I’ll never forget the end of cross country practice one afternoon my sophomore year in high school. I was 14. It had to be early in the season because it was still warm and sunny. My coach and I were walking out of Grant Park here in Chicago, (our home course), and I cracked some joke. He laughed and put his arm around my shoulders.
If you are lucky, you will meet someone when you’re young who you are afraid to disappoint and who you are eager to please. In meeting Jim Connelly, who died yesterday, I was very lucky. That moment 23 years ago is special to me because I felt I had gotten on the good side of a person I respected, admired, and genuinely liked. I remember feeling very happy. I was not his best runner, nor was I his best student, but the affection he showed in that small gesture proved that he appreciated me. And it wasn’t just for whatever joke I had cracked a second earlier. He appreciated me—my effort, commitment, and budding discipline. That small, friendly gesture made me feel a foot taller.
Actually, in the four years that I ran for Mr. Connelly, I did grow a foot taller, so maybe there’s something to that statement. I first met him in August of 1988, when I was all of 4’7”, but his reputation preceded him. And man, what a reputation! He was the kind of short man a short kid turns into a role model.
If you are lucky, you will meet someone when you’re young who you are afraid to disappoint and who you are eager to please. In meeting Jim Connelly, who died yesterday, I was very lucky. That moment 23 years ago is special to me because I felt I had gotten on the good side of a person I respected, admired, and genuinely liked. I remember feeling very happy. I was not his best runner, nor was I his best student, but the affection he showed in that small gesture proved that he appreciated me. And it wasn’t just for whatever joke I had cracked a second earlier. He appreciated me—my effort, commitment, and budding discipline. That small, friendly gesture made me feel a foot taller.
Actually, in the four years that I ran for Mr. Connelly, I did grow a foot taller, so maybe there’s something to that statement. I first met him in August of 1988, when I was all of 4’7”, but his reputation preceded him. And man, what a reputation! He was the kind of short man a short kid turns into a role model.
Grant Park, 1990: my brother Paul, Matt Murray, and Mr. C
Mr. Connelly was ridiculously intimidating, especially for a guy about five-and-a-half feet tall, maybe 130 pounds. He could bark like a drill instructor and rebuke you with a glance. There were all sorts of pugilistic rumors about him, which I now pass on without fact-checking—that he won something called “Bengal Bouts” at Notre Dame, that he was an undefeated Golden Gloves champion, that he boxed in the army (where he was a champ, of course), that he once actually was a drill instructor. Like, a real one… It just occurred to me now, for the first time, that I was friends and teammates with his son and could have simply asked if any of that was true! Eh, I probably made the right call. The teenage mind prefers a legend.
In the hallways and in the classroom, Mr. Connelly handed out jugs for the slightest offense. (Jug was St. Ignatius slang for “detention.”) Untucked shirts, tardiness, talking in class (hypothetically; who would dare?)—all were met with either a quick jug or the order to “write a report.” Once, a student approached his desk during a test to ask him a question, but had not asked for permission. “You shouldn’t have left your desk,” he barked. “Write a 500-word report.” I remember wondering, About what?
Since I got to know him at cross country practice before school even started, I was never afraid of him as a disciplinarian. Sure, I was smart enough not to push it, but as one of his runners I had a chance to develop a rapport that most other students did not. Plus, he was funny and liked a good laugh. I first had him as a teacher during my sophomore year. I remember making a joke in class early in the semester, and Mr. Connelly laughed. The students in front of me glanced back in awe like I had just high-fived a grizzly. So no, I was not afraid of Mr. Connelly. In a way, I had it worse: I was afraid of disappointing him.
In the hallways and in the classroom, Mr. Connelly handed out jugs for the slightest offense. (Jug was St. Ignatius slang for “detention.”) Untucked shirts, tardiness, talking in class (hypothetically; who would dare?)—all were met with either a quick jug or the order to “write a report.” Once, a student approached his desk during a test to ask him a question, but had not asked for permission. “You shouldn’t have left your desk,” he barked. “Write a 500-word report.” I remember wondering, About what?
Since I got to know him at cross country practice before school even started, I was never afraid of him as a disciplinarian. Sure, I was smart enough not to push it, but as one of his runners I had a chance to develop a rapport that most other students did not. Plus, he was funny and liked a good laugh. I first had him as a teacher during my sophomore year. I remember making a joke in class early in the semester, and Mr. Connelly laughed. The students in front of me glanced back in awe like I had just high-fived a grizzly. So no, I was not afraid of Mr. Connelly. In a way, I had it worse: I was afraid of disappointing him.
Grant Park's dreaded 'Hill.' Midpoint in a quarter-mile sprint. 5 sets of 4, son.
The key to Mr. Connelly’s disciplinary skill was not that he was strict—there are lots of strict teachers, and most of them are tedious jerks. Mr. Connelly’s strictness took on the aura of command by treating his students and athletes like adults. He expected us to act like adults because he respected us as adults. And so, not meeting his expectations felt worse than the sting of any jug or punishment he could hand out. (He actually wrote the words “I’m disappointed” on a paper I wrote on World War II—yet he still gave me a B for it! The B was cold comfort.) He addressed us distance runners as “Men!” Always like that: quick, staccato, half-shouted in a gruff voice that suggested hidden consonants between M and N. It was like an honorific. I can still hear him shouting at us during brutal hill work outs, “Come on, men! Dig, dig!” As told, we dug.
