They Were, and Are CC

I moved my office at Ford recently, from Livonia to Dearborn. I packed and carried to the new office two or three boxes of personal memorabilia, items toward which I’ve grown increasingly fond of and, as time passes, grow increasingly meaningful to me.

There are objects that my kids made in pre-school, including an odd carved wooden object that Matthew, now 28, made. It reminds me of a dolphin slicing through the water. It has two nails sticking out of it at different angles and when people see it, it serves for me as a kind of weird Rorschach test as they interpret what they see. I never know what they’ll say.

There’s an oversize poster that my daughter Kelly, now 24, created years ago while she was visiting my office. It has the word “Kelly” written several times across it in a free-form style, in different sizes. It’s accented by creative streaks of color slashing through the poster, that play off her name in a je ne sais quoi artistry that I find captivating.

These two items have something in common: an attitude toward life and living that is bold, is fresh, and declares an absence of self-consciousness or of fear.

There’s another item in my office, a group photograph of several young men, which shares these same qualities.

It was taken in July 1997, ten years ago, when my son and his friends graduated from high school. It was toward the end of a graduation party that occurred late in the season for such parties.

The photo was taken at the home of Richie Kostrzewski, one of Matthew’s friends in high school. The party was hosted by Richie’s Mom and Dad.

The photo was taken toward the end of the party, late in the afternoon. It was a hot, sunny day.

The boys, there are 11 of them in the photo, are illuminated by the sunlight, and stand or kneel around some shrubbery accenting the rear of the house, which is immediately behind them.

Above the boys, in the upper center of the photo, is a dark blue flag with large white letters. The flag says, at the top, “Catholic Central.” At the bottom, it says “Shamrocks.”

Separating these sets of words in the middle are two large interlocking white letters that say “CC.” Following the letters is a small symbol of a shamrock.

The flag describes who they are, and provides a little perspective. But it is the boys’ faces and postures that speak volumes about their youth, their confidence and, ultimately, their happiness.

Each is smiling, flashing bright white teeth. Some are laughing. The eyes are sparkling except for the two unfortunate souls who blinked as the camera’s shutter snapped.

 Several of those standing have hands on their hips, boldly proclaiming who they are. Several have baseball caps. Those kneeling in the front are relaxed and comfortable. Again, some are laughing. They’re having a good time.

What looks like a soccer ball rests in the shrubbery, an apt accent for their enjoyment of participation in sports, sparked by the competitive desire that I witnessed burning in each of them for those four years.

The young man in the middle, John Faunce, would leave the party shortly after the photo was taken, to travel with his Dad in their Econoline Van to West Point, where he would graduate as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army four years hence.

The boys (I suppose they always will remain “boys” to me) were and are great friends. They met as freshmen when they ran cross-country and track together, and continued to improve and grow together as athletes and friends through their senior year.

Detroit Catholic Central, often referred to as CC, is an all-boys high school that was founded in 1928 in Detroit, on Harper Avenue near Woodward.  It has had a long history in southeastern Michigan, occupying several different sites in Metro Detroit. It moved a couple years ago from Breakfast Drive in Redford, where the boys went to school, to a brand-new site in Novi.

CC’s motto is “Teach me goodness, discipline and knowledge.” And the Basilian priests who run the school, with the help of lay teachers and staff, take to heart that mission.

My introduction to CC discipline arrived when the boys and their parents had gathered as incoming freshmen at the school for an orientation, and were being seated on the bleachers in the gym.

Matthew didn’t have any friends in Belleville that went to CC. He had made up his mind in the fifth grade, while he went to St. Anthony School in Belleville, that he wanted to go to CC.

In sixth grade, he moved to South Middle School, where he stayed till he left for CC to begin the ninth grade, leaving some good friends that he made at South.

Back in the CC gym, Father Moffatt, the principal, waited patiently at the microphone for everyone to be seated. The boys had been given CC baseball caps saying “Class of 1997” as a token of their initiation into the school, and many still wore the caps as they sat waiting in the bleachers.

Father Moffatt requested that the boys remove their caps as a token of respect for the prayer he was about to say, a benediction toward the incoming freshmen and the beginning of their shared experience for the next four years.

Many of the boys removed their caps at the first request, but a few did not. Father Moffatt returned to the microphone and, in an unmistakable tone, said, “Boys, remove your caps.”

He added, just in case he wasn’t being sufficiently clear as to what the boys and their parents should expect, “At CC, you’ll learn to follow instructions the first time.”

Whoa! He had me from that moment. We later were given a small magnetic sign for our refrigerator door with CC’s phone number and the name of its Vice Principal, Mr. Hayes. One of Mr. Hayes’ duties was student discipline.

 We were assured that, if our boys got out of line in or out of school and we needed a little assistance, that we should simply call Mr. Hayes and he would provide some help.

I don’t mean to suggest that CC was a type of military school, in which discipline ruled all and fear of authority was the watchword.

