Mr. Glennon, Father Van Dyke, Dr. Maginnis, friends, family, and the Prep Class of 2025, good morning.
Back in March when he heard I was writing a draft for the commencement address, Connor Lee asked. “You know who gave the first Prep graduation speech? George Washington, so don’t mess this up.”
Turns out, as Dr. Ochs has since informed me, this is NOT true. George Washington did deliver a speech at Georgetown College, but it was not Prep’s first graduation speech. But Connor, the story does sound very good.
That night I sat down, pushed the change sitting on my desk to the side, opened up my computer, and got as far as the heading before I hit writer’s block. I glanced over at a quarter sitting near the edge of my desk, and the face of George Washington himself looked at me like, “You are way in over your head.” I flipped it over and noticed the inscription above the eagle’s head: e pluribus unum. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of sitting through a Mr. Danver Latin class, this translates to “Out of many, one.”
There is perhaps no better phrase to describe our class.
I want everyone to flashback four years and one month ago. To April 2021. The day our class first gathered together on our Welcome Day. I remember congregating in the George with my middle school friends before Mr. Graham told us, “All right, split up, Mater Dei kids. You’re gonna have to meet new people at some point, might as well be today.” It’s true, most of the kids were huddled together in their middle school friend groups. But Mr. Graham’s instructions motivated me to walk up to some unfamiliar faces.
One of those faces was Patrick McDonough’s, who was then just the “really good basketball player” I had heard about. Little did I know Pat would end up becoming the Vice President of the Yard, one of the most visible members of our class, and one of the first people to hear this speech. I also met Ethan Oeltmann, whom Mr. Graham introduced as “the kid whose dad flies the president’s helicopter.” Since then, I’ve spent much time with Ethan, not only in ice rinks but also in Mr. Wisecarver’s office for what Mr. Wisecarver dubs as “AP Paper Sorting.”
The welcome day sowed the seeds for our next four years.
You remember those first few weeks of freshman year? Putting on a tie and a blazer every day? (Trying not to lose that blazer, sorry mom and dad.) Seven classes and three hours worth of homework? Struggling through Wordly Wise words while learning a language that predates the time of Christ? And then two hours of practice or rehearsal or other extracurriculars? The Prep school day rocked our world.
But we plowed through it together. We reviewed each other’s essays, which were hard to read due to all the red ink. We facetimed each other to review key dates and figures in Western Civ. On the freshman football team, we hung together every day in practice, sprinting to that oak tree right over there when Coach Long yelled, “Oakie.” And what about that first homecoming football game? Clad in pink for breast cancer awareness, our class enjoyed its first of MANY wins against that school on Wilson Lane. Those first few months tested us, but they also brought us together. And by the end of freshman year, we had left middle school behind, embracing Prep and everything it has to offer.
Sophomore year brought its own challenges. We struggled through the guessing game which is a multiple choice question in Mr. Poole’s World History class. Many resident students began a fourth language because three was certainly not enough. Some new faces came into the fray as well, like Anwar Charvel and Collin Willard. And who can forget seeing Wyatt Bowman the first time and thinking, “There is no way that kid is a sophomore.” A lot of us started our own endeavors at Prep. Josh Deruso found his passion with the Investment Club, eventually becoming president of the club and making it one of the most active on campus. Jack Mundy started his Prep food ratings, which Emonn is still banned from after giving steak and cheese a 9.5/10.
That year brought our first Friday night football game in the new stadium, which did not yet have a student section at the time. Remember storming the new turf for the first time? Remember that homecoming win against St. Albans? Remember the pop of the crowd after Dominic Desarno’s touchdown catch right in front of the student section?
Sophomore year brought our first homecoming dance, our first time stepping on varsity fields, courts, tracks, or ice rinks, our first major roles in musicals and plays, and our first retreat, which included both a three hour stay at Royal Farms and Chase Donahue’s infamous swim in the Potomac River. And–of course–we culminated the year by beating Landon in lacrosse in the IAC Championship, cementing the legacy of one of the most talented lacrosse teams ever. Through it all, we laughed and smiled and sometimes even cried. Our friendships were evolving into the bonds of brotherhood. And boy would we need this for the upcoming year.
Ask any current Prep student or alumnus what the hardest year is, and they will answer, “Junior year.” The five-day school week (or six days in the case of Dr. Ochs’s students) served as a gauntlet that year. A lot of us took numerous AP or Honors classes, played 2 seasons of sports or participated in multiple plays for Prep, played a club sport on top of that, and joined or led a few clubs. Whether it was memorizing tens of pages of notes for APUSH, banding together through Beowulf and Macbeth, or just trying to figure out what was going on in physics, that year was a grind. It drained us, most notably of sleep. But like freshman and sophomore year, it strengthened our class as well.
Much of that strength came from Kairos, a four day respite from school time to “God’s time”. Think back for a second to that one night. It was there–in that dark room–we realized what all this talk of brotherhood truly means.
We brought this energy back to school. Jake Phllips led English review sessions for the freshmen. Luke Raffo spent hours helping the sophomores struggle through Geometry. Manny Villegass packed his car to the brim with underclassmen who needed rides to away games. Dillon Moneypenny organized a joint charity dinner with Landon’s hockey team to support the Shoulder Check Initiative; the next day, both teams and their supporters united in taking the Shoulder Check Pledge–the pledge to reach out, check in, and make contact–resulting in one of the most beautiful, heartfelt moments any of us have experienced.
Finally: senior year. The added stress of college admissions makes the fall of Senior year hectic. But with every pass caught by Akeem Clark, every line by Andy Kim, every joke made by Grant Wu, every STX unboxing post from Patrick Kelly, every painting by James Morales, every note hit by Nick White or Joe Hoeymans or Matt Bowers, every Instagram reel sent by Alex Gutierez, every “fundamentals” and “we love lacrosse” chant, and every hand to help a brother up, our class persevered the same way it always does: together.
