Around noon on a sunny Saturday two months into the 2022 school year, I received an email from a Little City legend, Lindy Hockenberry. The message, titled “I need your help,” was just two short sentences long.
“Josh–[the person who] was going to introduce me tonight for the Hall of Fame ceremony – he has covid. Any chance you could do a 2-3 min “stand up” for me???”
I turned to my exhausted wife. She had just plopped down on the couch to catch her breath from putting our two-month-old down for a nap after another sleepless night. Despite knowing that I was chaperoning the Meridian Homecoming Dance that evening and that this request would pull me away as I wrestled with the words to honor the Mustang’s number one fan, she assented before I could inquire. She knew that when Lindy, a 50-year FCCPS employee, my former teacher, occasional substitute, neighbor, and friend, asked for help, the answer had to be yes.
At 5:30, beverages and light hors d’oeuvres, courtesy of Richard Kane and company, were served. The aroma filled the air as giants from decades past came together in the Learning Stairs, the heart of the new school building, for the first Mustang Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony since changing the school’s name.
Ten legendary individuals, including the electric Robert Tartt, the enlightened Jenn Parsons Fees, the incomparable LeBryan Thomas, the aforementioned and affable Lindy, and the dynastic 2014-16 Boys Soccer Team, were elevated. In the audience were contributors and confidants, benefactors and beneficiaries, family, friends, teammates, and colleagues privileged to be part of the honorees’ journey to greatness. Joel Hamme, Marybeth Connelly, Tony Green. Becki Creed. PJ Anderson. Tori McKinney. Stories of dedication, determination, and choosing harder rights over easier wrongs carried the night.
However, one individual was central to all of the celebrations and stories heard that night; he was the star from which generations of athletic success orbited, the shining light and central figure to our Mustang solar system: the instrumental Tom Horn.
As a graduate of the class of 2002, I’ve probably heard Coach Horn speak what feels like a hundred times. Considering that he served as the athletic director, football and baseball coach, and division lawyer for 20 years until 2016, it would have been nearly impossible for me not to. His speech, rightfully the first of the individual recognitions, was fairly standard. There was the personal anecdote, the self-deprecating joke, the expression of gratitude to family and friends. There were appeals to values common in sports. Impact. Legacy. Service. Community. Competition.
So maybe it was the significance of the moment – his induction into the Hall of Fame for building one of the winningest athletic programs in state history is a tremendous feat. Or, maybe it was something about me – a lot had happened in 20 years; I was now a husband, a father, an educator, and no longer a teenage boy. But something about this speech (which I suggest everyone watch) resonated in ways prior ones had not.
“When you get the culture right, the coaches and athletes will flourish.”
Now, Coach Horn is by no means the first to discuss culture. Building and maintaining a high-performing organizational culture is prominently featured in books, podcasts, and lectures for leaders in all sorts of fields in and out of sports. Any of these texts will highlight the significance of culture and address the critical role that connection, shared practices, and purpose play in an organization’s success.
Yet the social dynamics, norms, rites, language, and values present in culture are often assumed as ordinary to participants and only noteworthy when viewed by an observer. As a result, one of the paradoxes of culture is that it is hard for a member to analyze their own. Listening on this night, 20 years removed from the culture he and so many others strove to create for our community, was a gift that permitted me to do so at that moment and since. Simultaneously, I appreciated his efforts – and those of others such as Bob Snee, Julie Bravin, Shaw Cohe, Rick Heupel, and John Pitas – and gained insights into what made the culture so strong.
“We valued winning, but we also understood that winning was part of a process. And that process is driven by the character and the values of the people who run the process.”
Everyone wants to be successful, whether in sports, on the stage, or in the classroom. Coach Horn emphasized that success is a byproduct of the willingness to commit to the process that leads to success. More importantly, a successful process has two essential components that must be right: the people and the standards. This combination of people and standards made that era and those since so prolific.
The secret sauce of FCCPS is our unwavering commitment to a standard of excellence. We cultivate an environment that raises the bar for all of our members by holding high expectations for success and supporting people in achieving them. As a result, we attract amazing people, whether families or educators, who are committed to excellence in everything they do.
While test scores, trophies, and honors mark our relentless pursuit of excellence, the real measurement is how our people flourish due to their transformational experiences here. From our graduates, who overwhelmingly report how seamless their transition to college was, to our educators, who serve as educational thought leaders in and out of the division, we develop people who find success anywhere.
Recognizing that there is this standard of excellence and holding ourselves and each other to that standard makes FCCPS the special place it is.
In this way, the secret sauce is not a secret but a choice. Financial guru Dave Ramsey says it this way, “living right is not complicated; it may be difficult, but it is not complicated.” The Cadet Prayer at the US Military Academy says this in another way, “make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won.”
Committing ourselves to a standard of excellence is a choice when easy and a choice when hard. It is a choice made at the start of each school year and renewed daily. It is a choice when it benefits us individually and, more importantly, when we have to sacrifice or forgo what we want in the interest of the whole. It is a choice to live a life of purpose, discipline, and responsibility. It is a choice to be a good person who pursues great things.
It is a choice made by educators like Al Defazio, with the precision of a master watchmaker, continuously tinkering to design meaningful instruction and provide detailed student feedback. A choice made by our artists like Mary Jo West, Shawn Northrip, Jamie Sample, Christina Leigh, and Marc Robarge, who passionately shepherd students through some of the most beautiful works of art.
This is a choice made by educators like Suzanne Planas and Lindsey Jacobs, who work tirelessly to ensure that when we say that every single child is capable of success, it is genuinely without exception. Or a choice made by coaches like Chris Carrico and Anne Steenhoek, who meticulously plan for every situation their athletes may encounter.
It’s a choice made by Ronnie Henderson and James Shipp, Kish Rafique and Megan Rerucha, Katia Taylor and Kent Foster, Jennifer O’Keefe and Eric Duchaj, Pam Mahony and Vicki Galliher, and so many other outstanding educators who know that choosing right and doing right matters not because of the output, but because the standard it sets is necessary to achieve excellence.
Appropriately, Lindy was the last to be inducted into the hall that night. Where Coach Horn established the mindset for how we would achieve athletic excellence, it was always Lindy who cared for the heart. For many students, she gave them the nudge and nurturing necessary to spark their interest in high school athletics in the first place. To compete for the Mustangs was to know that there would always be that one extra fan in the stands cheering you on.
As the ceremony wound to a close, and goodbyes marked my transition to the night’s other obligation, I couldn’t help but think of a few more of the words spoken early by Coach Horn:
“The standards that exist are what helped to produce all of the tremendous success.”
Three floors down, another generation of standard keepers had already begun checking eager students into the Homecoming Dance. Jen Jayson. Will Snyder. Izzy Psaki. Brandon Wright. Kenny George. Peter Laub. The secret sauce reverberated against the walls of the auxiliary gym for all to hear.
About Josh Singer: Josh is the IB Diploma Program Coordinator at Meridian High School and has served FCCPS students since 2018. He graduated from George Mason High School in 2002 and lives in Falls Church with his wife and two children, one of whom attends FCCPS schools.