Soccer, Cross Country, Baseball, Tennis
Favorite athlete: Derek Jeter
Favorite team: New York Yankees
Favorite memory competing in sports: When I was 16, I was playing in an eastern regional playoff game for my Legion baseball team. The game was against a team from northern Pennsylvania, and we were down three runs in the bottom of the last inning. I stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs, and hit a triple to tie the game.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When I was a freshman on the baseball team, I was playing centerfield. I was tracking down a fly ball, and I called for the ball. Unfortunately, my voice cracked in a shrill, piercing screech. All of the birds in the trees flew away, and the players and parents on both teams started laughing!
Music on your iPod: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Maroon 5, Bob Marley, Duke Ellington, Jack Johnson, Eminem
Future plans: Next year, I will be a student in the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania and will get degrees from both the Wharton School of Business and from the School of Engineering and Applied Science. I aspire to do research in alternative energy in the future and to someday start my own business.
Words to live by: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Thomas Jefferson
One goal before turning 30: I want to climb Mount Everest by the time I am 30 years old.
One thing people don’t know about me: When I was on the Appalachian Trail last summer, I was hiking above tree line in Maine one day. Before I could make it to the other side of the mountain, I was caught in an intense electrical storm. With another hiker that I had met, I crouched beneath a rock to wait out the storm. A lightning bolt struck down right at us, and I felt a jolt run through my arm. The other hiker felt a jolt run through his leg. People don’t believe this story when I tell them, but I was actually struck by lightning.
Matt Schulman is the first to admit that, with his ridiculously busy schedule, some sacrifices need to be made.
“I don’t get enough sleep,” Schulman said with a laugh. “There are not enough hours in the day to do everything. But I never really dreaded going a couple days without a lot of sleep. I really enjoy everything I’m doing.
“There’s a quote that if your GPA is higher than the number of hours of sleep you’re getting per night, you’re definitely working hard.”
Schulman has earned himself a little extra sleep, as his GPA is higher than most … 5.15, to be exact. It puts him atop a class of 364 seniors at Wissahickon High School.
And it’s just one of the many reasons why Schulman was honored last week as the Triangle Club of Montgomery County’s 2012 recipient of the prestigious William F. Dannehower Award.
Local public and private schools nominate one senior each year for the award, which seeks to recognize a student who represents the Triangle Club’s ideals of sports, scholarship and service to the community. Schulman is the first Wissahickon student to win since John Ashmore did so in 1968.
Truth be told, Schulman never really thought he was going to take home the award.
“I was just hoping I might get one of the runner-up awards,” Schulman said. “When they named the runners-up and my name wasn’t called, I just figured all bets were off. And then when they announced my name, it just felt so surreal. I never thought I would have a chance to win the award. It was just an honor and a thrill to be in the same company as some of the other kids who were up for it.”
But while Schulman may not have felt he had a chance, those who nominated him for the honor know that there aren’t many students out there like him.
“I'm fortunate to have known Matt for many years. I was also his principal in elementary school,” said Wissahickon High School Principal Lyn Fields. “We always believe each year we have great nominees for the Dannehower Award, and this year we had eight to 10 kids right off the tops of our heads that we could recommend. But there was just a little more to Matt. He has it all.”
For Schulman, part of the thrill of winning the award was the pride he felt in representing his school. And his school takes great pride in Schulman’s accomplishment.
“For the other kids to see and have a role model like this is important,” Fields said. “He brings a pride, brings spirit to the school. The next day, teachers are coming out of their rooms to talk to him, kids are congratulating him in the hallways. It lets them know, you might not get to that level, but it’s something you can aim for and know it can be done. Everyone we nominate is important, but when you have a kid like this, it's pretty special.”
In addition to his remarkable courseload – Schulman said he has taken 10 Advanced Placement classes and estimated about 16 Honors-level courses during his years at Wissahickon – Schulman has made Distinguished Honor Roll every marking period of his high school career, he is a National Merit Finalist, a National Merit Scholar and an AP Scholar with Distinction. He is the co-president of the National Honor Society, Vice President of the senior class and editor-in-chief of the school’s monthly newspaper. He has received the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce Future Community Leader Award and a first-place award in the Junior Academy of Science regional competition.
But to Schulman, the grades and the awards take a distant backseat to the enjoyment of the educational process.
“There’s such a huge emphasis on GPA and test scores in our society,” he said. “That’s all kids worry about. I think that might take away from the genuine learning experience. I think it would be awesome to go to a high school without GPAs and to not have to worry about test scores. You could be motivated purely by your academic interests, rather than being worried about boosting up your GPA by taking a class maybe you’re not very interested in. Maybe I’m an idealist, but the important part of education is understanding how you can build a passion for what you want to learn, instead of just trying to build up your GPA.
