My name is James McCormac, and I love Mount Carmel.

When I got here my freshman year, I definitely did not see myself ever saying those words. Being one of two to come to MC from my grammar school and not knowing anyone else was really scary.

The first thing I did was join the football team in an effort to make some friends, and because, as far as I was aware, that’s what you did when you went to MC. You played football.

I am here to tell you today that this school is much more than football, and that it’s okay to join clubs and activities that might seem “dorky,” for lack of a better term.

While I had a great time playing football at MC, it is far from the thing that defined my experience. In fact, I stopped playing two weeks before the state championship during my senior season. I quit not because I had anything against the team, but rather because I wanted to do what I found fun for my last year of high school. And that’s what high school should be: fun. And MC is a fun place to go as a student even without playing for its well-known and accomplished football team.

There are lots of opportunities to get involved here and make friends. Coming out of grammar school, I thought that I just had to play one sport and that would be how I made my friends and that would define and be the focal point of my high school experience. I could not have been more wrong.

Nearly everything I have done here at MC was completely separate from playing football. In fact, looking back on it, football is really just a small footnote in my journey here. It’s not everything, and there are plenty of other paths students can take to make friends and get involved.

All but one of the close friends I have now did not play varsity football or the same sport as me at all. I can confidently say that I still would have had an awesome experience here had I never touched a football field.

There are lots of clubs and activities here at MC, and the list of them grows every year. Three of the clubs and activities I was involved in at MC either grew more so than they did in the past or started entirely brand new during my time as a student.

One of my best experiences at MC was helping the drama department grow over the past three years.

I still remember my sophomore year asking Mr. Jamie Black, who was in charge of MC’s tiny performing arts program at the time, if I could do the tech side of all the small ten-minute plays they were going to put on that year. It was quite literally a one-man operation, with me being the only person doing tech at all for those performances.

As a junior, attention to and participation in the drama department ramped up, and I found myself in charge of a small but great group of guys to run the lights and tech for that year’s spring play, A Separate Peace.

Then this year was even more complicated as the spring play was held in the new Barry-Hughes Performing Arts Center, and I had to learn an entirely new and more advanced lighting configuration for the production of A Few Good Men, but I can say that it was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life.

I wouldn’t have been involved in that growth if I had been too afraid to help out and join. By choosing to be brave enough to join a club that I thought was a little “weird” or “dorky,” I now have an experience I will never regret.

Being a part of those clubs that I never even knew about as an incoming freshman has defined my experience here. More students should try to step out of their comfort zone and get involved in these kinds of activities.

If there is one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that there are no closed doors. You can join and get involved in anything. Nobody is going to tell you no or turn you away from a club at MC.

The most important part of my high school experience was that I had a lot of fun while I was here.

Heading into high school, I was already worried about college and how to build my résumé. Looking back on it, I had the wrong mindset and way of going about things at school.

What helped me build my résumé the most so that I could get into my dream college wasn’t the times I stayed up late cramming for exams to keep my GPA up (although grades were obviously important), but it was instead all the things I did for fun while I was here.

I decided to help broadcast basketball games and be a producer for the Caravan Media Group towards the end of my junior year. I didn’t do this for any purpose other than it seemed like it would be fun.

Things like the school’s satirical publication, The Merchant, and even writing for this very paper, are activities I picked up because it simply looked like it would be fun to do. I was wrong about writing all year for Mr. Baffoe being fun, but, hey, you win some, you lose some.

I’m never going to look back at high school and remember getting a 100% on a statistics test, but I will remember the laughs shared while setting up before broadcasts on the track over the gym.

Leaving MC, I look back on this as one of the greatest times of my life. I made so many friends and got to do things I never imagined myself doing coming out of grammar school.

My name is James McCormac, and I love Mount Carmel.