Ron Coleman is a day student from North Haven, CT. Ron is Varsity Soccer Captain and runs Varsity Track. In addition, he is on the Assessment Team and Gold Key. In the fall Ron will be attending Tufts University in Boston. After College, he says he and Nick DeChello are going to open a nightclub.-



I want to begin my senior speech by giving you all some advice that I would have found helpful when I was at an earlier point in my Choate career. Leave no stone unturned! Get involved. Don’t be afraid to try new things or be unique. In the long-run, it doesn’t matter what other people think about you (unless they are seniors or your closest friends). Just be proud of who you are. If you follow my advice, I promise you that Choate will turn out to be four of the best years of your life. You only experience high school once, and it would be a shame to graduate complaining about what you should have done while you were here. The last two years of my Choate experience have been, beyond a doubt, remarkable. The memories and friends I have created will truly last a lifetime.

Looking back at my time at Choate, I must say that I have changed a lot. Freshman year I was a quiet, studious little Choatie. I went home after sports, I didn’t come to school on weekends unless I had a soccer game, and I spent most of my time studying, watching television, or chatting on instant messenger. “AIM-game” was about the only game I practiced. I never even had a Sunday D. In fact, the thought of skipping class never crossed my mind until the hefty workload of junior year came crashing down upon me. I was what my friends and I now call an “LB.” For those of you who don’t know what that means, and excuse my language, LB stands for little bitch. My two best friends and I interpret this phrase to mean someone who lacks confidence, boldness and audacity. My freshman year, I would say I fit this description. I was five feet tall, barely weighed a hundred pounds, and rarely spoke out about my opinions. Sure I had friends, but I wasn’t living life to the fullest. Even today, over my parents’ objections, I sport a pair of earrings.

I guess you could say being part of the varsity soccer team sophomore year helped boost my confidence and open up new social opportunities, but I was still somewhat unaware of how much fun I could have been having. If you focus all of your attention to school work, you will end up shortchanging yourself. If it was not for my close group of friends, I might have never progressed out of the dreaded LB status. While learning and getting good grades are important, the social skills one learns while at Choate have a lifetime effect.

Now, I want to share with you how exactly I have managed to change since I was an under-former. Over the past two years I must say that I have learned important life lessons from some of my best friends—three friends in particular.

First, my friend with the nickname of a South Park character showed me how to celebrate some of the finer things in life—night life, showpaux, and breakfast at the Copper Kitchen (best place to eat breakfast in New Haven). Matt, Winter, Winters, butters, matters, puddles, puds, whatever you want to call him, he taught me how to kick back, relax, and have a good time. What I remember most vividly from hanging out with him is driving to God knows where listening to the cool flow and relaxing beats of Gang Starr, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli. He taught me that it doesn’t matter who you get with freshman year, be it the alien or the lovely Elizabeth Swepson Robie, an AA lax goalie going to Georgetown still makes you the man. P.S. Butters, the high black socks look only works if you have nice calves, so keep working out and doing your raises.

Next, I want to share my experiences with the great Daniel Cannata. Dan has taught me the valuable lesson of how NOT to order eggs. He is going to hate me for revealing this, but, to make a long story short, he once ordered medium eggs. We went out to breakfast one morning, and, when the waitress asked him how he would like his eggs, he looked around the table at the five or six of us and quietly murmured the word “medium.” Apparently it was loud enough for the waitress, our table, the cook, the men at the bar, and the two tables around us to burst out in laughter. We tease him for so many things he has done, but he always laughs back. Dan has grown a lot since his freshman year. He has become a more focused person, a stud among the women (freshman girls I know how you used to purposefully try to walk by him during the class day), and one of the most respected student-athletes on campus. We got through four grueling weeks of restriction together, and I will always remember the time I have spent at casa de Cannata. I also want to thank him for broadening my musical horizon by integrating Coldplay and O.A.R. into my car mix tapes. Finally, Dan has taught me to have a sense of humor about everything, and he has proved time and time again that when people make fun of you, they are probably jealous of you in some way.

Then, there is Matt Vivero; we’ve been friends since the summer before freshman year. Like me, he has also changed for the better over the past four years. He never lacks confidence, whether on the soccer field, in the gym, or in the classroom. He is not afraid to state his opinions, and I can always count on him for fashion advice. The most significant thing he has taught me is how to forget about what other people think and do or say what you want. However, I cannot stress the importance of taking into consideration how others think just a bit. Cheating and hooking up with girls with boyfriends is not the best thing to do here at Choate. Anyway, Matt does care about others’ feelings as well as the appearance of his body (both being beat up from late afternoon winter hockey brawls and being cut and ripped out of his mind). I urge you, if you want to spend track practices running around campus without a shirt while shouting lines from the YouTube skit “Unforgivable,” then go ahead and do it.

Finally, my last point of advice is for all the seniors. Enjoy the last few days we have together at this place. Choate has been our home for so long and will always be a place we can come back to. Next year, we will all become freshmen again, so enjoy the power while it lasts. Class of 2007: We made it!