School Pride Goes Global For U.S. World Cup Team Defender

Many who know me realize that I possess a significant amount of school pride for my collegiate alma mater, UIC.

This is also true for my secondary institution, Bishop McNamara. (Okay, and St. Martin of Tours for grammar school)

But I digress.

Working at UIC, points of pride come across my desk all the time. Students earning an internship or job offer after a letter of recommendation, teams winning titles, GPA’s soaring, personal bests being surpassed, etc. I’m on a campus committee for a special faculty/staff award and at our meeting today the depth of nominees discussed made me proud to be a member of the UIC community.

But there’s something especially cool about the announcement from U.S. Soccer today that confirmed that Jay DeMerit is one of the 23 men who will represent our country in the FIFA World Cup. (He’s also feeling the heat from the British tabloids for talking about the American’s upcoming tournament opener with England) Jay played at UIC while I was running for the Flames. His journey to the top of the soccer world is an epic and tantalizing novel. (Take a moment and read about it; very cool story) We remain in touch and although we’re not close, I simply feel proud of and impressed by his accomplishments. Our friend Pete Vina is traveling to Philadelphia to help send-off Sam’s Army and man it would be sweet to join him there, not to mention to be in South Africa for the event.

I look forward to visiting the T-Shirt Deli and picking up a customized USA, #15 onesie for Liam. I want the pride to rub off on the little guy. Plus, I’d like the lesson of perseverance to be learned early. Jay’s story defines that pretty well.

Your School Lunch Menus

After reading the reports on Chicago Public Schools students arguing for healthier lunch menus, it brought me back to my grammar and prep lunch experiences while trying to predict what edible items may find their way onto SulliChild’s menu in the future.

At good ‘ol St. Martin of Tours in Kankakee our cafeteria wasn’t really efficient. Most of the time the lights were out, there were no “lunch ladies” and food generally wasn’t served. But, if I recall correctly, we usually had one special day each week. (Help me out here fellow SMT grads)

For example, Arby’s Day or Pizza Day or Taco Day. Despite my picky diet, I sampled that fare pretty often.

In high school at Bishop Mac the highlight of the menu was the Chicken Fritter Dinner. This was a case where the product lived up to the hype. Here I was introduced to the “Lunch Lady” and the women who staffed the Mac cafeteria were outstanding. We were very lucky.

To top it off, there were really solid chocolate chip cookies and the pop machine offered the finest in carbonation, the elusive Squirt. Inhaling Chewy Spree also rings a bell.

Now, after years of parents lobbying for a healthier lunch menu the kids are getting into the act. I guess that’s good, but you have to be a kid. Will SulliChild be saddled with hummus, soy milk and goat cheese?

Time will tell.