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Student News<br />
but I didn’t really know that much about<br />
soccer,” says Rugg. “My coaches helped<br />
me develop the skills that I needed mentally—like<br />
staying focused and making<br />
the right decisions on the field.”<br />
This past season was a successful one<br />
for the Red Wings, as Rugg led the team<br />
to a second-place finish in <strong>IS</strong>L and a spot<br />
at the finals of the New England Preparatory<br />
<strong>School</strong> Athletic Council (NEPSAC)<br />
tournament. Rugg’s athletic prowess garnered<br />
considerable attention from college<br />
scouts, with schools ranging from Boston<br />
University to the University of Connecticut<br />
vying to offer him scholarships. He<br />
ultimately elected to stay close to home at<br />
Boston College. “It’s a perfect fit for me,”<br />
he says. “It’s a great school, academically,<br />
and they really support athletes there.”<br />
And while he’s open to pursuing art in<br />
college, he speaks cautiously when discarpentry,<br />
to Tim Clark, an art teacher<br />
who also serves as a boys’ tennis coach, the<br />
faculty’s varied concentrations<br />
re-enforce the unspoken ethos<br />
of well-roundedness at <strong>Rivers</strong>.<br />
“When you’ve got a teacher who<br />
plays a sport, and an instrument,<br />
and does community<br />
service on the side,” Head of<br />
<strong>School</strong> Tom Olverson says, “it’s<br />
inevitable that that kind of behavior<br />
is echoed in his or her<br />
students.” <strong>The</strong> school itself also<br />
helps encourage such talent and<br />
diversity through annual faculty enrichment<br />
grants for special study, travel, graduate<br />
school, and sabbatical projects.<br />
Beyond the question of whether wellroundedness<br />
at <strong>Rivers</strong> is the exception<br />
rather than the rule is an equally important<br />
chicken-and-the-egg conundrum: are these<br />
students successful because of <strong>Rivers</strong> or because<br />
of their own inherent abilities and<br />
motivations<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re are definitely kids who would excel<br />
here anyway [without <strong>Rivers</strong>’ help],” says<br />
Rugg. Indeed, Director of Admissions<br />
Gillian Lloyd says that<br />
<strong>Rivers</strong> is drawn towards applicants<br />
who exhibit a variety of<br />
passions, though she cautions<br />
that there are benefits to making<br />
efforts to recruit more singularly-focused<br />
students, as well.<br />
“We want the core of the community<br />
to have well-rounded<br />
attributes so they can spill into<br />
all of the different<br />
campus activities,” she says, “but<br />
you also want to have kids who<br />
are, in a sense, ‘specialists,’ because<br />
they are going to help<br />
drive the programs and really<br />
give that hockey team or orchestra<br />
something extra.”<br />
Furthermore, a lot of the<br />
students make their mark in<br />
ways that cannot be attributed<br />
to <strong>Rivers</strong>-related activities. Jake Solomon<br />
’09, a strong student who plays drums for<br />
the jazz band, spends his weekends as a<br />
concert-lighting director and has lent his<br />
technical expertise to such music venues<br />
as the Bank of America Pavilion in Boston.<br />
Bryan Schoen ’09, a varsity basketball<br />
player and top scorer for the math club,<br />
started up his own business selling paintball<br />
equipment at the age of 14 and has<br />
earned the unusual distinction of being<br />
the inspiration for a character in an upcoming<br />
Xbox video game. As tempting as<br />
it may be to focus on the typical<br />
trifecta of academics, athletics<br />
and arts, it’s important to<br />
recognize that well-roundedness<br />
extends to community<br />
service, work experience and<br />
even examples of entrepreneurship<br />
that you wouldn’t<br />
necessarily see on campus.<br />
At the same time, just<br />
because students prosper out-<br />
<strong>The</strong> Art of Soccer<br />
His soccer accolades are impressive<br />
and extensive—<strong>Rivers</strong> team captain,<br />
the league-leading scorer in<br />
the Independent <strong>School</strong> League (<strong>IS</strong>L) by a<br />
21-point margin, an All-American, and an<br />
invited member of the New England Revolution’s<br />
under-18 youth team.<br />
What many people might not be aware,<br />
however, is that <strong>Rivers</strong> senior Charlie Rugg<br />
has a flair for another, seemingly divergent<br />
talent: art. An award-winning portrait artist,<br />
he’s been taking drawing and painting<br />
classes all four years at <strong>Rivers</strong> and has what<br />
teacher Catelin Mathers-Suther describes<br />
as “an amazing eye and an almost photographic<br />
understanding of space.” He won a<br />
first-place award at last year’s Small Independent<br />
<strong>School</strong> Arts League (S<strong>IS</strong>AL) show,<br />
as well as a prestigious Boston Globe Gold<br />
Key Award this year. “You could profile<br />
14 • Riparian • Spring 2009<br />
“You could profile him on just<br />
his art or just his athletics.”<br />
Robert Pipe,<br />
Associate Director of Athletics<br />
ing since 3rd grade. A casual player in elementary<br />
school, he got more serious about<br />
the sport in 6th grade when he joined the<br />
FC Greater Boston Bolts club team under<br />
Boston University assistant coach Francis<br />
Okaroh. Rugg credits Pipe and Okaroh as<br />
important mentors for developing his game.<br />
“Before 9th grade I had physical speed,<br />
him on just his art or just his athletics,” says<br />
Robert Pipe, who has been his soccer coach<br />
at <strong>Rivers</strong> for four years. “He’s a special kid in<br />
many different ways.”<br />
Rugg’s first and still strongest passion,<br />
however, is soccer, which he has been play-
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