We are partnering with LaHaie’s, an Oregon family-owned business, to make a Catlin Gabel letter jacket. LaHaie’s uses northwest-produced 100% wool fabric. The jackets are manufactured in Portland, and all patches and embroidery are locally made.

LaHaie’s will be on campus with sample jackets on Monday, December 5, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the gym. If you would like to check sizes, they will make note if it for future orders. If you are ready to order now, they can help you.

The jackets come in many different sizes, including children’s sizes for Beehivers.

You may purchase the jacket alone, or add any of the patches listed below.

Base price for letter jacket: $177

Add patches on the front
First and/or last name: $22
Blue varsity letter: provided by student (no charge)
White JV/activity letter: $15
Graduation year: $24

Add patches on the back
Catlin Gabel: $44
Eagle mascot: $85
“Eagles” script: $44

Add sleeve patch only
Tree logo: $39

Sewing patches on: $40

Total for jacket with patches on front and sleeve only: $300
Total for jacket with all patches: $475

Order jackets at LaHaie's Jackets, 503-648-2341
 

Athletic director Sandy Luu came to Catlin Gabel this year from Liberty High School in Hillsboro, where she was AD of their large 5A program. An Oregon native, Sandy previously served as athletic director at Morrison Academy International School in Taichung, Taiwan. Originally a 6th grade language arts and math teacher, she has also taught in Vietnam and China. We caught up with Sandy to find our how things are going for her at Catlin Gabel.

How’s Catlin Gabel treating you?

I have really enjoyed my first few months here. The people are amazing—just as advertised. The faculty and staff really care about the students, and about their colleagues. Everyone is so complimentary of each other’s strengths. They feed off each other in a very positive way. People here told me before I was hired that they love coming to work each and every day. I fully agree.

Tell us about your background and how you became an athletic director.

Sports have shaped my life. Growing up I played as much as I could, even persuading the middle school athletic director to let me participate on the 7th grade team as a 5th grader. In college I played varsity fast pitch softball, basketball, and volleyball, but I love all sports. I have coached basketball, softball, and volleyball. I studied education in college and taught for many years, but started moving toward athletic administration when I was in Taiwan. Coaching coaches and organizing sports really appeals to me. I took classes at Ohio University during summer vacations and earned a master’s in athletics administration.

What is your general philosophy about the role of athletics in schools?

I believe in character-based athletics. Catlin Gabel has a great tradition of winning the right way, and I want to continue this. The character development is paramount; the wins are icing on the cake. Sports are an extension of the classroom and teach lessons about how to be a good teammate and the value of hard work. Athletics builds confidence and self esteem. The skills you learn through sports will help you now and serve you well later in life. Employers look for people who know how to lead as well as people who can be good teammates. They want people who have handled loss and experienced success.

What advice would you offer athletes and their parents who think CG’s high school athletic program is too small for colleges to take notice of a star athlete?

College coaches are looking for one thing: talented athletes. They are not as interested in the size of the school or how well the school team did in recent seasons. They are really looking for potential. Being a talented student-athlete at Catlin Gabel can have a lot of advantages. You can assume a leadership role and have a great chance to earn a starting position. One of the greatest benefits here is personal attention from coaches and teachers.

Is it a disadvantage for outstanding athletes to compete at a small school if they hope for an athletic scholarship?

The advantage you gain at Catlin Gabel is the level of academics. The education you receive here is unmatched. The benefit you will have is in the transcript you provide, along with your athletic résumé. I don’t think people understand how few scholarships are available for Division I and II sports. A fully financed Division I soccer program can offer 9.9 full rides, but they split these up among all of their players (as many as 25 or 30), which leaves some players with very small scholarships. Often, Division III schools are the best places to receive scholarships. These schools don’t offer athletic scholarships, but they routinely give merit awards for academic and other accomplishments. The merit scholarships that private colleges award can be a significant percentage of tuition.

What are some of the differences between being AD at a large school like Liberty HS in Hillsboro and a small school like CG?

Going from nearly 1,400 students to 300 is a big transition. CG’s smaller program is one of the main reasons I applied for this job. I love to work with kids and build relationships with them. In a large school, the athletic director is mainly a scheduler, and most of my time was spent making sure everyone was where they needed to be. At Catlin Gabel, I can get to know the students and make sure all of the coaches are contributing to students’ lives in positive ways. I can have more of an impact.

What have you found most challenging in your new job?

In my past school, I only had high school sports. Here at CG, there are more sports teams at different levels, so have many more balls in the air. Everyone in the PE department and the coaches have been incredibly helpful and supportive. I couldn’t ask for a better group to work with.

How are your sons Trevor (a junior) and Max (a freshman) adjusting?

Catlin Gabel is a great fit for Trevor and Max. They love it here; it reminds them of the school they attended for seven years in Taiwan. They will probably hate me talking about them, but CG has been a huge blessing for my boys. The individualized instruction is unmatched. I just attended my first parent-teacher conferences and was blown away. After just two-and-a-half months their teachers have my boys figured out. I also attended a couple of senior athletes’ conferences, and the general theme from parents was thankfulness. They appreciate the time teachers put into the kids. They know that CG has shaped the people their children have become. I couldn’t ask for more for my own boys.

What have you liked most about Catlin Gabel so far?

