ST SEBASTIAN’S

BROTHERHOOD
and call any of them when I’m at school and it’s the same way. These
relationships supersede any sort of time and space boundaries.”
Kingsley thinks that having two of his St. Sebastian’s brothers at
Dartmouth significantly aided his transition.
“My brother Max is a member of the football team, and we came
to Dartmouth by two different paths. He had football, and I wanted
to come here because my father attended and it has great academics.
It’s been awesome going to school with Max and being able to
have a couple guys—he and Will both—who understand what St.
Sebastian’s is…St. Sebastian’s is a big part of my identity, and it’s
nice to have people who understand where you come from.”
Kingsley says that the transition was “very smooth” from the allboys
environment on Greendale Avenue in Needham to the College
on the Hill in Hanover, NH.
When asked what he would
change about his experience
at St. Sebastian’s, he replied, “I
wouldn’t have changed my high
school experience for anything.
One of the things I took from
Seb’s, besides being a gentleman,
is the power of the friendships
I make. Those are the most
important things in life. And I
have these awesome memories
with my friends from high
school. Nobody can take that
away from me.”
The Whole Friendship Package
“I would love just being around St. Sebastian’s. I would sit in the
locker room for 45 minutes to an hour, then sit in the parking lot
for an hour—just talking. Being around that community, there was
no reason to ever leave,” said Jake O’Malley ’10, now a junior at
Amherst College and a wide receiver for the school’s football team.
Back when he was a sixth grader considering his future,
O’Malley was not necessarily unhappy with his place in the Medfield
Public School system. The quality of the Medfield education was
high, the classrooms were fairly modern, and he had several good
friends. When his older brother, Sean ‘08, left Medfield to attend
St. Sebastian’s, O’Malley discovered a sense of brotherhood among
Sean’s friends that just felt right. He had not thought that anything
in particular was missing from his life, but upon seeing firsthand the
special camaraderie between his brother and his new friends from
St. Sebastian’s, he made up his mind to become an Arrow.
“Once I met his friends, there wasn’t anywhere else I was going
to go,” O’Malley said. “My brother’s group of friends were just
awesome to me, a person they didn’t really know.”
Once O’Malley enrolled at the School, he found that St.
Sebastian’s School suited him perfectly.
“When I was in Medfield, I did fine but I just coasted along,” he
said. “There was no need to get all that involved in class, so I kind
of just did my work and got decent grades. I found Seb’s to be a
24 | ST. SEBASTIAN’S MAGAZINE Volume VIII, Issue I
My brothers were and still are my
best friends, but now I have these
best friends from Seb’s too. We
have the whole friendship packagebeing
able to tell them anything,
being able to trust them, knowing
that they’ll always be my friends.
place where the kids were all there for the same reason, looking to
get a little something more out of the experience, and the teachers
were always there to help us succeed if we were willing to put in
the hard work. This is coming from a town with 30 person classes,
a place where the teachers just gave you the homework and if you
did it, great, but they weren’t going out of their way to help you.
The St. Sebastian’s teachers’ desire to help you succeed was the big
difference. There was a community at St. Seb’s I didn’t really feel at
the public school.”
Although O’Malley made friends quickly, the transition to 1191
Greendale Avenue was not without bumps.
He noted, “I am a Protestant, so when I first got here, I had no
idea what to do. They would be saying prayers, signing the cross,
getting communion. I didn’t know how I was supposed to act.”
Luckily for O’Malley, it
didn’t take long for the openness
of the community to find him.
“I ended up talking to Fr.
Arens all of the time. I went into
confession just to sit and chat.
It’s a Catholic school, but they’re
accepting of everyone.”
O’Malley cites English
teachers Dan Burke and Ted
Weihman and physics teachers
John Ryan and Dave Wilbur as
influences.
“Every year there was a new
teacher with whom I would become pretty close. Dan Burke was
huge for me. He is a great guy. As my sophomore English teacher
and football coach, he was part parent and part brother. He was
always there for advice or just to joke around.”
O’Malley came to see St. Sebastian’s as a second home, a place
where he says people will “always be there for you when you need
them.”
His most prominent example of the community coming
together was when Will Judge ’11 passed away in 2007.
“We were at Will’s funeral and all sang [the school hymn]
‘He Who Would Valiant Be’ as we were walking out,” O’Malley
remembered. “I felt like it exemplified the brotherhood.”
The scene at the funeral was moving for Jake and the other
attendees, but he said the real work in dealing with the tragedy came
afterward. Following the funeral, the St. Sebastian’s community
remained with the Judges.
O’Malley recalled, “I would go over to the Judges’ house to visit
J.P. [Judge ’09] and the family. Whenever I would go there would be
somebody else from Seb’s there. They were never alone. It showed
me the tightness of the community and how we will always be there
for each other.”
Five years following Will’s passing, O’Malley is still moved by
the experience. Will’s life had such a profound impact on those he
left behind, strengthening their commitment to their School family
and to each other. O’Malley himself remains part of the Arrows