By Sean Mulligan ’12, Senior Contributer

It is extremely difficult to reflect on a topic that has been so crucial throughout my entire high school career. Athletics at Newark Academy have played a pivotal role in the last four years of my life. Because we are not a large public school and have an incredible academic reputation, creating a successful athletic department is very difficult. For example, I played on the football team for three out of my four years at NA. Each of those three years, our team was limited to about 20 kids, many of whom were only freshmen or sophomores. A typical high school team has 35 to 50 kids in their program and consists of mainly upperclassmen. While most of the time we did not see success on the scoreboard, our success was that we competed each week and never gave up despite all the adversity we faced.

I will never forget playing on Coursen Field, under the lights, with a huge crowd rooting for our team as we battled for a win. I will never forget dumping ice-cold water all over my baseball coach after we won the sectional championship. I will never forget running out on the basketball court, listening to the crowd roar as we started warming up.

The greatest part of being a Newark Academy athlete is that you automatically become a member of a community. Every athlete has a different, unique experience; but together, we all come together to support each other. Baseball players go to lacrosse games, basketball players watch their friends’ wrestling matches, and football players will organize a fan bus for a soccer game. While we all have our individual sports, we care about the other ones and support them as much as we can.

I have participated in three sports, attended countless games, cheered until I could not cheer any more, and even painted my chest . Sports at Newark Academy are not necessarily about winning state championships; rather, they are about the senior grill, homecoming games, and storming the court after beating MKA. They are about the memories, not the results. NA athletics will stick with me for the rest of my life and I will always look back on my time wearing the red and black with a smile.