Commencement Address of Coach Norman Black speech at the Ateneo High School Graduation

Fr Jett Villarin, Fr. Nemy Que, Principal Gabby Mallillin, Mrs. Jennifer Concepcion, Fr. Jboy Gonzales, Mr. Ron Capinding, to the faculty, all the parents and students here today, good afternoon to all of you.

It’s certainly a pleasure for me to be here, to be able to talk to you today and I thank you for the invitation. When I was asked to talk to you, I was a little bit stunned that Principal Gabby actually asked me to talk to you because I wasn’t really expecting it and of course, I’ve never really attended Ateneo as a school. At the same time, I feel very, very close to the culture because my son, Norman Aaron is graduating today, I’m very proud of that fact. And of course I coached the Ateneo Blue Eagles for eight years.

They asked me to come over and talk about my experience as a parent and to give you some advice for the future. I’ll just start off with my experience as a parent.  Well, Aaron entered Ateneo Grade school in grade three and I took it upon myself to start tutoring him when he entered grade school. So when he entered grade school in grade 3, I actually tutored him in English, Math and Science, and my wife took care of AP, Filipino, and CLE. So we really helped him along the way. Now, I tutored him all the way through grade school even up to his first year in high school.  And I did a pretty good job in high school because basically, high school first year is just a repeat of the last of year of grade school. But it was the second year of high school that I felt that I was a little bit out of my league as far as the academics were concerned. And it made me have a great respect for the high school here and how they taught the students. All of a sudden he was bringing home a lot of work that wasn’t really something I remembered from my high school days and I had to turn him over to a professional tutor to be able to help him. And that happened a great deal as far as me trying to help him. Now I’ve got a lot of respect for the educational system here because a lot of people ask me, what do you think about Ateneo High school and its education? I always tell them this: Ateneo High School is the one place where a teacher of the Ateneo comes up to you and asks you, What is 2 +2? You better think ten times before you say four. And I say that because in Ateneo,  it’s not always the answer. It’s how you get to the answer. The one thing I appreciate about the Ateneo educational system so much is the problem solving that they focus on. The fact that you have to worry about not just the problem, you have to worry about how to analyze it, you have to worry about the equation and the solution is so important. If you don’t have those things in the mix, then the teacher’s not gonna give you a correct answer. Now I can only tell you that in the future all of that training will come in handy.

The fact the you have become problem solvers here in school will help you when you get out there in the real life. In a lot of ways, I thnk I can speak for a lot of parents here, that it’s not just my son who is graduating today from high school, it’s me also graduating, for the second time because I graduated about 30 years ago. So for all the students, I’d like you to give your parents a round of applause because they deserve it; for giving you the guidance to get you to this point. Now my question to you would be this: Here we are, so what’s next?

I would imagine for most of you, if not all of you, college is next. You’re heading to college and when you go into college, it’s gonna be different challenges for you. Fr Nemy Que, who is sitting here on the stage right now, he was the chaplain for the Ateneo Blue Eagles for the entire stint that I was there. And he helped us and was responsible for making sure that our recruits did well in school. At least they studied. And the one thing we used to tell them is in Ateneo, the most important thing to know is that you have a lot more freedom than you had in high school.

In high school basically, you got up in the morning, you got your ride to school, you went to class, you did your attendance, and then you went to the class throughout the day. If for some reason you didn’t go to school on that day, by the next day, had to have some type of letter explaining to the principal. If you didn’t go to class on that particular day, then probably you’d be in the principal’s office by the end of the day. That’s the way it goes. But when you get into college, it’s completely different. All of a sudden, you have all this freedom. But I just want all of you to remember that with that freedom comes responsibility because you have the freedom to do what you want, but at the same time, you better have some qualities to get you through college.

Number one, you have to be self disciplined. Very, very important. Nobody’s gonna tell you to go to class, correct? Nobody’s gonna tell you to do your school work, Nobody’s gonna be reminding you. You have to do it on your own. That’s basically it. You’ve got to learn to be responsible, to turn your work in time, make sure that you do the things you want to do. But more importantly, you're gonna  have to manage your time. That’s the most important thing. That’s the one thing we used to always tell our players. In the case of the basketball team, the players are probably in the basketball court or in the weight room for 3 to 4 hours a day. I’m talking about the Blue Eagles. That means that they have less time to study so time management becomes everything. So those are the things you really have to focus on as you begin your career in college.

Next up, and I would like to stress this to all of you, all the students, you have to start thinking about your goal setting. What you wanna do with your life? What is your career path? That’s gonna be very important. I know when I graduated from high school, I had basically two goals in mind. The first goal was to graduate from college for the main reason I just wanted to make my mother proud. It really wasn’t about the education that time. I just really wanted to make her proud. I wanted to graduate from college. My second goal was to play in the NBA and become a great star. Similar to a Michael Jordan or a Julius Irving.

