Good afternoon — again — classmates, families, friends, and faculty.
Today, I am not here just to celebrate. As Senior Class President, I am here to question who we were and where we have been this year. Maybe the answers — at least those answers that we can admit to ourselves — will tell us a lot about what we can achieve in the future.
Over many years, I’ve admired teachers’ and coaches’ abilities to not only cover the basics, but also to motivate students and athletes to achieve extraordinary results. Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden — ESPN’s “Greatest Coach of the 20th Century” in all sports — could consistently motivate the best to be better. He led the Bruins to 10 NCAA championships, including seven consecutive titles from 1967 to 1973.
Wooden expected competitive greatness from his student-athletes, once stating: “Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required each day.”
Wooden cared about best efforts in all facets of his players’ lives. As an example, he cautioned many future NBA stars to be decent men above all else, telling them: “What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player.”
Wooden further publicized this philosophy of self-improvement as a motivational “Pyramid of Success.” Despite Wooden’s unmatched career, the building blocks that comprise his “Pyramid of Success” are not about winning, nor about championships. Wooden’s philosophy does not only apply to the 153 Wilton High School seniors who played a sport this year. It applies to every one of us.
Wooden’s formula for success rests on positive behaviors: Cooperation. Enthusiasm. Friendship. Honesty. Integrity. Loyalty. Reliability. Sincerity. Summarizing these behaviors, Wooden stressed his core beliefs in two well-known quotes:
“Your reputation is what you’re perceived to be, your character is what you really are.”
and
“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
Reflecting on these two quotes, there is no single story that can summarize the character of any one of today’s graduates, because seniors’ actions were so brazenly contradictory this year. It did not seem to matter if no one was watching or if everyone was watching. Public perceptions of our character were turned up, down, and sideways by moment-to-moment changes in our behavior. Think about how others saw Wilton seniors:
- Pranking the school one week, yet competing for the school the next week.
- Bullying on social media, yet dressing up for Spirit Week.
- Excluding, yet including.
- Slandering, yet liking.
- Tearing down when backs were turned, yet building up face to face.
Perhaps it was appropriate that 16 seniors helped to put on the musical Big Fish this year, since outlandish tales frame the storyline of the production. As in Big Fish, our senior storyline had absurd contrasts in behaviors that now leave a confusing legacy.
I don’t bring these poor choices up to shame us. I bring them up because we need to accept them to move forward.
Every choice we have made, every mistake, every triumph — they all form the framework of our character.
We can’t truly grow to Wooden’s expectation — to be the best each day — until we acknowledge it all — the good, the bad, and everything in between.
As class president, I saw that seniors tried in countless ways to make the year a success. Wooden would have accepted those efforts and the end result, saying “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.” We made mistakes, but I would argue that we were all doers at heart.
Now, I would like to tell my classmates that when they thought no one was watching, when no one would remember their efforts, they were wrong. Classmates, your actions did not go unnoticed. You made a difference. Each of you mattered in small and large ways — to the community, to the school, to other classmates.
That is why over the past few months, I have handwritten personal letters to all 296 of you. You will find yours tucked alongside your diploma — written not because I had all the answers, but because I wanted you to know that “your character is what you really are.”
I learned one thing by writing all of those letters. Those small acts of kindness, often forgotten the moment you finish them? I learned they count, and are remembered for weeks, months and years later.
Class of 2025, we are unforgettable — not because we were perfect, but because we have embraced the fact that we have no single story that defines our reputation.
I humbly close by asking that my classmates consider John Wooden’s philosophy on personal character when making decisions about the treatment of others in their own futures, so that they may “have utmost concern for what is right rather than who is right.”
And now, as a symbol of the transition from student to graduate, it is my privilege to ask my senior classmates to turn their tassels from right to left.
Congratulations, Wilton High School Class of 2025.