Sam Wheeler is from Glen Ellyn, IL, and enjoys star gazing, eating ice cream, and playing catch.
He played Senior Soccer this year and was the Baseball captain and a Hockey co-captain. His favorite book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
Hey everyone. My name is Samuel Wayne Wheeler. I am here to take some time to share some thoughts with you all. First, I would just like to point out that my words are based on my own experience and if you don’t agree with me or see the way I see things, please don’t tell me. Just say, dude your speech rocked. I’ll know the code, but others will think I’m cool.
Now its time to give you a little background of my experience at Choate.
I came to Choate last year as a new junior. Repeating your junior year is difficult because all your friends from home are getting ready for college while you are studying for the SAT. Nevertheless, I came to this campus with a lot of different expectations. I was told it was easy to obtain friends and sports really helped. Luckily, I had one of my best friends from home here to show me the ropes. He and I did afternoon yoga with a couple other hockey players and I fell into my place. The fall rolled on until there was a little incident in the small town of New Cannon, not to go into any of the ugly details, but things did not go my way to say the least. I lost the respect of people around the community and I always feel like I was labeled as the stereotypical athlete. I did not want be labeled in that way and I certainly did not want the community to think that athletes are spoiled and are not dedicated to the classroom. I realized that I wanted to make an impact at this school. So, I got involved.
I am part of many different activities on campus. I was the president of the chess club this year. And yes, Choate has chess club. We meet every Sunday in the top part of the sac. The chess club has some dedicated members. But most of the time I was in the top part of the SAC playing with myself. I usually won though. We also put on the best dance the SAC has ever seen: A Black and White affair. I hope some of you went to the dance, but there were glow sticks, backlights and glow paint. It was sweet. If you don’t remember it, again, don’t tell me. Just say it was cool.
Anyway, by senior year I was in chess club, a radio DJ, a peer educator, a writer for the news, captain of baseball and assistant of hockey and eventually a prefect. I don’t mean to toot my own horn but…. “toot toot”
I decided this fall that I wanted to go back home to the mid west for college and be close to home. Alright, now we are brought to the present.
I have learned many things from my time here and I guess now would be a good time to share them. The most important realization I have come to is that friendship goes a long way here. You make friendships quickly and they are long lasting. My roommate, Brian McDermott and I have only know each other for the two years we have both been here. We don’t play on any teams together, beside pcup, and we do not even live in the same part of the country. What made us such good friends is the fact that we lived together, and I have realized that even in those opening months of school you learn more about your roommate than you would if you were friends for a year but lived in different dorms. No place else can you get an experience like this. Brian is probably one of the best friends I have here and will continue to be after we graduate.
Don’t forget about your family when you are here. Call them whenever you can. My mother absolutely loves when I call home and I can tell how happy she is just by the tone in her voice. Even if you don’t want to call home or don’t even get along with your family, don’t forget about them, because as sad as it may sound, there will be a day when you wish you had more time.
Get involved with the community. Even if it is just getting to know a teacher, do it, because some of them are actually cool. Mr. Yanelli would always go out of his way to take the mem prefects on a late night food run and I actually went to a concert with my roommate and Ned. That was an experience let me tell you. Getting involved brings you to meet many new people that you may have not met otherwise. It also makes the school a better community for everyone, and that is always a good thing. If all else fails, join the chess club because we are currently accepting memberships of all kinds.
Don’t be afraid to look stupid being yourself. Everyone is weird. This idea brings me back to a story I would like to share with you. It is a traumatic tale of a young boy at a birthday party. This young boy’s name was Samuel Wheeler. I was in fifth grade and, simply put, I was the fat kid. I was really just big boned, but no one called it that. I had this friend who was having a birthday part in the coolest place on earth. It was called enchanted castle. All the cool kids of the grade were going to be there. I was sort of cool because, in my experience, fat kids who are funny have way more friends than just plain fat kids. And I was pretty funny. The entire party was inside of this giant system of tubes and a huge ball pit. Sort of like the ones you see in the McDonalds Playplace, but only way bigger. The only problem was that there was a size restriction. I stepped up to the attendant and in one look he said I wasn’t allowed to come in. I had to sit with the parents at the table with all of the gifts and pizza was. Now, the reason I bring that up is that I felt terrible sitting at that table and watching the automatic machine characters come out every 15 minutes to sing and dance on stage while all my friends were playing in the ball pit. As I look back on it, however, I can laugh, haha, because I shouldn’t have felt badly for who I was. I am actually proud of being the fat kid and surviving. How does all of this connect with Choate? Well, as we grow older, and believe me, being 19 since October makes me old for a senior. I mean, graduating High School in 4 years is like leaving the party at 9:30 you know? But, as we grow, we began to figure out who we are, and it continues all the way through high school. It may not even end there, but we can certainly agree that we are still in the molding process as we pass though this school. Why not embrace the person we are becoming? Why not be your self? For me, Id much rather look stupid being myself then look cool trying to act like someone I am not.
Lets move on…
Ask questions. Even if they are small enough as “Hey Mr. Aramark Man, why can’t I have more than one Grilled Cheese?” Now that I think of it, Aramark leaves me with a lot of un-answered questions. Before third period all I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and if there is food in the salad and sandwich bar before 10:45, it is not closed. I don’t care what the Aramark people say. Also, I think I speak for almost everyone on campus when I say that we can eat more than 5 chicken nuggets for lunch. I don’t want to wait in line over and over again just to get full.
Try not to be too angry if you do poorly in a game or on a test. There will always be another one. Forget about the times you didn’t do well and embrace the times you excelled and were the best person on the ice, court, field, pool, stage, or in the classroom. If you do not have another game in a particular sport you play, well, either try to think positive, or consider how lucky you are that you will never have to play bad again.
In conclusion, I just want to make it clear that the chess club is the best club on campus. Don’t believe me? Well, consider this… even though Jordan Park is the current president, I am the president emeritus. This means I have the power to call a chess club meeting whenever I feel like. Therefore, this moment right now is officially the start of the last chess club meeting of the year. Now lets say we had 10 meetings this term and even if the chess club averaged 1 person a meeting in the first nine and today we have 800, which averages out to around 80 people per meeting. Now that sounds like the best club on campus to me.
Thanks for listening everyone. Enjoy the rest of your lives.
