Together WE RISE
JONATHAN MONTEIRO ’24
onathan Monteiro likes to put on a show, and he wants an audience to do it.
Tat’s how he ended up at Xaverian. “Te reason I picked Xaverian is because
we have the biggest bleachers, and I wanted to play for the biggest crowd. When I’m
playing, the crowd makes me feel electric–electricity going through me–because
everyone is here for one reason and that’s to watch us play.”
But Jonathan’s showmanship is about more than applause. He wants to be an
example. “Where I’m from, nobody ever made it this far,” he says. “I’m trying to
show them that there’s a lot to this world. You don’t have to live like this. You can
come out here, you can get a good job. Someone is going to be there for you. Tat’s
the person I want to be. Moral of the story, I want them to see something and
realize they can be more in life than what they’re bound to be right now.”
Jonathan is committed to play at Liberty University next year. He’ll be the first in
his family to attend and graduate from college. It’s his family he credits with helping
him to see the opportunities in front of him. His mom gives it to him straight. “She
is someone who is going to tell you if you’re wrong whether you like it or not, no
matter how bad the situation is.” His dad, he says, showed him the way out. “He
definitely has his ups and a whole lot of downs. Even with that, he showed me the
life you can live when you work hard and you do the right thing. He showed me
that if you play your cards right, keep a clean record, stay out of trouble with the
law, go to college for free, and get a degree, you can expand yourself on an absurd
level. You never know what type of opportunities will come your way.”
For Jonathan, Xaverian was one of those opportunities. “Just being here is a
benefit,” he says. “Te teachers I have had here, Mr. MacKinnon, Mr. Watson, Mr.
Bowers, Mr. Iannoni, those teachers really helped me become a better student and a
better person. Tis place definitely feels like home.”
ANDREW DUFAULT ’24
ndrew “Hammy” Dufault had a singular purpose this year; to win the state
championship. Considered one of the best high school football long snappers in
the country, Andrew was selected for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and committed
in August to play at Penn State. With that locked down, his senior season was all about
securing the MIAA Division 1 trophy at Gillette Stadium. His game plan? Discipline.
Discipline. Discipline. Tat’s how he earned the co-captain title and a spot on the
starting line of the varsity team, and that’s what he knew it would take to hang the State
Championship banner in the varsity gymnasium.
“Tere are two different types of players,” Andrew explains. “Tere are the ones who
come and lif in the morning, do all of the right things, get sleep, etc., and there’s kids
who don’t. Tree times a week I get up at 5:00 a.m., come here at 6:00 and lif until 7:00,
and then have a three-hour practice afer school. It’s not easy. Discipline isn’t doing the
right thing when Mr. Guinan (Dean of Students) is walking around. It’s ‘are you willing
to do what you need to succeed, to make yourself different from everybody else, to rise
to the top?’. Whoever is in front needs to be able to get everyone corralled and doing the
right thing, to be the best version of Xaverian.”
Rising to the top is something Andrew has been doing since middle school, when
he’d been told he was too small to play offensive line. He took up long snapping as a
result, and started at Xaverian in seventh grade. By freshman year, he was playing varsity
and learning from the strong captains and players who came before him, like Jack
Funke ’22 (BC), Mike Berlutti ’21 (Tufs), and Jon Mould ’23 (Harvard).
When it came time to take the field at Gillette and lead the Hawks as one of this
year’s captains, Andrew says it was nerve-wracking at first. He settled down once
the game got underway and then it was all business. “It was definitely something I
won’t forget, when it finally ended and I could celebrate on the field. It really put into
perspective how much work we put in over the course of the season.” It was all worth it
as they lifed that trophy overhead to the cheers of classmates, family, and friends.
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