The Pingry School

Since joining the Pingry faculty in 2000, becoming Head Coach of the Boys’ Varsity Football Team in 2008, and Interim Head Coach of the Boys' Varsity Track Team in 2010, specializing in sprints and hurdles, Coach Shilts has gone on to guide dozens of Pingry student athletes to reach their potential. Many of his former players, runners, and sprinters have gone on to successful collegiate careers. And it's worth nothing that all current Pingry record-holders in the hurdles are boys or girls who learned the event from him.

Coach Shilts was, himself, a successful college athlete, as an outside linebacker and four-time varsity letterer for the College of Wooster’s football and track & field teams. After several teacher-coach experiences at independent schools on the East Coast and beyond (including the Bullis School, Maryland; Cranbrook Schools, Michigan; and The Hill School, Pennsylvania), he arrived at Pingry—a physically formidable football coach running rigorous practices while nurturing the talents of budding writers. For his impact in the classroom, he received the 2003 Herbert F. Hahn Junior Faculty Award and the 2005 Norman B. Tomlinson Chair in the Humanities.

Whatever came of that track & field season in 2004, when Coach Shilts and his father each had a star hurdler in competition? Jamil McClintock ’04—a 2015 Pingry Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, who went on to set records at Brown University—took top honors by winning the 110 high hurdles at the Meet of Champions that year. Old rivalries die hard.

She says the rigor of the two-hour practices, not to mention dedicated time in the Strength & Conditioning Center, have made her a better athlete. “I dreaded going to the weight room at first—the planks, neckercizes to protect from concussions, barbells, sprints—but I really grew to love the team lifts every Tuesday and Thursday from 3:00–4:00 p.m. I love being all together.”

As for future athletic goals, Sandra, a shooting guard on the Girls’ JV Basketball Team, wants to score as much as possible, and perhaps even hit 1,000 career points and a spot on varsity by her senior season. “It’s a lot to score in just three years so I'm not 100% sure that I'll do it,” she says of her goal. “But I am 100% sure that I will put in my full effort and play to the best of my ability!”

“I thought that 2:15 was a good goal for the race, but that 2:14 and 2:13 would be my limit,” she recalls. “But running 2:12 and placing second really surprised me. I was trying to keep the #1 runner in my sights the whole time. During the race, several runners passed me and then I passed them again. When I saw the clock in the last straight-away I was just so excited. My whole family and extended family were there cheering me on. Even my younger brother’s wrestling coach came!”

She broke Pingry’s school record yet again, earning the 10th fastest time of any high schooler in the nation, and the best time for a freshman.

The race, she says, was a standout moment in a successful freshman athletic campaign, one that included helping Pingry’s 4x800 meter relay team to a ninth-place finish at Nationals one week later, and, helping to lead the Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse Team to a #10 state ranking that spring.

She credits the support she got from Pingry coaches for allowing her to pursue her lacrosse passion, and not shoehorn her into the outdoor track season. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to play one sport all year; I want to be versatile as an athlete. Track and cross country [which she ran in the fall] are individual sports and I put pressure on myself. Lacrosse is different because it’s a team sport and there’s more togetherness. I really enjoy both,” she says.

Which is why, when asked what Big Blue goals she’s most looking forward to achieving in the years ahead, she can’t quite decide. “I’m excited to step up more in lacrosse next year, as seven seniors are graduating. I won’t be the freshman on the team anymore; I can step into a bigger role. I’m also excited to get faster and improve my 800 time, especially now that I have the confidence. I want to break 2:10. That’s going to be exciting.”

Off the turf field, and outside of Pingry, Jared plays competitive lacrosse for his town team, the Cougars, as well as for a club team, NJ Diesel. This winter, he’s considering joining an indoor box lacrosse team. He has also played basketball for as long as he can remember, most recently for his YMCA team and with an organization called Starting 5ive. He plans to try out for his town team this coming season. Flag football is yet another interest of Jared’s; he is playing in a local league for the first time this year.

You might forgive an active student athlete like Jared for yawning in PE class, but he is just as passionate a competitor in the Lower School’s gymnasium and fields as he is on his own teams. Dodgeball and Capture the Jack (a variation on Capture the Flag, devised by Lower Schoolers) are his favorites, but it’s easy to see he gets excited about playing any sport with his friends. “I just finished the cross country unit; we had to run a lot. And I’m doing a unit on pickleball now. It’s all fun!”

Does he bring any lessons from PE class into the classroom with him? “One thing I learned from Mr. LaFontaine [Lower School PE teacher] is that school comes before sports,” Jared says. “He tells us, ‘Work hard, play hard.’ Sometimes, when I’m working really hard, I like to do sports to give my mind a break.”

He credits his coaches—and his father, who moved to the United States from Haiti when he was 4, and went on to captain his high school baseball team—for instilling in him the importance of a strong work ethic. His junior year, the first year he made the varsity team, he earned All-Conference honors. It also happened to be his strongest year academically. He doesn’t think it was a coincidence. “When something doesn’t work out, you have to work hard to make it work out,” he says.

Miles, who plans to attend Bucknell University, arrived at Pingry in Grade 5, and began playing Big Blue baseball as a seventh grader. Over the years, he has played baseball on many elite travel teams to hone his skills, all to be at his best for Big Blue. His pride at being a Pingry athlete, and his devotion to the team, are readily apparent.

He remembers one moment in particular, his junior year, when the team faced one of the toughest competitors in the state, Morristown Beard, in their annual Headmaster’s Trophy game. It was the best team they would face all season. Early in the first inning, one of their batters hit a single; Miles, ready in left field, caught the ball and threw to first. Out. The team would go on to a dramatic, 6-2 win. After the game, captain Bryce Weisholz ’16 congratulated Miles, telling him he had set the tone from the very beginning.

“The thing that excites me most about playing baseball for Pingry is the camaraderie with my teammates. These are people I might not usually be connected with off the field, but when we’re on the field together, we’re all one team, with one common goal to win and have fun and make each other proud.”

Come spring track season, he won every 800- and 1600-meter event he raced. A year later, as an eighth grader, he avenged his runner-up status in both meets the year before by winning the competitive Ed Scott Invitational—on Pingry’s home course—and Gill St. Bernard’s Great Pumpkin Run.

Henry’s love of the sport—and talent—is a family affair. His older brother, Stewart ’14, who captained Big Blue’s cross-country team his senior year, competed for Dartmouth College for a year (an injury forced an early end to his running career). His older sister, Anna ’18, also a standout runner at Pingry, recently broke the indoor track school record in the 3200-meter run. A lover of math, who also plays ice hockey in the winter (“I like to go fast!” he says), Henry embraces the work ethic and persistence that running require. “Like schoolwork,” he says, “you get out of running what you put into it.”

“’This is an existential game,’ he said to me. ‘You’re a very good freshman, you know your place on the team, but it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from; you play like you play and good things will happen,’” recalls Jack. “I will never forget his words. We lost that game, but our defense, which I’m proud to be a part of, held Hillside to 18 points, one of their lowest scoring games all season.”

What word would this three-sport athlete use to sum up Pingry athletics? Pride. It’s not only the school chant, he says, it speaks to the greater character of the school, and the coaches’ commitment to—and expectation of—the players.