Mount Carmel has had its fair share of tradition, legacy, and teachers that have left a significant impact not only on their students but also everyone in the school community.
One tradition that is still fairly new to 64th and Dante is the Green Jacket Award.
The award is given in honor of Mr. Kevin Hansen, an MC theology teacher and football equipment manager who passed away unexpectedly from leukemia in 2015.
The recipient of the award given each spring is a faculty member who embodies qualities such as imitating Christ and trying to progress everyday. These are two of the fourteen goals Mr. Hansen put on his mirror to remind himself of the man he wanted to be each morning.
Mr. Hansen’s absence was immediately felt throughout the entire school after his passing. His determination to make his students better men and MC a better place was clearly missed.
Mr. Hansen’s faith was a large part of his life and legacy. After graduating as the valedictorian and Man of the Year of the Class of 1999 from Joliet Catholic Academy, it didn’t take long for him to find himself at another Carmelite school.
Mr. Hansen started working at MC in 2007, and he made it his mission from the beginning of his teaching career to both care for and motivate his students, while also teaching them about the Carmelite values he tried to live up to everyday.
These respectable qualities are the exact reason why the Green Jacket Award exists and also why Mr. Hansen’s life is celebrated so much at MC.
In fact, the home football game on Friday night, October 11, is set to be played in honor of him. This game was chosen in particular as the Caravan are set to play the Hilltoppers from Mr. Hansen’s alma mater, Joliet Catholic.
All recipients of the Green Jacket Award will also be honored at the game as well. They will receive green jackets of their own and participate in the coin toss with the Hansen family moments before kickoff.
“I regret that I never got to meet him, because he sounds like a wonderful person to know,” said MC science teacher and 2020 Green Jacket Award recipient Mrs. Emma Norise. “I look at his edict very often and hope that I can live up to him.”
Seeing as Mr. Hansen passed away in 2015, a majority of those currently at MC never got to meet him personally. However, there are still a few teachers and faculty members that knew him very well.
“He really tried to embody all the things that we as theology teachers in particular talk about,” said 2018 Green Jacket Award winner Mr. Daniel Burke ’98. “He genuinely tried to love everybody. You could tell just by the way that he carried himself and how he interacted with people that he was filled with faith and tried to fill out that faith everyday. He modeled for the students what it means to be a Man of Carmel.”
Like Mr. Hansen, Mr. Burke also started working at MC in 2007. Both teachers held their work within the theology department to high standards, as they understood it was a privilege for their students to receive a Catholic education.
Mr. Burke isn’t the only one that got to know Mr. Hansen before his untimely passing.
“He was a living role model of what Carmelite schools would hope the students would get first out of going to a Catholic school,” said 2024 award winner and Chair of the Science Department Mr. Caribee Collier (H). “You would hope that there’s a certain amount of buy-in when it comes to one knowing that there’s expectations to be an example to kids you teach.”
If anyone had that “amount of buy-in,” it was absolutely Mr. Hansen. Stories of staying the night on more than one occasion, chasing down students to make sure they did their missing assignments, and coming in day after day with the same enthusiastic attitude constantly accompany whenever his name is brought up in conversation.
His willingness to be one-hundred percent dedicated to the people around him is what made him likable, but also someone that stood out in a crowd.
“He was weird,” said English and Mandarin teacher and 2019 award winner Mr. Mark Antonietti ’84. “Weird, but in the greatest sense of the word. If you met him once you’d be kind of dismissive about him because he was completely on his own wavelength. That wavelength was dedicated to his students and dedicated to his mission. When you realized that he was like that all the time, and that was just his way, you loved it.”
There wasn’t a day that went by in which Mr. Hansen didn’t care for his students. He was constantly motivating them to perform to the best of their abilities and create a deeper, more faithful relationship with God.
Most winners of the Green Jacket Award were either coworkers or never met Mr. Hansen. Only one recipient was actually a student of his.
“The things I remember about him the most were the things outside of school,” said English teacher and 2023 award winner Mr. Manuel Medina ’09. “One time he took a group of students to an Immaculate Conception parade downtown. That experience made me realize that this teacher saw something in me and wanted us to live out his mission. Those experiences and connections he made are invaluable.”
Mr. Medina took Mr. Hansen’s theology class as a sophomore but wasn’t yet teaching at MC in 2015 when he passed away. However, when Mr. Medina did start teaching here and found out about the Green Jacket Award, he was blown away.
“The first time I heard about the award it gave me joy,” he said. “Knowing that the man left an imprint on this place and that the adults and students felt the need to honor and keep his legacy just brought me joy.”
This joy that the award brings about continues to spread each year when another teacher is recognized as having similar characteristics or qualities as Mr. Hansen.
Seeing as Mr. Hansen was dedicated to his students, it was only right that the director of student activities was praised for his daily efforts at MC.
“From what I know about Mr. Hansen that I really try to emulate is that he brought it every single day,” said English teacher and 2022 award winner Mr. Brooks Nevrly. “He was enthusiastic about Mount Carmel and wanted to show that this was a place in which people could not only be themselves but also find their own identity.”
Eight of the nine Green Jacket winners will be attending Friday’s football game. They will be honored alongside Mr. Hansen’s parents and family members, and everyone from both the Joliet Catholic and Mount Carmel communities are looking to have a great night in honoring a man that gave so much to both schools.
While Mr. Hansen is usually just honored around the time in which people raise money for St. Baldrick’s, it’s nice to take time out of our day in the middle of October to recognize the impact he’s had on so many people.
There’s never a wrong time to reflect on why teachers like Mr. Hansen are important to Catholic and Carmelite schools.
Mr. Antonietti feels the same way.
“This man obviously had some incredible role models in his life,” he said. “He then went on to be one here at our school. That has to be kept alive and can’t just happen at a game that’s played every eight or nine years.”