“I’ve been very busy academically, but I really have enjoyed having many challenging classes in many different disciplines, because I think high school is great in that it lets you expose yourself to many different subjects, courses that can help you find out what you’re interested in, and I’ve been genuinely interested in everything I’ve been learning, which is what makes it possible to take a rigorous courseload. And I’ve had great teachers who have really had a passion for what they’re teaching. There are times I’ve felt bogged down by having such a tough courseload, but the opportunity to learn these things, it’s just awesome.”
Schulman has challenged himself on the athletic fields as well. In one of the more unique moves a senior has ever made, Schulman gave up soccer and baseball – two sports he had been playing since his freshman year – and this year went out for, and made, the cross country and boys tennis teams. In the spring semester of his senior year, when many of his classmates may have been cruising to the end of their high school careers, Schulman was learning how to play tennis at the varsity level.
“The number-one player on our team, Ricardo Prince, is a good friend of mine,” Schulman said. “I was in a class called Racquet Sports with him and having a good time and he started talking to me about trying out for tennis. Before I knew it we started hitting together after school. He really was a mentor to me, and at first I was just trying to make the varsity team. I ended up playing second doubles. The team went undefeated in league play and won the American Conference title. My partner, Lee Beckman, and I had a great season.
“I really loved tennis. Every day I would wake up and really be looking forward to coming out for an afternoon of tennis. I really enjoyed the season and the camaraderie of the team.”
It’s not often that a senior tries out for a varsity sport out of the blue. All Schulman was looking for was a shot. And it didn’t take long before Trojans’ boys’ tennis coach Mark Daniels knew there was something special about Schulman.
“The second day of tryouts, we were doing some warm-ups, we had 30-some kids on the court and I wanted to call them to the fence to talk to them about the next thing we were going to do,” Daniels said. “I call them over and Matt comes sprinting in before everybody else. I remember saying something like, ‘I appreciate you coming in real quick.’ He said, ‘I can’t believe all the other guys aren’t doing it.’ He wanted to make a good impression and he really did. I’ll never forget that moment. He wanted it bad, and he proved it to me that he wanted it.”
Of course, passion and raw talent alone aren’t enough. There’s also strategy and honing skills. And Schulman was eager to do everything he needed to do to play at the varsity level.
“He was just like a sponge out there, the whole season, absorbing everything,” Daniels said. “He worked his butt off. I was amazed.”
“At first I didn’t have much of a strategy or know where to stand, where to go, but every day, coach worked with me on strategy for doubles,” Schulman said. “Ricardo did a lot for me. My partner, Lee Beckman, helped me with technique and strategy. I owe a lot to him as well.”
In the end, Schulman and Beckman were one of two Trojan doubles teams to play in the District One playoffs. And the duo was named First Team All-League in doubles.
“Coming into it, it’s the spring of my senior year, I was just coming in to have fun,” Schulman said. “At the same time, I wanted to make varsity, and I wanted to contribute. Lee and I were so aggressive at the net, we were always trying to get to the net and volley the point away. But one of the reasons I think I did well was that as aggressive as we were on the court, I always went in with a relaxed mindset.”
He’s helped make it easier for his schoolmates to read about the exploits of the tennis team, or any other Trojan team. As part of his tenure as editor-in-chief of the Trojan Times, Schulman has tried to make the newspaper much more Wissahickon-centric.
“One of my goals for the paper was to make it more Wissahickon-focused,” he said. “In our sports section, there used to always be stories on the Phillies and Eagles. I wanted to make most of the articles focused on Wissahickon sports, to really become a paper that’s unique to our community.”
Schulman is also a member of the school’s Premiere Choir and plays saxophone in the concert and jazz bands.
“I’ve worked as hard at music as I have at sports,” he said. “I have so much fun doing it. Like athletics, it’s just a release to the stress from the school year.
“One of the things I really like about music is there’s more of a personal satisfaction that you played your best. With athletics, there’s always a quantitative way to measure your success. ‘Did you win the game?’ ‘Did you win the league title?’ And everyone is watching you and comparing you against your competition. With music, it’s not about the competition. Music can be more self-fulfilling as you work to improve yourself.”
Even with such a demanding academic courseload and so many other commitments and responsibilities, Schulman still finds time to serve his community.
As a service project with the National Honor Society, Schulman helped organize a can drive that collected about 3,500 cans of food for the Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard. A former counselor at the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association’s summer camp, Schulman regularly participates in the WVWA annual creek cleanup.
