On behalf of all us coaches, we want to first thank the parents of John Paul II Catholic High School for giving us the privilege of working with your daughters and sons.
Some athletes come to John Paul II almost game ready, most do not. We as a group try to teach our sports so that by the end of our seasons all of our players have developed a competitiveness built on knowledge of the rules, fair play, team play, and just plain having fun.
Out of a student population of 162, we have 111 students who played a varsity or junior varsity sport. That’s a participation rate of 69%. And with all the clubs and other activities we have, well, it sounds like we could be spread pretty thin – we are.
John Paul II coaches are used to losing players to all sorts of activities, like not having a complete team until the preceding sport seasons end, clubs, or those other school activities just mentioned. We might be the only baseball program in town to lose both a starting pitcher and starting second baseman to a Latin competition.
But this is also one of our strengths. Our students are challenged, busy and engaged.
With all this going on they have managed to:
- Have a football team that for the first time advanced to the North Florida football Conference Championship game.
- Have a ladies’ volleyball team that advanced out of their district to regional play.
- Have runners from both our men’s and ladies’ cross country teams compete in regional meets.
- Have our ladies’ tennis team advanced from their district to regional competition in Pensacola.
- Have our first men’s golfer advance to a regional match.
- Have one of our ladies signed with a Division I college, while for the second year in a row our ladies golf team advanced out of districts and their region to the FHSAA State Golf Championship Series.
- And baseball competing in their district at Maclay. They have shown this year that they are ready to play with the big boys in town by capturing their first win against NFC, four time State Champion, most recently two years ago and State runner-up last year.
So athletes, congratulations on some great seasons and some great memories that we am sure you and many of us will remember for a long time. We also want to thank you for all the hard work and dedication to your sport and your teammates that you showed this year.
And we want everybody to know that that while doing all this you the John Paul II student athlete was able to maintain an average team unweighted G.P.A. of 3.51.
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Final awards of the evening:
- The Frank and Frances Dennard Award: Gail and Mark Piazza
This award is given each year in recognition of extraordinary support and contributions to the John Paul II Catholic High School athletic programs. Some people give that support by working with their hands till there blistered. Some give that support by signing a check, others by helping us in friend-raising, not just fund-raising. This year’s winners do all of the above.
- The Ted Waters Award: Grace Murray and Phillip Regalado
This award is also given annually in recognition of extraordinary support and contributions to John Paul II athletic programs. This award is given to a student who shows great enthusiasm in supporting his or her classmates on and off the field. This year’s winners are a couple of golfers who both excelled one helped her team advance to the State Championship Tournament and the other was the first boys golfer from JPII to advance to Regional Play. Then they became teammates for a charity. They took the leads with our school’s Dance marathon a charity benefiting the Children’s Hospital at Shands. They set their goals high, $5,000 and then proceeded to raise $15,000. They have been a credit to their school, their families, and showed us what it means to be great teammates.
- The Jay Cronin Award Male and Female Athletes of the year:
Taylor Bickett and Nicholas Piazza
Jay was the first Athletic Director of John Paul II and a very close friend of mine. Jay passed away way to young, so this award has a special meaning for me. It goes to the male and female athlete of the year. I am very proud to be able to give Jay’s award to two such deserving athletes.
- Anthony Van Gessel Award: Jackie Golabek and Mark Woodend
This award honors Coach Van Gessel for his leadership while serving as a teacher, coach and Athletic Director from 2008 to 2014. This award is given annually to the John Paul II athlete who displays achievement in the classroom and sportsmanship in their interactions with teammates, coaches, opponents and officials. And I have to admit Anthony had a little input into this one, actually, he had a lot.
We look for two students who come to mind first when we ask the following questions.
- Can people trust the person to do what is right?
- Is this person committed to doing their very best?
- Does this person care about other people and show it?
John Paul II academic excellence awards
- The Gold Key Award: John Paul II Ladies Golf Team
This award is given to the team with the highest weighted GPA.
This year we had 18 teams with over a 3.00 unweighted GPA. So the competition was stiff. It not too surprising that the team that advanced the farthest into their post season play was the team with the highest weighted GPA.
- The Bishop’s Award: James DiMarco and Teresa Conroy
This award is given to the John Paul II male and female athletes with the highest weighted GPA. This year’s winners are James DiMarco with a 4.3 GPA and Teresa Conroy with a 4.5.
Boosters
Before we close we have some outgoing Booster Board Members to recognize and thank. Being a booster is a very time consuming endeavor and we are very appreciative of all our booster board members and all they do for John Paul II.
- Tim Lattner, Booster President
we want to thank Tim for all he has done for John Paul II. If Booster Board vice-president and President weren’t enough, he put on his gloves and organized the moving of the back fence on our football/soccer/lacrosse field to make it a safer place to play. - Jennifer Woodend, the Booster Board Secretary
As always, when the call went out for help as our previous board secretary had to call her term short, Jennifer stepped in and did a great job.
Volunteers
Thank You Volunteers for all you do, from manning the gate admissions tables to preparing concessions for our games to helping prepare for this event. The school the boosters and all of us coaches want to thank you for making our sporting events more enjoyable games to attend.
I would like to close this evening like it began by thanking you, the parents, for sharing your daughters and sons with us. We are grateful to you for giving us the opportunity to work and grow with them. We will continue to work hard to keep and build on the trust you have showed in us.
Go Panthers!
Athletic Director
John Paul II Catholic High School