The school transforms lives. I have been most impressed by how the faculty treats each student as an individual and how well they know each child’s strengths and weaknesses. Teachers and staff work hard at building relationships with their students daily. I have never seen anything like this at any of the other schools I have worked at. Teachers are interested in many aspects of their student’s lives. It’s impressive to see so many faculty and staff members out watching extracurricular activities. I have also been impressed with the students. They are refreshingly polite, friendly, and selfless. They are always ready to lend a hand and pitch in, whether for service day, or just to help put away sports gear.

» Return to December 2011 All-School News

From the Fall 2011 Caller

NEWS FROM AROUND HONEY HOLLOW

TEACHER NOTES

US Spanish teacher Lauren Reggero-Toledano was one of 25 teachers selected by the National Association of Independent Schools as part of the 2011–12 Teachers of the Future program. Lauren will lead an online discussion forum designed to share innovative ideas and teaching techniques and will create a demonstration video to inspire others. . . . US math teacher Jim Wysocki will present his paper “How Effective Is Your Homework?” at the spring meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, his third presentation at this annual meeting. . . . A robotics tutorial site by robotics program director Dale Yocum has reached 750,000 uses internationally.

CGS STUDENTS IN THE NEWS

The Oregonian profiled Valerie Ding ’15 and her physics project. The project earned her a spot as one of 30 national finalist in the Broadcom Masters middle school competition for science, technology, engineering, and math. . . . Julien Leitner ’16 was featured in an Oregonian op-ed piece about his Archimedes Alliance project, which promotes philanthropy though large numbers of small donations. . . . The Oregonian profiled the Upper School’s PLACE urban studies class partnership with the Alberta Street Main Street project.

STUDENT KUDOS

ATHLETICS AND SPORTS

From the Fall 2011 Caller

By Patrick Walsh

What does a teacher do when nine students have a question at the same time? What should we discuss when we are all curious and excited to learn about differing aspects of a night’s reading? Four times a week we come together in my senior elective, Globalization: Debates and Controversies, and cast our experiences all together in an attempt to make sense of our complex and rapidly changing world. This is what makes Catlin Gabel classrooms so wonderful to watch over: the fact that even as students share insights from a wealth of backgrounds, there is a sense of common purpose.

Upper School history teacher Patrick Walsh has been at Catlin Gabel since 2006. He has taught at Michigan State University, as a Fulbright lecturer in Germany, at Concordia College in Minnesota, and as a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin. He has two children at Catlin Gabel, one in Beginning School and one in Lower School.

From the Fall 2011 Caller

By Hannah Hay-Smith

I lived with an 18-year-old named Mhakbé, who attended the public high school. Every day she walked two miles to her overpopulated school, which consisted of three concrete buildings and a large soccer field. On my first day of school, we had morning track and field. Each exercise was a competition, in which the most and least athletic students in the class were revealed. The most competitive of these activities was the high jump. We jumped, one at time, over the elevated bar and landed on the mat below. If you successfully cleared the bar and stuck your landing, you passed on to the next round. The other students, along with the gym teacher, judged each high jumper. I passed the first two rounds, but in the third round I hit the bar on the way over. The class snickered as I joined the other girls who had already been eliminated. I felt annoyed that the teacher let us be publicly humiliated and realized that no Catlin Gabel teacher would allow our peers to laugh at us, as he did. It was a reminder of the differences between the two schools.

Catlin Gabel now makes it possible, through financial aid funds, for every Middle and Upper School student to participate in at least one global education trip abroad during their years at Catlin Gabel.

From the Fall 2011 Caller

Admission and financial aid director Sara Nordhoff and Knight Family Scholars director Chad Faber chat about admissions, financial aid, and what brought them to their careers. Chad came to CGS from admissions work at Harvard, and Sara’s work in admissions included the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Mt. Holyoke, and Bennington. 

SARA: I grew up in a small fishing village, Damariscotta, Maine, where about half my class went to four-year colleges, mostly to state schools. When I went to Middlebury College in Vermont I received financial aid, and I never would have been able to go without it. I was hoping to spend my junior year at an exchange program at Edinburgh University in Scotland. There wasn’t financial aid available, and I remember conversations with my parents about whether it was really going to be doable for us. We asked Middlebury for assistance, knowing that if they didn’t help it wouldn’t be possible for me to go. And they did help. That was the moment when I realized that my school was really committed to my making the absolute most of my experience there. And that’s what I see as the power of financial aid. There were not a lot of students at Middlebury at that time receiving financial assistance, and I felt at times like the poster child for diversity. I was sensitive because I felt like you could kind of tell who was on financial aid and who wasn’t. If you have a financial aid policy because you’re trying to create the best and most diverse student community possible, you need to make sure your school community is ready to embrace people coming from all perspectives. And it feels to me like Catlin Gabel does a great job of celebrating the individual students for who they are and where they’re coming from—and for what they have to say when they’re sitting around the classroom table. I chose to work in admissions because I love the art and science of it, and I love cultivating a community. The moment when I call families in the spring and say, “You’ve been admitted, and we’re going to make it financially possible for you to come,” is like no other. I think that’s a lot of why I’ve stayed in this field— helping to make those possibilities happen for people.

FINANCIAL AID FACTS