Schulman also helped set up his school’s future. With Wissahickon switching to box scheduling next year, Schulman was asked to attend school board meetings and visit other local schools to observe how box scheduling worked, then reported back to the Wissahickon administration.
“The stuff I was helping plan will never actually affect me,” he said. “But I care about the future of Wissahickon. My work will help determine the future of Wissahickon and the community. I enjoy investigating the nature by which students learn. The new schedule will definitely have some benefits for next year.
“I’ve been so fortunate to grow up in a great school district and a great nation and a great place to live with two really supportive parents and a supportive community. I’m really fortunate to have this upbringing that has helped me become who I am today. I think it’s important to help and to give back.”
Last summer, Schulman fulfilled one of his biggest dreams, hiking the Appalachian Trail. Calling it one of the proudest achievements of his life, Schulman trekked 900 miles through eight states, from Pennsylvania to Maine, over a two-month hike. He also used the journey as a way to help those less fortunate, raising $2,800 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“I’m a person who had a lot of crazy wishes and dreams, and I’m fortunate enough to have achieved some of them because of the positive upbringing that I’ve had,” Schulman said. “A lot of the kids in the Make-A-Wish Foundation don’t have that opportunity. Helping them fulfill what could be one of their last wishes, to bring that kind of joy, giving that kid something to look forward to, I think that’s really important.
“It was one of the greatest dreams of my life to hike the Appalachian Trail, and it was such a great feeling to know I was also providing money for a kid for what could be one of the last wishes. The money I raised went to an 11-year-old girl with leukemia who wanted to meet with Lady Gaga. I thought that was really cool.”
Schulman hiked the first month with two friends, but when they had to come back home, Schulman’s parents allowed him to go the rest of the way on his own.
“It seems really scary and extreme, but when you’re on the trail, there’s such a community of other hikers, I was never on the trail alone,” he said. “I was spending nights with other hikers, befriending other hikers. That second month was really rewarding. I was forced to reach out to others. And it was awesome to have that complete freedom the second month. To hike as many miles as I wanted to hike every day, to sleep where I wanted to sleep, to have that complete freedom was such a joy.”
The solo trek through the wilderness of New England left Schulman with countless memories of the splendor of nature, as well as numerous stories, perhaps none more amusing than the story of how he earned his trail nickname, “Tiger,” while stopped for a meal.
“When I started the trail, I was a small 16-year-old and timid and shy,” he said. “I was in a restaurant or bar in New Jersey a few days into my trip, and this big drunk guy was looking at me, because I looked really young. He starts moving over to me and questioning me, and I was so scared. He asks, ‘Do you go to college?’ I said ‘Yeah, I’m a college student.’ He asked where I go to college. So I looked across the room and there was a girl wearing a Princeton shirt, so I said Princeton. There were other hikers also in the bar, and they saw this encounter, and they gave me a hard time about it when I got back on the trail and started calling me Tiger, which is Princeton’s mascot.”
Schulman is planning on topping that journey this summer. He will hike the 500-mile El Camino Trail in northern Spain, followed by a 450-mile jaunt through the Swiss, French and Italian Alps, capped off with a 200-mile walk along the John Muir Trail, which runs primarily in conjunction with the Pacific Coast Highway in California and boasts some of the most breathtaking mountain scenery in the country, if not the world.
And upon returning from his summer adventure, Schulman will head off to the Ivy League. He won’t be a Tiger, but rather, a Quaker.
Schulman was accepted into the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania. Upon completion of the program, he will earn degrees from the Wharton School of Business as well as from the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
“I was really excited to get into this program,” he said. “It’s really a unique program. There are not many programs out there that will combine business sand engineering in an undergraduate experience. It’s a perfect opportunity for entrepreneurship.
“Plus, Penn in the city; there’s a vibrant social community. And Penn is big on taking the theory in the classroom and putting it into practice, making everything applicable.”
But first, there is some unfinished business in high school. There is a prom, Senior Awards Night and graduation ceremonies to attend. And there will be time to reflect on everything he has accomplished in the classroom, on the athletic fields and in the community.
“The Dannehower Award is the culmination of all Matt’s work,” said Daniels, who also praises Schulman for his sincerity, humility and manners. “For all the time he’s put into the school, he’s done some fantastic charity work, it’s great payback for him to achieve this. He deserves every bit of it.”
“I could go on and on about Matt,” Fields said. “He’s really a very special kid that doesn’t cross your path very often. If he ever ran for president, I wouldn't even blink … and I’d be right there on his team.”
