College Athletes Honored In NSCDS Class Of 2018

Seven recent North Shore Country Day School graduates will be playing at the next level when they head off to college this fall.

From NSCDS: From the very beginning, participation in athletics has been a vital part of the North Shore Country Day experience. Founding headmaster Perry Dunlap Smith, a former Harvard University lineman, required all Middle and Upper School students to play a sport. That requirement remains to this day. And while full participation has always been the emphasis, there have always been winning seasons and students who have stood out. This year, seven members of the Class of 2018 are heading off to college in the coming weeks and will play sports at their new schools.Jessica Hourihane of Winnetka played ice hockey before switching over to field hockey the summer before 6th grade. Because of the school’s policy, she needed to pick a sport, so field hockey it was. But she soon fell in love with the iceless variation. “After I started playing, it never felt like the next season was mandatory because I was always so excited to start up again,” she said.

Developing character in young people is one of the main reasons NSCD has remained so committed to maintaining an athletic requirement.Flynn Hersh of Glenview transferred to North Shore his junior year and will be playing baseball for Knox College next season. “Without North Shore, I wouldn’t be playing in college,” he said. “I was cut from New Trier’s sophomore team, but that didn’t stop me from chasing my dream of playing college baseball. The mandatory athletics policy also got me to try soccer, which I wouldn’t have tried had I not transferred here. I used to not want to try things I wasn’t already good at, but North Shore changed that. Soccer improved my endurance and footwork, which I was able to carry over to the diamond.”

Braden Adamson-Tate of Skokie played both soccer and basketball all through high school, and he’ll continue his soccer career at Denison University in the fall. He began playing soccer when he was 5, but playing basketball at North Shore taught him some valuable lessons that will carry over to his soccer game. “I learned from playing basketball that team chemistry is everything,” he said. “You can have all the potential in the world, but it’s the hard work that makes everything come together.”

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Last year, North Shore discontinued its tackle football program after 98 seasons, which came as a blow to Jack Mangel of Winnetka and Thomas McDowell of Evanston, who will both be playing football at Denison University this fall.“At first I was upset and disappointed that I would not get the chance to play my final season as a Raider,” Thomas explained. “But it forced me to focus on track and field, and basketball to deepen my experience with being on a team. Playing sports at North Shore taught me how to overcome adversity and keep going—even when things get tough.”Members of the NSCD Class of 2018 playing college sports