Joe Chadwick '12 is the Mount's head  cameraman

Did you ever wonder who gets those close up shots of the Mount basketball team making a game winning basket with 2 seconds left in the game? Of Mount track athletes running the 400 m relay? These videos and others are on MSG's interactive channel 614, and go to the website MSGVarsity.com, where everyone in the five Boroughs can see recent coverage of games, events and other high school happenings. 

Joseph M. Chadwick '12 is the Mount's main cameraman, and is ALWAYS on the move! Says Joseph, " I do all of the filming for most of the Mount sporting events such as baseball, football, basketball, lacrosse, some track.

I am busy all the time. The teams have me running around with them all the time!"

Joe films pieces, edits them and then sends them to MSG for channel 614 and uploads them to  MSG Varsity.com.

Joseph also films special projects for the Mount, which enables him to be really creative. He has done short videos of the Mount Basketball team playing for the City Championship, a No Smoking campaign for ADAPP, skit videos and other special projects. Joe has been filming since his Junior year in 2010, when MSG visited the Mount and had students write an essay on why they wanted to do filming. 

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For the second year in a row, Mount St. Michael Academy students spent their Winter Break in Newburgh, NY working for a Habitat for Humanity project. 

They carried, sawed, hammered, nailed and painted during the week.  

Newburgh is located in Orange County, New York, about 60 miles north of New York City.  The houses are being prepared for low income families who buy them at cost.

Seventh graders Armando Bunjaj,  Carlos Defreitas and Sean Fairclough explored how fast the brain works to distinguish words and colors

Is bottled water cleaner than tap water? How does a solar-powered battery actually work? How quickly can the brain process words? Why is the sun hot? These and other burning questions were answered by our young scientists at the Mount's annual Middle School Science Fair.

Teacher Carmine Luongo organized the event, which took place on February 17th, with more than 60 seventh and eighth graders participating. Carmine has taught science at the Mount for the last 14 years, and is still as enthusiastic about developing in young minds a curiosity for scientific experimentation as he was when he first started. Carmine graduated from SUNY Cortland with a major in Phys. Ed, and is now getting his Master's Degree in Sport Pedagogy at Manhattan College.

Carmine Luongo

Carmine is one of the key faculty who will be involved in the Mount's new Sports Medicine Academy, to be launched for Grades 9 and 10 in September of 2012. Says Carmine, "Some of the students I have now are interested in entering the new Sports Medicine program. It is a groundbreaking program that will highly distinguish us from other schools that do not have it. We will be setting an academic precedent. This is typical of our motto, ad astra per aspera."

Carmine's students are as strongly curious about science and just as enthusiastic as he is. Says Carmine, "Having an engaging and fun science curriculum now encourages students to become even more interested in science at the high school level." For the most part, Carmine says that kids understand that science is an integral, practical part of their lives.

 MOUNT BASKETBALL TEAM 

HAS STRONG SEASON

The Mount Varsity Basketball season ended with a Class AA semi final loss to Holy Cross High School  55 - 40 at St. John's University. The game was close

throughout with Mount leading by a single point at half time, but the Holy Cross Crusaders played a stifling defense in the second half and pulled out a hard fought and well earned victory.

We at the Mount are very proud of our boys who competed in the Class AA Division for the first time since 1990 and excelled. The team posted an impressive 21-8 record. Making it to the Class AA semi final round for the first time since 1975. The skilled play and  leadership of senior starters, Malik Gill, Omari Manhertz, Anthony Maestre and Edward Correra will be missed, but as always an enthusiastic athletic group of underclassman will carry the mantel of excellent play and good sportsmanship again next year.

Senior point guard standout Malik Gill earned CHSAA All City First Team honors and will play for Dartmouth College next year. Congratulations to Coach Tom Fraher and Coach Tom McKenna for guiding the Mountaineers to another successful season!

The Mount wants to introduce you to our Directory Members, present and past, in order to let you know how much help we have had through the years in continuing the mission of the Mount.

We start with Patrick Harris '75.  

Pat Harris '75 and his daughter Lauren

What was life like for you at the Mount?

My years at the Mount were some of the most important years of my life.  I can look back now and make a clear connection between what I learned and my experiences at the Mount to the person I am today.   The discipline and work ethic that was instilled in all of us prepared me for the next four years of education and rigorous training at the US Military Academy - senior cadets are not as tough as some of the Brothers who taught me!  All kidding aside, the Mount set me up for success. I am grateful that my parents were able to send me and that I had the foresight to value that education at that moment in time.

Can you boil down a lesson from the Marists at the Mount for your professional and personal life?

You will never find a group that is more committed to educating young adults than the faculty at the Mount.  There has always been a clear passion that runs through the teachers there and that made my success possible.   Through the Marist Brothers and the rest of the faculty, I learned that I was responsible for my success, and while they would always be there to help and support me, I was responsible for where the tools they provided me would take me. 

The sky was always the limit. I remind myself of that every day and worked to instill that same kind of drive into my kids. You don't realize the impact these teachers have on your life until later when you can hear them in the back of your mind when you take on a new challenge or are trying to teach someone else.

Why is your Directory service important?

Being a part of the Directory allows me to give back, to be a part of "today's" Mount , and to help mirror the core values of "yesterday's" Mount for the current and future students of the Mount. 

Vince Promuto '56, Dr. Anthony Miserandino and Paul Veteri '56

Mount alum attended a warm reception in Ft. Lauderdale on February 11th, hosted by Vince Promuto '56 and his wife Alexis at the Coral Ridge Yacht Club.

Although the weather was cool, Vince and Alexis made up for it with their warm hospitality!!!  

Brother Leo Sylvius FMS was the first Marist Brother I met when I went to register as a boarder in the fifth grade at Mount St. Michael Academy. With red hair and built a little on the stocky side, he was an imposing figure in his cassock and collar.

I felt a little overawed in his presence and was quite relieved when he accepted me as a student. I think he intentionally cultivated a somewhat intimating attitude when he was playing the role of Brother Principal. 

He appeared to enjoy handing out report cards personally as we waited nervously to find out if we passed or failed. He was very involved in school activities. 

I remember him cheering on the basketball team while chatting with Coach Howie Smith in the "Old Gym." He took a special hand in the construction of the "New Gym". On occasion, he took charge of the daily detention crew of which I would be an occasional member. He would hand us a shovel, march us to some vacant spot on the school campus and tell us that we were digging the foundation to the new gym.  Keep Reading