Looking back

The Jesuit experience formed me into the man I am today by forcing me to contribute to the class and make me think of my class before myself. The senior experience focused me to find a college that suited me and help me find what things I am good at and what I have done during my time in high school. I discovered that I could become more involved with the community around me and that I needed to find something important in my life to focus my strengths on. The senior counselors helped me focus on a way to get into Trinity University. My ability to play football was going to help me get into trinity. So during the year I invested most of my time to getting stronger and faster to impress the coaches from Trinity and it played off because in April I received my letter from Trinity University telling me that I had been accepted into the University. I was overjoyed to hear that I had been accepted into Trinity. One problem I had was the financial aid package I received from trinity was not enough money for me to attend trinity. So over the summer I worked two jobs to help pay for my college experience.

Study time

One of the difficulties of my high school is the academics are very demanding of the students the first day you walk in. Every year is meet with new difficulties that make each year unique. Most of the time it is the sciences, freshmen-biology, sophomore- chemistry, and juniors- physics. A student can not expect anything going into those classes because each year they change. My freshmen year is all about reading and studying but my sophomore year chemistry was completely hands on and I learned how to make some object blow up and how to build a potato launcher. My junior year was a mix of both, the teachers decided to mix the ideas of books and hands on work. The math portion of that year was difficult and then the projects made the year. We made a Rub Goldberg device. This devise makes a simple objective with many steps and complicates the process. This prepare me for trinity, with teaching me how to buckle down and study and also to have good group skills to get a good grade on the projects.

Traditions that change me

There were many different traditions at my high school that changes the way a person thinks about the world. One tradition that every freshmen student does is a cleanup of White Rock Lake. White Rock Lake is notorious for being a very dirty part of east Dallas. The entire freshmen class comes out to white rock lake and cleans around the entire lake. Some of them paint the walls and others walked around the lake cleaning and picking up trash. Every class experiences this to help the freshmen come together as a class easier. This experience is humbling for many of the students because many of them come from homes where picking up trash around their house is done for them and they never had mowed their lawn before.

Also every year for homecoming the Friday of the football game, the day is classed ranger day. It is a day where each class competes against the other classes in different events. As a freshmen ranger day is only cool because you do not have class, but you are picked on and never win any events because the games are fixed so freshmen can’t win. The senior make fun of all the classes and especially the freshmen class at the pep-rally. The senior are handed the keys to the school mostly and control how the day is going and what events are played and by who. This teaches the underclass men to look to each other for a fun and enjoyment and not to just stay with the status quo of being humiliated at the pep-rally. Also each freshmen home room builds a chariot and they race around the track as the last competition, where the home room senior big brothers are pulled by the freshmen. The freshmen home rooms are forced to become closer in building the chariot, the struggles of building a chariot is a moment where someone has to depend on some else to help them.

The First Football Game

The first Varsity football game I played in was my sophomore year, and it was against Euless Trinity the future state champions. I was scared to death because the starter got hurt in the game before so I was brought up to play if the back-up became injured. During the first four plays of the game he became hurt. So when the second series came along I went in to play. I was so scared, I almost didn’t want to go in but since we were at home and all my friends were in the crowd I went in. My confidence was lacking a little bit, because I was facing a man bigger faster stronger and older then I was. I think my mom was scared more then I was. But I played fine I kept one of the best defensive linemen in the area at bay for most of the game. But that was one of the growing up experiences that presented themselves during my high school days.

Since I attended an all male high school sports were a very big activity, and especially football, on Friday night the school became alive with excitement and fun. Since we were playing such a good team everyone in the school came and the stadium was packed. So the excitement from everyone else made me play better and grow up a little bit during the game.

Before the first day

Jesuit College Prep is an all male high school placed in the heart of the Dallas metroplex. The school attracts many people from far away distances. There are people who travel over an hour a day to come to the school. I drove thirty minutes, one way, everyday for school and I don't regret one drive. there was a public high school less then a mile away from my house but I decided to challenge myself at a more prestigious and harder high school. Many of my old friends asked me why I would go to all the trouble of going to a school where I had to wear coat and tie everyday to school. And many of my old friends thought I was crazy for leaving all of them to go to an all male school, they thought I was some weird guy now. But everyday I am glad I choose Jesuit over the public school.

The first event I experience at Jesuit was the freshmen retreat. I was a participant my freshmen year and then I choose to be a leader during my sophomore, Junior and Senior years. The retreat attempted to bring the class together as one which was very difficult to do before school had even started. But every year I was amazed on the relationship built purely through the freshmen retreat. My freshmen year retreat was very influential towards me accepting Jesuit for what if was. I never had a problem in my life making friends, but for the first time I struggled to make friends. So I decided to become a part of the football team and that has carried me to Trinity. With the retreat I was able to make friends guild people around the school before school even started and I also helped forming the classes identity for the Jesuit community. For every class there has been a classification and it is first brought up in the freshmen retreat. Whether the class was going to be the intellectual class, the sports class, or the class that slides on by. Fortunately I was in the class that was given the intellectuals and the sports class. We had over ten students go to Ivy league schools and over thirty students to play collegiate sports, which was a school record. I was gifted with the ability to lead a group of strangers through a process that changed my life and that all I need to look back on was the friends I made at Jesuit and I could always have smile on my face because of them.


Patrick Rhatican