Dear Alumni,
It seems like yesterday when I entered the original Allen-Stevenson gym at our East 78th Street schoolhouse in 1990. A court 25 feet wide and 40 feet long, perfectly designed for the half-court trap and a 3v3 coach’s game. I remember Coach Kennedy applying his St. Anthony’s trap with our Junior Varsity team to great success. Physical education classes were conducted with the sound of boys eating lunch just on the other side of the court's sideline. Ms. Matthew and Ms. Begley would be shuffling family-style trays out as the gym teacher tried to keep boys focused on the task at hand. It was quite a sight!
I am not sure any alum has memories of a big A-S gym. In 1996, we completed the first rendition of a new gym at A-S, and while it was bigger than our former bandbox, it was still small. Fast forward to 2020, a year that many of us will never forget for reasons other than a new gym. However, get ready A-S Alums, our new gym is regulation size for middle school, and it has a legitimate three-point line!
I’m excited about everything this new gym has to offer for our athletics program at A-S. Those of you I have coached may remember the phrase “offense is spacing and spacing is offense.” Well, we can now practice on our own court and teach that concept. Our soccer, baseball and lacrosse teams can have effective indoor practices on rainy days. That alone will increase training time and skill development amongst all of our teams. Furthermore, we can now acquire and use those indoor training aids that in the past simply didn’t fit within our facility.
I know I speak for all of the P.E. teachers when I say that teaching in this space will transform our program. Our lower and middle grades will now have the curricular and scheduling flexibility that we so desperately needed to move those programs forward. I sincerely believe that the future is bright for A-S athletics and physical education. I hope you will have the opportunity to come to visit Allen-Stevenson, check out the new gym, and catch up with former teachers.
Fortiter et Recte!
Rich Alifano
Director of Athletics and Physical Education
