Leo High School Rookie Teacher/Coach Kimberly Hickey 5'/100lbs of Heart

Lisa Black of the Chicago Tribune visited Leo High School before the Christmas break and witnessed what I have been blessed to see every day - a school that matters to the students it serves.  Leo High School's eighty plus years of service to Church, city and country matters, because the focus is always on the young men who come here to learn.

Leo has been home to legendary teachers like Brothers Finch, O'Keefe, Birmingham and Coogan of the Irish Christian Brothers ( 1926-1990) and lay men and women like Jimmy Arenberg, Bill Hession, Bob Foster, Bob Swazt, Tom Joyce, George Cummings, Nancy Finn, Jay Standring, Jack Fitzgerald, Tom O'Malley,  Aurora Latifi and Mike Holmes.  There are hundreds of others, but I feel safe in saying the people listed are legends. A legend is someone who comes to work for the sake of other people.

Lisa Black spent a great deal of time in the halls of Leo where the unfiltered opinion of young men rings the truth of the old school's motto - Facta Non Verba.  Leo High School, from days of Bob Foster's leadership, never puts on a dog and pony show for visitors, much less for the probitive eyes and clear hearing of a professional news reporter.  In the words of President Dan McGrath, "Leo is what it is."  Leo is a home thick with family.  Dan is the Patriarch, Mike Holmes the protective older brother, Aurora Latifi the matriarchal Lion Queen, Board Member and boxing Coach Mike Joyce The Consigliere and Leo's Director of Development, the proud but crazy uncle who sleeps on the fold-out couch.  Well, I do get here early.   Our students spend the happiest hours of their days here at school.  I open the doors for many of them hours before the start of the class day.

Into this close-knit family stepped a pretty little girl at the end of last July.  Kimberly Hickey is all of 5' tall and weighs-in at a romping stomping 100 lbs,  after a George Foreman All You Can Eat breakfast. Miss Hickey teaches math and coaches boxing with Mike Joyce.  Read Lisa Black's story about a legend in the works.

Lisa Black's wonderful story of Leo's Miss Hickey will appear in the Chicago SundayTribune print edition in the Chicagoland section ( Dec. 29,2013).

The Value of a Season within a Lifetime - Leo Alumni President Rich Furlong '59

Chicago Catholic League Tony Lawless recipient Theodore Hopkins, Jr. and his mother with Coach Mike Holmes. 

Perspective requires focus.  A scoreboard tells the score and only sometimes the story.  Leo High School lost a football  to a great team on Saturday. In fact Leo lost to two other great teams this past season -Mount Carmel and Bishop Mac.  Leo also defeated 10 great teams, especially the last three it faced in the IHSA Class 1-A playoffs.

Saturday's loss to Lena-Winslow was tough.  Tough is what being a Leo Man is all about.  A tough man can take it.

Here are some words from a very tough man - Rich Furlong Leo Alumni President Emeritus and Class of 1959. This is perspective.

Leo A True Winner:I didn't need the newspaper to tell me on Sunday morning that the Leo Lions had lost a football game in the state semifinals. I had witnessed the game in almost sub human weather conditions the day before in Lena Illinois. Lena was the better team on this day and deserved to win the game and for that I congratulate them and wish them the very best in the state finals. However make no mistake about it the Leo Lions are winners. 
Leo Wins, every May when it graduates 100% of it's seniors as it has done for over the last half dozen years.Leo Wins, at the end of it's school year when 93% of it's students proceed on to college or the trade school of their choice.Leo Wins, when men such as Bob Foster and Dan McGrath never forgot where they came from and come back to take on the monumental task of running a school with a legendary history but dwindling enrollment.Leo Wins, when it is determined that ACT scores among Leo seniors are nearly two points higher on an average than the senior averages at CPS top 10 charter schools.Leo Wins, when it's football team with far poorer facilities races thru the football playoffs and reaches the state semi finals against schools with superior facilities. Leo Wins when it's track team which must practice in the hallways wins 8 state track championships again over schools with beautiful outdoor track facilities. Leo Wins when it's basketball team wins one state title and on quarter final finish while playing on a sub sized third floor gymnasium then having to branch out into full size arena's in the playoffs. Leo Wins when every year over 600 graduates turn out for the annual banquet. Every year there are men from over 7 decades at those functions all remembering and reliving their great Leo memories.Leo Wins when it turns out over 260 golfers for their outing arguably one of the biggest in the Chicago land area.
Leo Wins when it was recently learned that the school was in need of buses to bring students into the school. That problem was solved with the initiative of one caring and generous alum and hundreds and hundreds of others who kicked in enough to buy two buses.
Leo Wins, when young men from the track team are invited to the golf outing to sell Leo memorabilia and the spirit fostered amongst these young men and the older, 50,60 and 70 and 80 years old alums is priceless.
Leo Wins every time someone walks into the school and a young student walks up to them and politely extends a hand exchanges a firm handshake, introduces themselves and asks how they can help them.
Leo Wins when times such as yesterday when almost 40 Leo Men took a charter bus and went the 150 plus miles to support the football team. Nothing unusual about that  except half of the men were white and half of the men were African American . The friend ship shared on that bus is unmatched. Leo men do not see black and white Leo men only see Black and Orange.
So in conclusion Leo is a winner , always was , always will be.
I Love Leo High School
Rich Furlong '59 

A Letter to the Leo Lions as They Strive Toward the Football Finals

Leo Men are a special breed. They live and breathe Courage and Commitment/Deeds Not Words.  They are always present, living and deceased; in the neighborhood, or around the globe.  Tomorrow the young Lions will face the Panthers of Lena-Winslow up at the top of the State of Illinois.  It will be fierce cold.

Warming the air will be hundreds of Leo Alums arriving in car caravans, or on the chartered buses leaving from St. Xavier University in Mount Greenwood at 10AM.  These brawny stalwarts packed the stands at each step the Lions' paws scratched toward the IHSA Class 1-A Football Championship.

At a crowded Father Perez Knights of Columbus Hall on Wednesday Night, Alumni Pres. Dan Stecich and the Alumni planned Saturday's trip up-state and to State.

This morning, I found an e-mail sent to President Stecich from a 1960 Leo Grad and West Point graduate.  Read this

From: Roger
Date: November 21, 2013 2:41:19 PM CST
To: Alumni President Dan Stecich
Subject: The LEO Game

I am writing from Richmond, Virginia and I wish that I lived close enough to join with you and other grads.  I would certainly be at the game.  If and when you have the chance, please tell the team and coaches just how proud I am of these LEO men.

In 1962, while a plebe at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, I sat a few yards from General Douglas MacArthur as he gave a speech about "Duty, Honor and Country."  On an earlier occasion, the General had written "Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that upon other fields on other days will bear the fruits of victory."  As with Leo men before them, the young men on this team will move on to careers and families with the strength of character formed with a Leo education and as strengthened on the playing fields.  

Good luck to them in the game and in life.

Roger W. Frydrychowski, Esq.
Leo Class of 1960
Richmond, Virginia

Facta Non Verba!  Go Lions!