Birth of an Old School Tradition

Old high schools play a significant role in our communities. There’s much to be said for students attending the same schools their parents did, sometimes with the same teachers. These schools’ hallways are filled with trophy cases touting past championships in everything from sports to band competitions to debates. They point with pride to prominent alumni.

But what do you do if your school is so brand spanking new it has no traditions?

That’s no problem at Aliso Niguel High School, which will have its first four-year graduating class this school year. When you don’t have traditions, you simply start your own.

Tuesday night I had the chance to attend the school’s cross-country banquet at the posh Dove Canyon Country Club. Its various cross-country teams total about 75 student runners from all grade levels. I marveled at the spirit I saw. It was as if the Aliso Niguel Wolverines had been around for generations.

Aliso Niguel High, in the planned community of Aliso Viejo, is the product of the South County building boom of the late 1980s. The thousands moving into newly constructed homes needed schools for their youngsters.

Aliso Niguel’s teachers, students and parents are building traditions for future classes. The cross-county team is only one example, but it’s a good one.

“In four years, we’ve become like family,” Head Coach Rich Bellante told me before the festivities began. During the next couple of hours it was easy to see how right he was.

As dinner was served, the audience watched two videos that a couple of student runners had put together. Senior Sarah Byers has been taping since she was a freshman and had footage of all four years of the program.

I asked her if she had any misgivings in her freshman year about going to a school without a past. Not in the least, she said: “I figured everybody else would have to make new friends the same as me.”

Byers and Jennifer Speirs, another senior, are the only two on the team to letter in cross-country all four years. Speirs said that beginning her freshman year, “I didn’t even know what cross-country meant. I didn’t even own a pair of running shoes.”

And now? “Running is a major part of my life.” she said. “I’ll always be a runner.”

Senior Ethan Friend will always be a part of one tradition at Aliso Niguel. One of the awards given annually is called the Ethan Friend & Patrick Carrie Teamwork Award, given to both boys and girls who show extraordinary ability to work together. It came about because Friend and his buddy Carrie helped keep each other pumped up for the cross-country meets when the program was just starting.

It was fitting that Friend, now in his senior year, was one of the recipients of the award bearing his name. He also won the Most Valuable Runner award for the boys’ varsity.

Bellante and the other coaches saw to it that every runner got a chance to come forward to be honored. They put together a fine program, with especially touching moments of recognition for the seniors and their parents. But it was when the students took over the podium that you really got a feel for what this school and its teachers and coaches have meant to them.

A couple of moments drove home to me how fortunate I was, as a stranger in their midst, to share this night with them.

One was when Friend, who’s a fun youngster, tried to express his heartfelt feelings: “This is just the awesomest experience of my life.” And to his teammates, he added: “I know how sappy this sounds, but I love you guys.”

Another was when junior Gina Turpel, a member of the girls’ varsity team (which had an impressive 4-1 record this year), was thanking Bellante and his assistant coaches on behalf of all the runners. When she got to Coach Deni Christensen, Turpel had to stop because she was so overcome with emotion. Christensen, who also coaches the girls’ varsity basketball team, is no doubt special to all the girl runners. She came forward to hug Turpel and help her through a tough moment.

Years from now, future Wolverine cross-country teams may be talking about Tuesday night’s Most Valuable Runner award for the girls’ varsity team (its first with a senior class). Bellante had inscribed the word “TEAM” across the award. When the eight team members gathered up front to hear the winner announced, the coach took the plaque apart and handed a piece to each of them. I don’t think there was anyone in the room--including the eight recipients--who didn’t think it was a terrific idea.

About That School: Aliso Niguel Principal Denise Danne couldn’t be at the banquet. She was attending an academic decathlon the school was participating in. She told me the next day that Aliso Niguel has about 2,350 students, slightly more than its rated capacity.

It’s the youngest high school, she said, ever to be recognized as a “California Distinguished School.” And, as you might expect, she’s bursting with pride at what’s going on there.

Old Flames, New Rings: You might know from past columns that I share any good love story I hear. Here’s one from a grade school that rates an A+.

Maggie Murphy, who teaches a combined fourth- and fifth-grade class at Nelson Elementary School in Tustin, held a career day last week. She invited Dan Villegas, her boyfriend, who is a firefighter, plus Villegas’ brother, who is an architect, and her own parents. Villegas talked about fire prevention and others gave presentations. Then Murphy showed a video of herself talking about teaching.

She happened to mention on the video that it was Villegas who encouraged her to go for a teaching career. And she happened to mention that she just loved the daylights out of the guy. And she happened to ask in person when it was over:

Would he marry her?

She had one of her students bring out a ring for him. Talk about excitement in the classroom. A very stunned Villegas said yes, of course, because he’d been wanting to marry her for a long time.

I figure any teacher with this kind of imagination has got to be just terrific working with students. She told me later Villegas backed up his “yes” by buying her a ring too.

Wrap-Up: At the Aliso Niguel banquet, the varsity squads announced they wanted to start their own tradition: Items would be put in a time capsule, with future varsity teams adding some each year. The items they presented brought lots of laughs, but each had meaning. There was a plastic egg, to represent the birth of the program. One item was a bottle of sand, to represent a beach summer camp for the runners. The last item was a glue stick.

Ethan Friend explained that one: “To represent the strong bond we’ve made at Aliso Niguel.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com