2001 Volunteers' Celebration Dinner Address
Given on November 10, 2001

Humbled and Uplifted
by James C. Kapteyn '79

The great power of Deerfield Academy is that it both humbles and uplifts. To sit in the Caswell Library, to walk up Albany Road, to sing the Deerfield songs in school meetings, to be immersed in the massive strength of Deerfield Academy, is to feel small just as it is to feel huge.

I felt that dynamic as a student twenty-two years ago, I feel it as a teacher now, and I can see it at work on the extraordinary students who wear the green and white today.

Consider the tradition of the seal. All of you have walked into the gym through the trophy room where the portrait of Tom Ashley hangs on the east wall. And all of you have conscientiously, though perhaps not consciously, avoided stepping on that big brass Deerfield seal in the middle of the floor. Why do we go out of our way in deference to a spot in the middle of a heavily trafficked floor? Because the seal symbolizes a strength that we value, and in valuing that strength in that way, we are confirming our own contribution to the very future of that strength.

That's what "Be worthy of your heritage" means to me. The first part is imperative; we are told to be worthy. The pronoun at the end of the motto is the critical piece for me, though. We all bring our own heritages to Deerfield; we have the heritage of our family, our relatives, the heritage of our own past. But, as signified by the pronoun "your," once we get to Deerfield we gain another heritage. The motto, in asking us to live up to Deerfield's past, includes us in the ownership, even the responsibility, of that glory. It is our heritage we are to be worthy of. Be worthy of your heritage humbles us before the past and uplifts us for the future.

When I first arrived on campus in the fall of 1976, I knew I had stumbled into the middle of a school whose history, beauty, stature and strength towered above me. I felt small and feeble. At the same time, though, I was exhilarated because I somehow sensed that, even as I, a newbie from nowhere, was just a little atom in the mass of Deerfield, that same mass of Deerfield was becoming part of me. Though the challenges in front of me were daunting, the school infused me with its strength.

The first afternoon of soccer tryouts was particularly amazing. First of all, I was given socks, shorts, a shirt and a jock and I was told I could get clean ones every day. Then, Norm directed me to the lower level where I nearly staggered to the most beautiful fields I had ever seen. And before long, there were over a hundred eager soccer players, all in green and gray, sitting in a huge circle listening to the Czar explain what playing sports for Deerfield meant. I'm not sure I heard a word he said. I do remember this, though: Mr. Hindle knew my name before I knew his.

All my teachers impressed me that year. Their understanding of Deerfield was as complete and as seamless as mine was confused and improvised.

I had Mr. Schell for Geometry, Mr. Lee for European history. I had Mr. Cushman for Geology and Mr. Perkins for French. I had Mr. Carey for English.

I don't know how many of you had the same teachers as I, but even if you didn't, I bet you would recognize their lessons even if not their names.

From Mr. Hindle I learned how respect for oneself and for others becomes grace.

From Mr. McGlynn I learned how style is hollow unless it blossoms from a fastidious appreciation of detail.

From all my English teachers I learned that the epiphanies of understanding that occasionally illuminated my study of literature were invaluable treasures.

In truth, I suppose, it was not until after I graduated from Deerfield that I began to understand fully what I had learned. But at the time I knew above all that I loved the school.

I loved walking from Mac junior year through the snow to the Memorial Building when the path across the field had frozen into a line of icy craters. Those paths were long, long enough so that somewhere in the middle I would become suspended between the life of the dorm behind and the life of the class to come and all my attention would narrow to the two or three steps in front of me and the cold air frosting my hand holding my books.

I loved the ritual of stretching out my JV hockey jersey in the locker room before a game, especially when Mr. Morsman was blasting a Beach Boys album on his close-and-play record player.

I loved arriving at other schools and stepping off the bus with my teammates in jacket and tie.

I loved going to the mailboxes with my friends on Thursdays and finding out which of us had guessed right about who would make the cover of Sports illustrated that week.

I loved the sharp wit of my friends and the bizarre but fitting nicknames we had for each other and for our teachers.

I loved the lively language of weird words that evolved among the students during our late night bull sessions in the dorms.

I loved the feeling of utter physical exhaustion that overcame me lying in my bed after lacrosse double-sessions. I loved the campus, especially the authority of the main school buildings and the beauty of the valley.

And so twenty years after graduating, I have come back to teach at Deerfield and I have found, as you well know, that much from the past remains a vital part of the present here.

No doubt you recognized many of the cheers you heard down on the fields today, and I know you felt in its entirety the sublime sensation of coming together to beat Choate.

I am sure you spoke to many of your old friends and teachers and recognized many other faces from your days here. I know there are over twenty faculty members here now who were here when I graduated in 1979.

And I can assure you that the dining hall's Shepherd's pie, which I always enjoy with a touch of ketchup, tastes exactly as it always has. The same is true with the banana cream pie. The two stainless steel pitchers of milk and water are still at every table at sit-down meals. And I am happy to say that I can still tell which is which from the condensation on the outside of the pitchers, so I don't have to commit the new boy faux pas of looking inside the pitchers when asked to pass the milk.

Deerfield reaches back to the past through its students as well. For instance, of the fourteen boys who live on my corridor in Field I this year, there are two whose fathers went to Deerfield, one whose uncles went to Deerfield, and two whose brothers went to Deerfield. There is also a boy on the corridor whose cousin goes to Deerfield, and one whose sister goes to Deerfield.

