What’s happening
Last month marked Marquette Catholic High School’s spirit week, one of the school’s favorite traditions. Spirit week allows students to celebrate their school pride by taking part in different activities or games and dressing up for different themes each day of the week. Each grade competes against the others to be named “the class with the most spirit”.
This year’s spirit week activities included name that tune, teacher trivia, and dodgeball, in addition to the tradition of class hall decorating. The themes for the week were crazy hat day, pajama day, USA day, hallways theme day, and lastly, class shirt or color day.
The week finished off with the homecoming court being presented in the gym, and then the week’s winner was announced. The seniors were in second place throughout the week, but made a huge comeback in the final few days and won spirit week.
Marquette’s spirit week also coincided with Catholic Schools Week (CSW). CSW started on January 31 this year and continued through February 6. The week began with a region-wide, school virtual mass, then went on to celebrate students, teachers, vocations, and the other many aspects of a Catholic school.
Within the Marquette community, March is a busy time. The month started off with a fundraiser for the school’s Lenten service project, collecting hygiene, baby, and food items to create care bags, or Blazer Blessing Bags, for Dunebrook. Dunebrook is a nonprofit organization that focuses on intervention and prevention of child abuse. The school is working to help care for those in need.
This month, the school is also celebrating Women’s History Month with inspirational quotes each day. St. Patricks Day, happening on March 17, will also be an exciting day as students are able to dress down.
The school’s Academic Super Bowl Team had their first virtual match on March 10, and the Science Olympiad team has their second match of the year on March 20. This month, is important for all future Blazers as incoming freshmen registration begins on March 13. On March 19, the spring musical, “Newsies,” will be filmed and live streamed.
In the world of sports, the boys basketball team had a few sectional games this month against Bishop Noll and Whiting. The baseball and softball teams start their seasons this month, and the girls tennis team will begin conditioning. Students are ready and excited for their upcoming spring break starting on March 27.
Teacher spotlight
Austin Cogdill has been working as a teacher at Marquette for four years now. Before becoming a teacher, he worked in retail, substitute teaching, and coaching. Now, he teaches the Young Adult Literature, English 10, and Honors English 10 classes. In addition to teaching, he is also a class sponsor and the Marquette Girls Soccer Team coach.
Cogdill loves spirit week, especially the dodgeball activity against the students.
“I really enjoyed dodgeball this year even though one of the seniors threw a ball at my toe and got me out immediately,” said Cogdill. “I have already sworn revenge on him, you know who you are!”
He is the class sponsor of the sophomore class, and he loves being able to get to know his students and help them have fun. He especially loves getting the chance to dress up in crazy outfits for each theme of spirit week.
Cogdill’s love of soccer began when he started playing at age four. He played for about 15 years before beginning to coach during his summers in college. He says his passion for teaching came from his passion of coaching. Seeing the change in both his students and soccer players makes his day.
“It is rewarding to see someone’s eyes light-up when they finally figure out how to strike the ball, perform that move they have been working on for so long, or see the team work together on something tirelessly and then to see it pay off in a game and know that I helped them in that process,” said Cogdill.
Student spotlight
Riley Lindsey is a senior and soccer player at Marquette. She started playing soccer at age three and has played all four years in high school in addition to playing basketball her sophomore and senior years.
Lindsey will be attending and playing soccer at North Central College (NCC) in Naperville, IL.
“I, more than likely, will be participating in the dual enrollment occupational therapy program that NCC offers.” said Lindsey. “This means I will be getting my bachelors and masters degree in four years.”
Lindsey has loved learning from Cogdill as a coach because of how his concern and respect for his players stands out.
“You could always tell how much he cared,” said Lindsey.
Instead of soccer being a barrier between her and her school work, Lindsey has used it to learn more and further her skills. Playing soccer her whole life has taught her communication, leadership, and sportsmanship skills. This is evident in her being a member of the National Honors Society. Balancing soccer, school, and her social life is difficult, but she has taught herself time-management and how to prioritize.
Her favorite class in high school was her sophomore year biology class; she loved participating in the labs. Lindsey’s favorite part about Marquette is the relationships that she builds with the staff and students. Her advice to incoming freshmen is to be yourself in order to find your group of lifelong friends.