models at Catlin Gabel. “Mike Davis, Brian Gant, and John Hamilton were always there to inspire, instruct, and occasionally discipline me if my competitive desire got the better of me,” he says.
Eric concentrated on mathematics for his undergraduate degree from Williams College, and earned his master’s in leadership and sports administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. During summers he coached at Mike Davis’s soccer camps, which led to a job teaching and coaching at a private boy’s school in Connecticut. After a year there, Eric got an invitation from his coach at Williams: would he consider coaching there, at an 85 percent pay cut, with no benefits? “I jumped at the opportunity,” he says.
That opportunity paid off for Eric. He moved on from Williams to a coaching job at the University of Richmond, then finally got his big break: the position of head men’s and women’s soccer coach at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. “I was fortunate enough to have a very talented and dedicated group of players,” he says. The team advanced to the NCA tournament twice during his five years there, and Eric was voted Coach of the Year in 2005.
Another great chance came his way, and although he had loved being back in Oregon, Eric moved to New Paltz, New York, where he is now the men’s soccer coach at SUNY New Paltz. He lives there with his wife, Paola Gentry, and their children, Aracely, 7, and Oliver, 4. He also serves as assistant coach with the United States Under-23 Women’s National Team.
Eric says it’s never felt like a job to him to make a living in soccer, a game that has always been his great passion. “I feel that I can show my players how to best approach a passion of theirs, whether it is athletic or academic, and then use my position as a coach to help them reach their goals,” he says.
“The challenge of trying to make my players, my team, and the overall program better keeps me going back, day after day. Certainly there are days, especially after a loss, that make going back more difficult, but as long as there are still games to be played the team can improve and we go back to work. In the end the real job I have done won’t be measured in the four years I have direct contact with my players, but in 5, 10, or 15 years after they leave the school and forge their lives out in the world.”
Interests, Passions, Magnificent Obsessions: Soccer player & scientist, 5th grade
From the Winter 2010 Caller
Passions: soccer, science
“Soccer’s great because you can socialize and make new friends. It relieves stress and helps you to not burn out and get tired in the rest of your life. I started playing classic soccer late this summer. It’s a more competitive form of soccer that’s played mostly year round, and all outdoors in all seasons. We do two practices a week after school. We have a game on Saturday,
and sometimes on Sunday. I really, really love it.Two friends and I were playing recreational soccer and we switched to classic soccer. It’s more physical and more demanding. The coaches train us hard on all the skills, like shooting, passing, and defense.
I also love science. When I grow up, I want to be a brain surgeon and fix things when people have problems. I’m interested in the brain because it uses up the most energy in the body, and it controls everything.
At home my mom is teaching me Japanese, and it’s hard. I’ve also been taking Chinese for four years. Learning Japanese makes Chinese easier because the characters came from Chinese, and the sounds are similar. We visit Japan most summers, and it’s fun. I speak Japanese with my relatives, and I’m pretty comfortable with it. By being with relatives I get to see the whole culture.
Having something you like is good for you. It makes life easier and more enjoyable.”
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