NJ trip - Delbarton and the W Hoboken

OK, Delbarton. I went up to school on Friday, which is always a little awkward when I hardly know anybody there now. Several times, though, I saw kids in the hallways and thought, "I know that guy," when I don't think I've known anybody for a few years. Do our students really change that little over the years?

I talked with my high school soccer coach, then went to check out construction on the new track to go around the football field (long-awaited at my high school) and the new soccer/lacrosse field (artificial turf, but otherwise cool). I took pictures with my BlackBerry for the first time to illustrate the point (actually, I wanted to show my parents, but it works out well this way).

Then I talked to the current hockey/baseball coach before watching the baseball game on the new field. It is to be dedicated next week in memory of the former baseball coach, Brian Fleury, who battled Hodgkins for years before dying last year. He had worked hard to raise money and build the field, and I really could feel his presence. It sounds corny, but I just thought about how happy he would be, and it really gave me some peace. He still has an intense influence on the program, and the number 18 is stitched into the fitted back of every player's hat.

Another Delbarton story: At the team hotel (the W in Hoboken - it was more like a club than a hotel), I had to explain why I wanted to check out late on Saturday, so the receptionist asked where I was from. I said Morristown, and it turns out she's from Randolph. But she asked what high school I went to, and when I said, "Delbarton," she went, "I knew it!" Apparently my hair was so "coiffed" that she knew I had to be a private school kid. Absolutely brutal. I knew I should have gotten that haircut the day before!

The hotel was really OOC, though. I arrived on a Friday night at about 11, and the place looked and sounded like a club. I really wasn't sure I was at my hotel! The room was really nice, and it had this weird circular loveseat in a window nook overlooking the Hudson River and lower Manhattan. I really had only one word to describe it: pimp.

Of course, it had a number of issues. One being the windows in the lobby. They were so clean that, in the course of waiting 15 minutes for the team bus, we saw not one, but TWO people walk square into the window thinking they were going outside. It was hilarious! Both times the person just kind of staggered back, then proceeded out the door as if nothing had happened. One staff person would run after them to make sure they were OK, while the rest would look around the lobby and giggle uncontrollably.

Good times.