ST SEBASTIAN’S

BROTHERHOOD
“I thought my classmates were the funniest people I had ever
met in my life,” he fondly recalled. “And to this day, everywhere
I’ve gone—I’ve been to college, medical school, worked in a million
hospitals operating rooms—I’ve never met a group of people as
funny. I don’t understand why half the people in my Class are not
professional comedians. I miss
the sense of humor I found at
Sebastian’s.”
Dr. Mulroy also has great
respect for the priest and lay
faculty who gave him a solid
educational foundation on which
he has built his entire life and
career, specifically mentioning
the skills he was taught by Fr.
Barrett, Morris Kittler, and
Henry Lane ’49.
“Fr. Barrett was one of these
very rigorous guys where you
had to do everything by the
book. There were no shortcuts,”
Dr. Mulroy said. “You had to do
it right and put the time and the effort in. That approach to studying
and academics helped me all the way through college and medical
school.”
One of the few lay people teaching at St. Sebastian’s during Dr.
Mulroy’s time was Morris Kittler, who would eventually become the
Dean of Students.
“I had him his first year as a full-time teacher,” recalled Dr.
Mulroy. “He gets credit for turning me on to science. I really enjoyed
the biology class with Morris, and that’s what I’m doing today as a
doctor.”
In addition to being impressed by the faculty, young Richard
Mulroy also cherished the role athletics had to play in the life of the
School.
“As a seventh grader I remember standing by the side of the
rink and I watched the varsity players come out in their black and
red uniforms and I just thought, ‘Wow,’” he recalled. “They were
shaving; they had beards. I don’t know if I was 5 feet when I got
there, weighed about 115 pounds…. I really looked up to the older
guys, and I thought they treated us very well.”
Eventually, Mulroy got used to his new school, becoming a
three-sport athlete during his tenure at St. Sebastian’s. He lettered
for three years in varsity cross country, four years in varsity track,
and three years in varsity hockey. He recalls that the hockey team
was quite a commitment, as the team not only competed in games
and practices, but also functioned as an ersatz maintenance crew for
the old outdoor Nonantum Hill rink.
“When we were on the hockey team, we’d get a call from Coach
Henry Lane whenever school was cancelled,” Dr. Mulroy noted.
“We’d all go to the rink at 10:00 o’clock with our shovels and we
would shovel the rink. We’d all be out there—varsity and the JV
players shoveling snow for hours.”
36 | ST. SEBASTIAN’S MAGAZINE Volume VIII, Issue I
I recently played in the Alumni
Hockey Game. A friend of mine,
Mark Canavan ’73, emailed me
about it. I hadn’t played hockey in
a couple years, but an opportunity
to play with a friend and classmate
of mine, I couldn’t turn it down. I
think we were the oldest guys on the
ice, but I managed a goal.
According to Dr. Mulroy, it was Coach Lane who understood
the significance of getting St. Sebastian’s into the Independent
School League.
“We weren’t in the ISL at the time,” Dr. Mulroy said. “Henry
could really see that if we got into the ISL, by virtue of being in that
athletic League, everyone would
kind of see us as being equal to
them. What Mr. Lane realized
was that if we played each of
these schools on our schedules
and they got used to playing us,
we would get into the League.
As the new Athletic Director
during my senior year, Henry
said, ‘Next year we’re getting into
the ISL, and you’re not going to
mess it up.’ We weren’t to get
in any fights or arguments with
referees or anything. Henry was
the one who realized it would be
a great thing to be aligned with
those schools.”
-- A Good School Keeps Getting Better --
Starting in the late 1990s, Dr. Mulroy was afforded the
opportunity to work on the Board of Trustees with his high school
classmate, former Board President David Gately ’73.
“Becoming a trustee allowed us to rekindle our relationship over
the last 15 years or so,” Dr. Mulroy said. “That was fun. We got to
work on projects together, and he did a great job as Board President.
It’s great to see someone in your own class step up and do great
things and be a leader for the School. I was honored to be a trustee.
I think I was a trustee for 10 years and the school has just continued
to grow and prosper. It was a good school when I went there—it’s a
better school now.”
During his time as trustee, Mulroy is most proud of his work to
improve the athletic program. Not content with simply adding the
new turf athletic fields, Mulroy also thought it was important to add
teams so more students could regularly participate in sports. As a
father of two boys, Pat ’06 and Ricky ’10, who have come through St.
Sebastian’s, Dr. Mulroy saw room for improvement in the athletic
department.
“I remember as a parent, I’d go to the games and my sons would
be on some hockey team with almost thirty kids on the bench,” Dr.
Mulroy said. “I thought we needed to get more teams, get more kids
playing. So we went to work—let’s get some more fields, some more
playing space. Get more kids playing. Physical fitness is a big part of
the brotherhood at the School.
“An education is about the body, mind, and the soul—not just
the mind and the soul. Physical fitness is important. If you don’t care
about physical fitness by the time you are graduated when you’re 18
years old, then it’s all downhill from there. But, if you graduate and