When alumni reminisce about playing sports at Flintridge Prep, there’s a common thread: relationships. Sure, some point out a big victory or a heartbreaking loss, and lots talk about the tough two-a-days, but everyone mentions a lifelong friendship, a coach or a mentor. They talk about the confidence they earned and the trust their coaches had in them. They talk about athleticism, and they talk about how they use the skills and attributes they honed in after-school practices and rivalry games long after the glory of victory—or the sting of defeat—has faded. Rebel athletes graduate and go on to use these lessons in college, in their careers and at home. Because teamwork, perseverance, courage and grit aren’t needed just on the field.
In 2012, Cheryl Finster ‘00 was on a business trip with Nike in Japan checking out the Nagoya Women’s Marathon. She was traveling with Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won gold at the 1984 Olympics in LA, the first year the women’s marathon was included in the games. Finster had never intended—nor had she trained—to run the 26 miles and 385 yards, but when Samuelson insisted, she figured she’d give it her best shot. Not only did she finish, she clocked in at a respectable three hours and 56 minutes. Her experience in Japan somewhat mirrors her experience at Prep. Though she was a natural athlete and a gifted soccer player, she had never run cross country or track before high school. But that didn’t stop her from trying. And with encouragement from Coach Michael Roffina, who Finster still sees as a mentor, she went on to run cross country and track (and compete in her first sport, soccer) at the collegiate level. And when it was time to pick a career, Finster immediately looked to athletics. She came back to coach cross country at Prep while pursuing her master’s in Sports Management, looking again to Roffina, still a mentor to Finster, but also as a co-coach. “Coach Roffina cares beyond the sport he’s coaching in,” Finster says. She went on to intern and work for the LA Marathon and the LA Galaxy before moving to Onboard Experiential Marketing, where she now works as the account director for Nike Running.
BJ Hoeptner Evans ’86 started at Prep in 1979, the first year Flintridge’s lower school admitted female students. The fact that there were no established middle school sports teams for girls didn’t stop Evans—she simply played for the boys basketball team. By the time she got to the 9th grade, Flintridge had established a high school girls basketball team, which quickly became a force in area play. It was during her time on the team that Coach John Ruch taught Evans about setting goals. “He set really high expectations for us,” she says. “I think having to go from no girls basketball team to having a pretty good one made us really scrappy and made us work really hard for something.” She credits Ruch for instilling in her a love of sports, which ultimately led her to a career in sports journalism. Evans was again forced to play with the boys, but she proved herself when she earned the job as the first female sports editor at the University of Boulder newspaper. After covering sports for a while, Evans made the switch to communications, working for USA Cycling, then for USA Triathlon and ultimately, for Team USA Volleyball. Evans has had the opportunity to travel the world and has attended the Olympic Games in Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London. Says Evans, “Prep definitely propelled me into a career in sports.”
When John Plumb ’64 starts to talk about sports at Flintridge, he goes straight to the philosophy of the school’s founder, Doane Lowery. “When he started the school in 1933, the only sports he wanted were sports that he believed were ‘life sports’: golf, tennis and swimming,” Plumb says. And though the athletics program eventually expanded, this mentality has not been lost—Prep athletics, no matter the sport, are still vehicles through which students learn life lessons that go beyond the field, pool and court. Plumb harkens to his days as an athlete at Prep—he wasn’t the fastest or most skilled athlete, he says, but he tried hard, and he got the opportunity to play. “Everybody played,” he says, modestly. “At any competitive high school, they would have cut me and sent me off. We had a caring staff, andit was super inclusive.” But Flintridge was competitive, and the school won the League championship in football three out of the four years Plumb wasin high school. “My senior year, the coaching staff gave me the most improved player award, I think just to pat me on the head for sticking with it,” he says. Plumb even came back, while he was working on his master’s, to help coach football. And later, he returned to teach and coach football, along with developing the lower school sports programs, instilling in students the values that he learned from sports.
“I think all of the traditional values that sports can bring are very important for boys and girls,” he says. “Fair play, competition and a sense of trying to do your best….The bottom line is that winning is nice, and it’s great and it’s a goal, but the comradeship and the competition were much more important to me, especially at the middle school level.” Plumb worked at Prep in a variety of coaching, faculty and development roles until 1990, at which point alumni established an endowment fund in his name as a tribute to his service to the school. The Fathers Club raises money for this fund each year at the Flintridge Preparatory School Golf Tournament.
When Austin Reed ’06 arrived at Prep as a 7th grader, he had little to no sports experience. It’s surprising, then, that six years later he graduated as football captain, having contributed to a CIF championship and played not just football, but also basketball, soccer and track during his time at Prep. He went on to play rugby at USC, and now, he’s back with his college team as a coach. So how did he go from having played a few basketball games in elementary school to an experienced team athlete? Reed gives credit to all of his Prep coaches, starting with Alex Rivera, who was his middle school basketball coach. “Alex Rivera was a really great influence on me. I wasn’t necessarily the best, but I worked really hard and he really encouraged me to get better,” he says. “He took interest in me as an athlete. It’s really cool to have someone like that.” Taking it a step further, he points to his sophomore year, when he was pulled from the JV football team to play for the Varsity squad in CIF playoffs. In the final game against the school’s rival, Poly, Reed sprained his ankle, but after an evaluation, the coaches allowed him back into the game. “It was really cool to have them believe in me so much that they wanted me to go back in, even physically limited,” he says. “That not only motivated me to work harder for them, but it also gave me insight into how important it is to motivate and encourage others.” Reed has carried these lessons into college, at USC where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s in Aerospace Engineering, and beyond, as he works as a design and project engineer for Hydra Electric in Burbank.
— Bailey Shiffler