Now, you ask, why do I have to set goals? Well, I'm just telling you straight. You have a goal in life simply because you have a goal. You have something to strive for, something to aim for, something to reach for.  In my case, I did graduate from St. Joseph’s University in 1979 with a BA degree in English. So I reached that goal. I accomplished that. The other goal was a little bit more difficult. I did not become an NBA Hall of Famer like Dr. J or Michael Jordan. But at the same time, because I set that goal for myself, I was able to reach up and become a professional player for 13 years. So I was able to earn a lot of money, see the entire world, and eventually ended up playing and coaching here in the Philippines. So set your goals. It’s very, very important.
Education is everything. When you’re growing up, you don’t realize that. My mom used to always saying, “Boy, (she didn’t really call me Norman, she would call me Boy) you really have to get your education. You never know when something may go wrong in basketball. You might break your knee, you may not be good enough.  So education becomes very important and I could really vouch for that because  when I stopped playing for basketball at age 34, guess what? I had to use my degree and my education to get a job as a basketball coach. And I believe up to this day, and maybe Fr. Nemy Que can vouch for me on this, I believe I got the job as head coach of the Ateneo Blue Eagles because I had an education in the States. I attended St. Joseph’s University. So study hard. That’s very important.

But more than anything else, I told you I’ve been very impressed with the educational system here in the Ateneo because I've been very involved them with my players. More than anything else, the one thing I’ve learned and I love is the philosophy of Ateneans about being men for others. That’s really important to me. And it’s not corny, it’s real. Because that’s what life is all about.

Ateneo basically builds leaders. That’s what they do. And your challenge is to use the qualities and values that you’ve learned in Ateneo to develop into future leaders. Just look around you guys, in the government, what school did your president go to? The Ateneo. In the world, the pope, the Head of the Catholic Church, is a Jesuit. I've done a lot of talks over the years about teamwork and team building, and almost all of the companies I’ve talked to, and these are big companies, these are top banks, etc., normally there is an Atenean either the President or Senior Vice President, or somebody part of the Management Team. So even in the business world, you can become a leader.

But more importantly for me, it’s at home. The good thing about leaving Ateneo High School if there is a good thing, is that you are moving on to college where there are now, girls. So it’s gonna be a little different. But eventually you’ve got to pick somebody your wife, you're gonna have kids, and the values you’ve learned here in the Ateneo will have to be utilized in your home. That’s gonna be very important.  

So in the end, your ability and the values you have learned at Ateneo and your desire to have a position, a positive impact in society will separate you from the rest. As it has been with the past graduates of the Ateneo High School, your goal and responsibility guys should be to utilize your skills to become future leaders of the Philippines so you can help your country to come stronger and a better place to live. That should be very important as you move on to your college life.

I would like to thank the teachers today. My mother, my aunts, they were teachers in the school system in Baltimore, Maryland. My mother taught for 35 years, so I understand first hand, sometimes teaching can be a thankless and difficult job, especially if the students don’t want to learn  or they are being very difficult. But in the same time, just as I was very proud of my teams that won the UAAP Championships in those five straight years, all of your teachers are very proud of you today. The fact that you’re graduating. So I want you to your teachers a warm round of applause also, please. We are all very thankful for what the educators do here at the Ateneo, for teaching us and for giving us a better chance to move on with our lives.

I also would like to personally thank a few teachers if I can. Last night  I got a text from Coach Sandy. Coach Sandy was my assistant coach when I was a coach at the Ateneo, now he’s my assistant coach in Talk N Text, and I went over with him what I was gonna say today because I was told I only have 15 minutes to talk and I didn’t know exactly what to talk about, and he was happy what I was gonna be talking about today. But last night, he texts at around 10:45 he goes, “Coach, I think instead of thanking Teacher Sandy or teacher Erik, you should call them Ma’am or Sir.” And I was telling myself, why would I call them ma’am or sir? They’re much younger than me, right? But he was telling me, that’s how it’s done here in the Ateneo. You address your teacher as “Ma’am” and “Sir.” So I'm going to do that while I thank a few teachers. First, I would like to thank, Ma’am Ria and Sir Sandy, who are actually married to each other and are expecting their first kid soon so I hope that works out for them. I’d like to thank Sir Eric, I’m not sure whether Sir Eric is here or not, but Sir Eric is the one I turned to tutoring over to when I couldn’t handle it any more with Aaron and Sir Eric I’m so very thankful to you , I know it’s been very difficult, a little bit of struggle but at the same time I couldn't imagine what it would’ve been without you, so thank you very much. I’d like to thank Sir Gabby, the adviser of Aaron in the senior year, for giving me the information to make sure he was doing his school work. I’d like to thank Ma’am Faith, his math teacher, Sir Andy, his Science teacher. And of course, I’d like to thank Principal Gabby for really believing in Aaron and giving him a chance to be here for this graduation.Thank you very much, Principal Gabby.

So now I get it. I get it now about the Ateneo education. It’s not just about 2+2 equaling 4, it’s not that simple. Instead, the Ateneo education is about instilling in the students the ability to think, analyze and to solve problems in the future. And that’s the challenge that all of you have ahead of you. I’d like to say congratulations to the Class of 2014, the Ateneo High School Class of 2014, and good luck to all of you in the future and God bless. Thank you!
 
* photos courtesy of Philip Sison and Aly Yap