Walt Whitman High School

I went to Whitman and had mixed opinions. I enjoyed the activities and classes I chose, but the people really brought it down a notch. It’s definitely very challenging academically. It either pushes students to excel or burns them out and causes them to give up. It just depends on each students ability to handle stress. Even so, the school has a class, activity, friend group, caring teacher for everyone.

I went to this school at the end of the Seventies and graduated in 1980. I made many friends. I would say it was better than other schools nearby at the time I went there for academics but also because of the unique landscape and architecture that was destroyed in a teardown and rebuild project which came ten years after I graduated. We had a domed arena that was in the style of Finnish architect Ero Saarinen and was great to play sports in. The principal was pretty good: Dr. Jerome Marco-​he served a long time and had the current Football field named after him. He didn’t like underage drinking so he got rid of the Rugby team which was a club sport-​not varsity. That team became the Maryland Exiles thanks to Dan Soso who kept it going. I did academics with great teachers like Bari Bergman for English, Speech and Drama but sports was really what I was into at the time. We had arguably the best football team in the history of the school. I played each season. We were not undefeated in the regular season but 9 – 1 then lost the state AA Championship-​our QB got injured in the semifinal. The 2003 team went 10 – 0 but lost their first playoff game that makes us better in my opinion. Our coach, Rich Cameron was good. He had us in the wishbone offense that just could not be stopped. Our rugby team won tournaments-​the coach was John Haberman. I also wrestled. That was more fun than anything. Many of the students have gone on to great careers and spread out across the country nowadays. We had great colors and a great mascot but I do not agree with the gender equity changes made to our mascot. Our Colors were Black, White and Columbia Blue. We were the Vikings and we had a great Viking but nowadays any depiction of our Viking must be accompanied by a Lady Viking. I went to our reunion and saw Lady Viking drawings which we did not have. If you want to have Lady Viking Drawings in 2013 O.K. but we did not have them in 1980 so don’t go back and try to re-​write history. Cafeteria food was good. We even had a salad bar which I used in wrestling season. We always had a weight room open after school. Other notable teachers were Mr. Cleary-​English and Yearbook, Jack Freeman-​JV Football and Al Patini-Driver’s Education, Mr. Peters and Mr. Debone-​gym, Hugh Hammet-​Tennis Coach, Ms. Linda Niedbalski and Melanie Sorg-​Biology, Mrs. Trebor-​Home Economics, Ms. Guiterrez-​English, Ms. Cummings-​English. Some great teachers have names I forgot-​sorry. This was a high school you would want to go to. 4 stars.