It wasn’t. In fact, the boys were cut added slack by the administration as they became upperclassmen, as long as they stayed within the behavioral bounds they now understood. Their time at CC often was filled with fun, leavened with academic and athletic standards they were expected and encouraged to achieve.

Imagine if you will the sound of a bowling ball rolling down an empty school corridor. The classroom in which you are sitting shifts suddenly from order to distraction to disorder.

The rolling ball creates a booming sound, a little ominous as it rolls unencumbered along the tile floor, crashing at intervals into lockers and caroming back into the center of the corridor. 

This is among the pranks leading to the annual CC event known as Boys’ Bowl (Get it? Bowling Ball?). The Boys Bowl was begun years ago as an annual football game between CC and Boys Town in Nebraska, as a fundraiser for the boys school founded by Father Flanagan.

The annual game metamorphosed over the years into a football game between CC and a Catholic League rival, and when Matthew attended CC, the opponent was Brother Rice.

CC usually got the better of Brother Rice in those days (not anymore, sadly), but Rice was even then a supremely worthy adversary.

I recall one year where CC was down by three points with less than a minute to go. Its players marched downfield, crossing into Rice territory, but were stopped on third down with just a few seconds left on the clock.

The field goal to tie the game was witnessed by over 3,000 people. It featured a football that floated 50 yards down the field, barely passing above the crossbar, between the uprights.

The CC side in Wisner Stadium in Pontiac erupted in joy and disbelief. Friends, a 50-yard field in high school is a rare thing. And this was and is no less true of CC than other high schools.

Despite this, however, we reminded ourselves that it now was an altogether new game, in overtime. Time in regulation had expired.

But how could the Shamrocks lose the game after such an inspiring finish in regulation? And, as fate would have it, CC won. What a day. What a victory. The picture in my mind’s eye of that day is almost as clear as the picture of the boys at the graduation party.

The boys in the photo never did get into much trouble. Although they loved pranks, they rarely broke the law. In fact, they respected authority - they might just tweak it a bit.

 Over the years, they stood together throughout CC football and basketball games as very involved fans, and delighted especially in exchanging insults across football fields with the aforementioned boys of archrival Brother Rice High School in Birmingham.

“What’s a Shamrock?” the Brother Rice boys would ask from the bleachers on their side of the field, as they taunted their rivals. “Ask your girlfriend,” the CC boys would slyly respond on the opposite side of the field.

At other times, the boys would chant other phrases, including “We Are…CC!” They were and are proud of their shared experience. CC provided the common thread that unites them as they continue their life’s journey as adults.

With pretty young ladies on their arms, they went to proms and homecoming dances, all dressed up, patiently posing for photos happily snapped by their excited parents, especially the Moms.

They have remained great good friends despite changes in their lives in the last decade. They went to different universities, they got different jobs, they have moved out of the state, but still they come together to celebrate big events in their lives as they continue to grow as adults, particularly weddings and the bachelor parties that precede the weddings.

Make that bachelor weekends. The boys have extended the customary hell-raising evening out into a weekend that begins on Friday and ends on Sunday. By that time, they are exhausted and hung over (on one weekend trip, my son claimed to have slept for a total of four hours), often returning home on an airplane.

Many of these events have taken place outside the state, including twice to Las Vegas, and once each to New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Key West.

But, despite the occasional hell-raising, they have grown into adults. Several have married. One, who lives in Arizona, has a child. John Faunce, who lives on an Army base in North Carolina, is a Captain who completed two tours of duty in Iraq.

Another is a dentist. Two are teachers, a few are automotive engineers, and others are in financial careers like mortgage banking. 

And you know what? Their attitudes haven’t changed.

They are confident, they are cocksure, and they are great fun to be with. Despite the confidence, however, there’s a self-imposed limit: they respect others and themselves. The CC motto stuck.

I had the opportunity to join them last year for Matthew’s bachelor weekend in Pittsburgh, because Matthew selected me to be his best man for his wedding.

Matthew selected Pittsburgh for the bachelor weekend because, after having coached there at a couple summer basketball camps after high school, he grew to like the people. Years ago, he told John Faunce, with whom he sometimes coached, that he would return to Pittsburgh for his bachelor party.

 On the bachelor weekend, I was able to keep up with them through Friday night and about 3 a.m. Saturday morning. I got some sleep, but I had to beg off about 9:30 p.m. that Saturday night after dinner, returning to the place where we stayed, where I quietly watched TV, alone. The break from the activity was a blessing - I was gassed.

But it was worth it. I was able to party with them for at least a short while that weekend, and I got to know each of them a little better.

The time that I spent with them helped me to understand more clearly their bond with each other, providing a brief glimpse of their connection, an attachment born in youth, in confidence, and in optimism.

It is captured and kept for all time in that decade-old photo of eleven young men who continue to enjoy a common experience with each other, which helped to make them who they are today.

They were, and are…CC.