Our accomplishments from this year alone are remarkable. Next fall, members of our class will attend prestigious universities around the globe. Over 30 members of our class are committed to play NCAA Division One Sports. We brought home IAC titles in football, swimming, hockey, golf, and baseball; lacrosse secured an overtime Jesuit Classic win in lacrosse over Gonzaga AND–upsetting everyone on I Street– rugby defeated Gonzaga.
More impressive and in keeping with our Jesuit mission is our service to communities around us. During our time here, Andrew Hall’s foundation Assist Goals has packaged and delivered over 3500 “Stay Warm” packages to the DMV’s homeless population, providing comfort and warmth to the most vulnerable among us during the winters. Joseph Yung founded the Georgetown Prep Red Cross Club, which has hosted five blood drives over the past three years, collecting 250 pints of blood and saving an estimated 750 lives. Our year’s recipient of the Gregory F. Gannon Award for service, Jack Fojut, has inspired his classmates and dedicated countless hours to The Be Good Project, Families4Famillies, the Katy’s Kloset Medical Equipment, Lending Library, Martha’s Table, Christ Child Society, and Arlington Neighbors Welcoming Afghans.
Last summer, we displayed our commitment to justice through our service projects. We built homes in the Dominican Republic; Ivanhoe, Virginia; and Bethlehem Farms, West Virginia. We tore down fences and organized a Church picnic for the locals on Flathead Reservation in Montana. We cooked breakfast for the homeless in L.A. and Philadelphia. We helped underserved kids in school in Guatemala. We learned about the intricacies of immigration and interacted with migrants and border patrol in El Paso. Immersing ourselves in these communities highlighted the difference between being a man FOR others and a man WITH others. Between helping from the OUTSIDE versus helping from the INSIDE.
Our time together is waning. As we leave this beautiful, 90 acre campus today, let’s not forget the work we have done and the work still left to be done to make the world a more just place. Now, the opportunity of a Prep student transforms into the responsibility of a Prep graduate. To quote Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: “For everyone to whom much is given, for him much will be required.” Undoubtedly, we have been given much. So what is required of us? What is the responsibility imparted on us as members of this Jesuit, Catholic school? The Book of Micah offers an answer: “only to do justice, to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.” This is what we are called to do as men for and with others.
We must also accept the hard truth that the world we’ll be entering next year looks quite different from our world here at Prep. We’re leaving behind our homes for dorm rooms. We’re leaving behind our parents and families, who for eighteen years have driven us everywhere, who have attended games, recitals, and ceremonies, who have wanted to know every little detail about our day (which we’ve almost NEVER given them), and who have sacrificed so much for us to walk across this stage today. And we’re leaving the people we’ve seen every day for four years. I’m certain that each member of our class can think of the teachers, the coaches, the dorm parents whom they can approach with anything, whether during the school day, after a practice or rehearsal, or at one in the morning in the dorms. Too many times, we did not notice what you were doing for us, but to all of you who have impacted us, thank you for helping us get to this day and to what comes next.
Because the world out there looks scary. It’s a world plagued by war, poverty and uncertainty, a world filled with egos, selfishness, and ever-growing problems. I’m sure many of you are nervous about leaving this place and venturing into that uncertain world. There will come times when you will feel like you are not ready for it, like the mountain is just too hard to climb, like you are alone. But you are not alone.
Let me tell you why.
One of the great gifts of leading Kairos 95 last October was getting to know Father Sauter better. I never had Father Sauter as a teacher. Since October, though, every time I pass him in the hallways of George, we talk. And a few weeks ago, I reached out to him to speak about our class.
Father describes our class as a team. He notes how the best teams possess one common quality: Each player values the team’s success far more than having his name in the paper. And he believes our class embodies that mindset as well. We celebrate each other’s victories and are there for each other when we need help and advice. In Father’s words, “we care about each other.”
And that’s why we are not alone.
And that’s what makes Prep so special. It’s not just the rigorous academics or the pomp of opening night at a musical or the banners hanging up in the Hanley. It’s the laughter in every classroom, the camaraderie backstage, and the banter in every locker room and at every practice. It’s the community: the stories, the people, the bonds, the brotherhood.
Believe me, I’m gonna miss this place. Mr. Atayi, I’ll miss waving to you every day. I’ll miss the screaming in the quad after seventh period on Fridays. I’ll miss the fist bumps with Oscar in the South Room. I’ll miss walking into the George and seeing the couches and the Green Room. I’ll miss Cale Albert and Mr. Haardt’s back and forths. I’ll miss the feeling of jumping into the glass in front of a packed student section on a Friday night at the Cabin. Mom, I’ll miss you waking me up at 7:55, yelling that I’ll be late. Nick, Sandro, I’ll miss you guys quoting every movie you’ve ever seen. Markva, I’ll miss competing against you in practice, pushing each other to get a little faster and a little more creative. Luca, all your insightful comments. Brendan, Noah, Ruben, you know I’ll miss the Montana handshakes. Mr. Furnary, I’ll even miss you telling me to go get a note from the Dean’s Office for the third time in one week.
I will miss seeing every one of you every day.
So if you feel like you’re alone, like you’re in the dark with no light, just know that you have 130 Prep brothers to brighten your path. In a world that harkens so much on differences and division, let our class be a reminder that out of these differences can surface an incredible story. Out of the depths of adversity can arise one united victory. Out of the many problems our world poses can come one community–one brotherhood.
E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
Thank you.
Timmy Overcash
