The Pingry School

A small athlete when he began on Pingry’s Varsity Baseball Team, his skills and stature grew quickly. He notched 100 strikeouts in his senior year alone and was one of the state’s top pitchers. His stat line proved it: 5-2, 2.45 ERA, 101 strikeouts in 51-1/3 innings; he hit .326 with 28 hits, 19 RBIs, and four home runs, not to mention seven bases stolen. At his peak, then-Head Coach Ted Corvino '94 recalls the radar gun recording him at 90 mph.

Justin’s college career was circuitous—he switched schools each of his four years—as he searched long and hard for the right program to support his goals. Most recently a right-handed pitcher for Hope International University, he also played for George Washington University, Ventura Community College, and the University of San Diego. In March 2019, the spring of his senior year at Hope, Major League Baseball’s First-Year draft came up, yet again. It marked his third time going through it and, in his mind, his last shot at the pros. In the 26th round, the Chicago White Sox drafted him to their rookie league—the AZL White Sox—making Justin Pingry’s first student athlete ever to be selected to the draft since its inception in 1965.

Fascinated—he would say “obsessed”—by the quest for excellence in baseball, he says Pingry opened his eyes to many other realms of excellence, academic and otherwise. “Pingry let me branch out from baseball, and be in an environment in which people live by principles of excellence and excellence is facilitated . . . It was good to have had all those different experiences and to really understand what it takes to be successful.”

Much to his appreciation, his Pingry coaches—Mr. Corvino and Manny Tramontana—still keep in touch with him and follow his career. To aspiring Pingry athletes, he says, “Don't accept the limitations that other people put on you as your reality. Be willing to put in the time and effort. . . more frequently than most people are willing to do it and beyond when most people are ready to quit. Take the lumps and move forward, and be open to learning from anybody.”

The mechanical engineering major plays defense for the Engineers, but still remembers getting hyped for Pingry games by listening to the song September during warmups her senior year. Singing before games was one of the team's many traditions, she says. "What I loved so much about Pingry is that by the time you're a senior you're leading the traditions, and you're hoping to pass them down to classes below you. I thought I was really spoiled in high school, and I still do think that. There's something so special about team bonds and team identity at Pingry."

“Even the little moments were pivotal—in preseason field hockey and lacrosse, running on that field until we couldn’t run anymore; hanging out in the locker room before practices. The values Coach Carter taught us really molded my expectations of myself and my team, at Pingry and in college. Those memories have had a profound effect.”

Indeed, the Division I Lafayette lacrosse player—who was one of only two freshman on Pingry’s varsity roster in 2011—says she still communicates with her closest Big Blue field hockey and lacrosse teammates nearly every day. And, thanks in part to her mom (a college counselor at Pingry) and sister, Alexis ’18, she returns to campus as often as she can to take in games. She sees parallels between Lafayette and Pingry, both of which, she says, offer opportunities for excellence in athletics and academics. “Winning championships wasn’t the end all be all at Pingry. I was also really able to get into my history courses, the yearbook, and Peer Leadership,” she explains. “The way that Pingry allowed me to balance everything, that was the most important lesson going into college. Lafayette brought the same challenges, but I was prepared.”

A senior history and sociology major, Annelise doesn’t like to dwell on the fact that her final lacrosse season is around the corner. But, she is practical. “It’s going to be a really tough transition, if I’m being honest. Athletics have been such an important part of my life, and made me who I am,” she says. “But I’m excited to move on to the next chapter. I will take everything I learned into account. I’m ready.”

So launched the career of celebrated Big Blue fencer-turned-Olympian Dan Kellner '94, who, 14 years after Coach Li took him under his wing, would go on to represent the United States in the 2004 Athens Olympics. In addition to competing individually in foil, he captained the team to a fourth-place finish, its highest Olympic finish in 56 years.

Among his many accomplishments, he was a four-time All-American at Columbia University; a seven-time member of the U.S. National Team at the World Championships; Pan-American Games Champion in 2003; and the U.S. Fencing National Champion in 2004. He is only the second American men’s foil fencer ever to be ranked in the FIE Top-16, and was awarded The Order of Ikkos by the United States Olympic Committee for excellence in coaching. Capping the list, in 2019, was inducted into U.S.A. Fencing's Hall of Fame.   

A 2007 inductee into Pingry's own Athletics Hall of Fame, Dan the fencer is now Dan the coach. As owner and coach of The Brooklyn Bridge Fencing Club, he looks back fondly at his early days as a Big Blue fencer, where his dream of becoming an Olympian took root. “I believe it was the opportunities Pingry presented and its commitment to excellence, not just in athletics or academics, but excellence in life as a whole, that helped inspire me to reach for a goal, that, looking back at it now, seemed near impossible.”

But ask about her best memory as a student athlete, and her voice alights as she takes herself back to Pingry’s softball field, her senior year. It was May 20, 2016 when the team clinched the Prep A State Championship, and Katie amassed her 1,000th high school strikeout. “We weren’t the most successful team on campus, but that day, a group of girls from so many different backgrounds—some had never played softball before joining the team—came together for that one goal. We had all worked so hard for the Prep title , and we did it. We made something awesome happen.” She recalls running up to her catcher and good friend, Amanda Van Orden ’17, and hugging, and exchanging an awestruck look with Coach Carver. They, too, embraced. “I was so happy to get that win for him,” she says.