There are some changes too, of course: some new buildings, some old buildings gone; some new trees, some old trees gone.

Perhaps the most visible and, I might argue, the most significant, change at Deerfield is the return to coeducation. I must admit that I was not wholly enthusiastic about coeducation when I first learned of it. But now I know there is simply no question that coeducation has made Deerfield an even stronger school in countless ways.

Some of my most emotionally charged memories of being a student here are of the return trips from games when, win or lose, we would sing with all our adolescent energy the Deerfield Cheering Song as the bus turned off of Routes 5 and 10 into Old Deerfield. Singing those songs never failed to transport me.

This fall I am the assistant coach of Girls Varsity Soccer and some of my most emotionally charged memories of this season are of our return trips from away games when the girls sang with all their adolescent energy the Deerfield Cheering Song as the bus turned off of Routes 5 and 10 into Old Deerfield. To be honest, in all my trips with the Boys JV soccer team last fall and the Boys Varsity Lacrosse team last spring, no one had sung the songs and I lamented their disappearance. So when the girls first started up this fall with "Deerfield! Go onward marching" (not, you will note, "Deerfield, thy Sons are marching"), I felt a surge of emotion that had been dormant for twenty-two years.

The biggest change of all for me, of course, is that I am here as a teacher and not a student. I teach English to two sections of freshmen and two sections of juniors. I live in Field I. I coach two seasons; in the fall I am an assistant coach for the Girls Varsity Soccer team, and in the spring, I am an assistant coach for the Boys Varsity Lacrosse team.

This is just my second year of teaching at Deerfield, though it's my thirteenth year of teaching altogether. I absolutely love it. I would love it even had I not gone to school here myself. It is an extraordinary place. Deerfield demands a great deal of its faculty. I have been enormously impressed by my colleagues. They are decidedly accomplished and intelligent people. The Deerfield faculty is deep with expertise and experience and operates with both discipline and compassion. The teachers here are as eager to learn as they are to teach. Listening to them talk about what they're doing in their classes makes me wish I were their student.

In fact, I remain a student here. I still have much to learn. I am humbled by my colleagues even as I am uplifted by them. I see their great work, their commitment and their strength, and I am inspired.

A typical weekday for me begins with one of my crazy freshmen classes. Even first thing in the morning they are full of energy, almost all of it positive. Most of them have not yet fully developed the mechanism that distinguishes thinking something from saying something: if it pops into their mind, chances are pretty good that they'll say it, whether it's an idea about the story we're reading, a thought about the pen they can't find, or a question about why the dining hall serves Frosted Flakes but not Captain Crunch.

Juniors, on the other hand, are generally more focused. Or at least they have a stronger sense of what they should be doing. It is a rare junior at Deerfield who does not tend-at least occasionally-to think of junior year in terms of the college application process. They are studious and are willing to work hard.

One thing about my juniors this year is that there are several who lived in Field last year. In fact, I got to know almost all of the twenty-five juniors I teach this year last year from the teams I coached, from the dorm, from the dining hall table rotation, or just from living on the same campus.

Though being on duty in the dorm as often as I am makes it difficult to get my work done and occasionally pulls me away from my family, I think that the boarding experience is one of the best things about Deerfield. In truth, one of the chief beauties of living and learning at Deerfield is the totality of the experience. We get to know each other all over the place in all sorts of contexts.

And getting to know Deerfield students is a joy. On the whole, they are preternaturally focused, driven even. Not only are they remarkably capable, most of them, even the freshmen, are already quite accomplished. Deerfield students are comfortable with competition and are used to winning. They remind me of Tom Wolfe's phrase from his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities- "masters of the universe." Of course, Wolfe used the phrase in an ironic way: his masters of the universe were elitist, greedy Manhattan narcissists, but when I say some of these kids are masters of the universe, I mean that they seem like kids who will develop into people that will rule the universe. And I would want them to; they are smart, thoughtful, articulate, generous, good, stable, creative, proactive. It is a joy to be among such great people.

The students themselves appreciate each other. They love it here. They recognize that their peers are extraordinary and that their faculty is exceptional. They know they will cherish their Deerfield memories for the rest of their lives.

That's one of the things we talked about with the Girls Varsity soccer team this morning. We have had an exceptional season. We have played some beautiful soccer. We have been thrilled with our cohesion and with the near-constant smiles that have characterized our time together. As we approached our game against Choate this morning we knew that we would have to win to have a shot to get into the post-season playoffs. The pressure was on. And this whole week has been spirit week and no one at this school could possibly have been immune to the intense and rollicking energy that was focused on today's contests. Before the game, we said that we would all have more important moments and more critical episodes in our lives; the Choate game was not the most important thing in the world. Nevertheless, we said, whatever happens on the field today will live on in our memories, so let's make sure we do what we want to remember. As happens so often at Deerfield, we were faced with a daunting and an inspiring moment. None of us was big enough to win on our own. But together, displaying the grit, the defensive tenacity, and the cohesion that have been our strength all season, we won the game 1-0. And neither the girls, nor me, nor anybody else on the lower level today, will ever forget the glory that they shared by being worthy of their heritage.