Mr. Connelly expected us to dig in class too. I had him for American History and for Political Theory, and I can attest that his expectations were just as high there as in practice.
In “The American Political Tradition,” Richard Hofstadter quotes a Democrat who called Abraham Lincoln “a Uriah Heep.” I raised my hand and asked what a Uriah Heep was.
Mr. Connelly expected us to dig in class too. I had him for American History and for Political Theory, and I can attest that his expectations were just as high there as in practice.
In “The American Political Tradition,” Richard Hofstadter quotes a Democrat who called Abraham Lincoln “a Uriah Heep.” I raised my hand and asked what a Uriah Heep was.
Grant Park, '90: me, Matt Blecha, Mr. C, Sonari Glinton
Mr. Connelly was appalled. How could I not know who—that's who, not what—Uriah Heep was? He asked the class to help me out. No one else knew. He shook his head in amazement at our ignorance. “Find out” became our homework assignment.
Now, there is a certain amount of theater in good teaching. Did Mr. Connelly really expect us 15 year-olds to pick up all the 19th century pop culture references in some complicated political analysis? Probably not, but to act as if we should know every Dickens character was his way of showing us we are capable of knowing it. It showed he respected us enough to assume we already did know it. (A similar fate happened a few years later in Political Theory. While going over the work of Thomas Hobbes or Hugo Grotius or some such eminence, I saw the word “ochlocracy.” Not having learned my lesson yet, I raised my hand. “Really, Mr. O’Toole, you don’t know? Can anyone here illuminate things for Mr. O’Toole? [Pause.] What, none of you are familiar with the word ‘ochlocracy’? Well…” In college, I wrote a long paper for a 20th century Eastern European history course in which I dropped that ten-dollar word meaning “mob rule.” My professor, a brilliant man who spoke German and Polish fluently underlined it and put a question mark in the margin. In the comments at the end of the paper he wrote, “Well, at least you taught me a new word.”)
Now, there is a certain amount of theater in good teaching. Did Mr. Connelly really expect us 15 year-olds to pick up all the 19th century pop culture references in some complicated political analysis? Probably not, but to act as if we should know every Dickens character was his way of showing us we are capable of knowing it. It showed he respected us enough to assume we already did know it. (A similar fate happened a few years later in Political Theory. While going over the work of Thomas Hobbes or Hugo Grotius or some such eminence, I saw the word “ochlocracy.” Not having learned my lesson yet, I raised my hand. “Really, Mr. O’Toole, you don’t know? Can anyone here illuminate things for Mr. O’Toole? [Pause.] What, none of you are familiar with the word ‘ochlocracy’? Well…” In college, I wrote a long paper for a 20th century Eastern European history course in which I dropped that ten-dollar word meaning “mob rule.” My professor, a brilliant man who spoke German and Polish fluently underlined it and put a question mark in the margin. In the comments at the end of the paper he wrote, “Well, at least you taught me a new word.”)
Praying: "Grant us whatever amount of success you know is good for us."
There was another part of the Connelly legend, and the specifics of it were just as foggy to me in high school as his supposed boxing prowess: his family. He had a bunch of his own kids and adopted more. He took in foster kids. We never asked about it—at least, I didn’t—and Mr. Connelly only brought it up in passing. But what we figured out was this: a frugal man who wore old suits and drove a K car, opened his home, on a Catholic school teacher’s salary, to as many children as he could.
According to a blog post by Ed Ernst, the current St. Ignatius cross country coach, the actual number was fifteen kids biological and adopted, plus thirty-two foster children. So behind that supposed drill-instructor style was, we knew, a very, very good person. In 1994 he won the Dei Gloriam award from St. Ignatius, the school’s highest honor, and in 2002 the Family Exemplar Award from Notre Dame. (And while I am ticking off the honors, it turns out the boxing accolade was Outstanding Boxer of the 1956 Bengal Bouts.)
According to a blog post by Ed Ernst, the current St. Ignatius cross country coach, the actual number was fifteen kids biological and adopted, plus thirty-two foster children. So behind that supposed drill-instructor style was, we knew, a very, very good person. In 1994 he won the Dei Gloriam award from St. Ignatius, the school’s highest honor, and in 2002 the Family Exemplar Award from Notre Dame. (And while I am ticking off the honors, it turns out the boxing accolade was Outstanding Boxer of the 1956 Bengal Bouts.)
Mr. C, my brother, me.
Whenever I saw Mr. Connelly after high school, I’d tell him about a recent run. I’d tell him how far I ran, how fast, what my mile pace was these days... (“Hey Mr. Connelly, I ran some hills last week!”) It was kind of a joke, but I also wanted him to know that I still ran like he taught me. That I still try to live like he taught me. That, far from the class room and the cross country practice field, I am still trying to live my life according to the model he set for me and hundreds of other young men and women. That I am still trying to earn that arm draped over my shoulders twenty-three Septembers ago.
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