The Fighting Irish are her new family, but Big Blue memories are never far away for Katie. The pre-med major credits Pingry for preparing her to balance the rigors of Division I softball with demanding coursework. “I wouldn’t be able to be pre-med and a softball player if I didn’t have Pingry, if I hadn’t learned how to prioritize, manage my time, all these integral skills that I needed to succeed. I am most grateful for that.”

Recipient of the 2016 Tom Boyer Football Award and a Skyland Conference Scholar Athlete, Michael says when he was little, he thought basketball was his calling. But then he started Pingry in Grade 5, joined the Middle School football teams in Grades 7 and 8, and hasn’t stopped playing since. Memories of his senior-year Homecoming game—“my best game at Pingry”—and Friday Night Lights remain vivid for him. “I was really stressed out that whole game. I thought ‘I have to win.’ I didn’t want my last Friday Night Lights game to be a loss,” he recalls. “I couldn’t relax the whole game. But then I had a punt return that Coach Shilts later called the play of the year. After that, I could relax.”

Despite playing on—and captaining—a football team that fought hard but fell short of a winning record, Michael cherished the experience, and brought lessons learned with him to Middlebury. “It really taught me how to compete,” he explains. “We weren’t winning a lot but I learned to get into that mental state and keep going even when it’s not going your way. That transfers into life.”

Come late August, he will say goodbye to Pingry and his old teammates, and return to Vermont. He’s looking forward to his sophomore year. “It’s cool to be a college athlete. It’s something I have always dreamed of. But I will always remember the friends I made at Pingry, the connections with the guys on the team. The high school experience is really unique.”

"It's no secret that you have a lot of work at Pingry and you have as much if not more in college, so time management is extremely important," he says. "I think the pressures on and off the field at Pingry helped prepare me for life now and what it takes to be as successful as I can regardless of the situation."

During his first Macalester's football season, he was 3-of-6 in field goal attempts and made 22 out of 27 PATs. His senior year, he ranked second in the Midwest Conference in field goals, seventh in total points, and tied the school record with four field goals in a single game (the fourth was a go-ahead with less than five minutes left in the game). At one point, he ranked fifth among Division III colleges and universities in the country in field goals per game. He also played for the school's club ice hockey team, sang with their coed a cappella group—the ChroMACtics—and served as a campus tour guide.

An economics major, he is considering work in finance or graduate school. Because he transitioned from soccer to football he has a year of eligibility left, so playing a third year of football may be on the horizon.

As a freshman, he joined the cross country team. When he decided to try track his sophomore year, competing in the 3200-meter (2 miles) run, he was pretty sure his strong suit was as a distance runner, and that’s just what he focused on. Until, that is, Boys’ Varsity Cross Country and Track Coach Matt Horesta had him try the 800, a grueling, nearly all-out sprint for half a mile. Coach Horesta’s instincts were right. His junior year, Justin placed third in the event in the state group meet (he was seeded seventh), qualifying for the New Jersey Meet of Champions, and catching the eye of college coaches. By his senior year, he clinched second at the state group championship in a meet-record time, and qualified for the prestigious Emerging Elite 800-meter run at New Balance Nationals, where he ran 1:54.66, the second-fastest time in Pingry’s history.

“That was a big moment for me,” he recalls, four years later. “Coach Horesta definitely helped me to develop in an event I hadn’t before considered. I began talking with college coaches, and the door really opened for me in terms of being able to compete on a collegiate level.” (He is also quick to credit his other Pingry track & field coaches and mentors: Tom Cladek, Mark Sepkowski, and Gerry Vanasse.)

The accolades piled up from there. As a freshman at Williams, he was a member of their 4x800 NESCAC Championship team, a team that went on, the following week, to win Division III New England’s. His achievements earned him First Team All-NESCAC and All-New England honors. And that was just his freshman year.

Looking back at his Pingry athletic experiences, however, the big meets and big honors aren’t what stand out for him. “The days leading up to an important race—talking to Coach about my goals—were almost more memorable than the race itself,” he says. “That’s when the training is done, you know you’ve put in all the hard work, and Coach Horesta was always confident that I could succeed. He taught us that it’s not a question of whether you can, but whether you will.”

And when Justin is home during college breaks, he meets with Coach Horesta and his old teammates for dinner, just to talk, once again.

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What stands out the most for him, when he recalls these competitive years? “Honestly, it’s not the big tournaments,” he says. “Pingry students and parents were always there, cheering us on, and at the end of every meet, they would bring us food. That’s one of my fondest memories. It shows what a tight-knit community we were.”

Time constraints as a student of Penn’s Wharton School of Business (he is triple majoring in finance, statistics, and operation/information systems) led him to close the chapter on his fencing career, but he, he says, he still regularly draws on many of the leadership skills he learned from being a Big Blue athlete. “I began fencing at age 12, but many of my teammates were new to the sport and had a lot to learn. I tried to put myself in their shoes, help and mentor them.” A member of Phi Gamma Nu, a business fraternity on Penn’s campus, Wharton Investment and Trading Group, and the Wharton China Business Society, he has ample opportunity to bond with and mentor students on his new campus as well. For Wenrui, even looking back on his days as an accomplished sabre fencer, that is what is most important.

“Winning a tournament was just one aspect of the game. I value the connections to the community a lot more.”