Our first year we weren't very good, I think we won 3 games and lost 5, even though I wasn't aware of it, this was the year I grew up as a man. I felt that the people I respected, my coaches, counted on me to do a job and help our team to win games. When we won it seemed to please the coaches immensely, but when we lost, it was like someone died. The games were on Saturday and the feeling of loss would last until Wednesday. If you had a good game some of the Brothers would tell you good game and some of the guys that came to the game would give you a pat on the back. That would hold you over until the following Saturday. Kevin (QB) and I clicked we would score a least one touchdown per game and sometimes two but we still had a losing record. We played hard, real hard but couldn't it done. The first season was disappointing but it was building personality and character that I would need later in life. The Mount was a tough school. Academically we were right there with the best, some of our Alumni have gone on to do great things. In my graduating class we had the Director of the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Robert Ficalora, President of Universal Studio's Louis Feola, lawyers, doctors, civil servants were the norm. The school produced , for the most part, quality individuals. But a few students ,of the graduating class, are no longer with us, Pete Denti, Bobby DeCaro, Stephen Rossback, who I tried to help when I was a police officer, but succumbed to drugs. Time continues and some of us live long lives and some of us don't, but what is important is what you did with the time when you are here. It's 1968 many of the graduating class went on to fight in the Vietnam war, the Jets were about to become a contender and the Yankees were terrible. When you are 13 a day seemed like an eternity in school, the brothers were tough but I had a few regular teachers who I remember. One of which was Mr. Frank Burke. Mr. Burke was my freshman year history teacher, he was a former police officer, who at times still thought he was a cop. He took a boring subject, and always made it interesting with stories from his days in the N.Y.P.D. If you had his class after lunch, and were secluding candy in your sport jacket, he would put you against the wall and search you for the contraband (candy) and then he would eat it in front of you. You didn't want to fall asleep in his class because he was deadly with the board eraser. He would throw that eraser and hit you dead on, no mater where you sat you were a target for Mr. Burke. The chalk would get all over your sport jacket and everyone in the school would know you fell asleep in Mr. Burke's class. Later in my life I would work with both his sons in the N.Y.P.D, Kevin and Tim Burke. He was a good teacher and was always around after school when we would practice. He may have had an influence on me becoming a N.Y.P.D. police officer. Al Joseph was another teacher who was a bulldog looking guy, he also doubled as the bus monitor for the 3:30 Club, of which I was never a member of. I remember that Al Joseph was a tough guy who didn't take any crap from any of us. I remember that we couldn't talk to each other between periods he would wait until we were all in our classrooms and everything would be nice and quiet and he would pull out his snot rag and blow into it, the sound he made was similar to a fog horn, it was one of the funniest sounds that could come out of a human being, but remember we couldn't laugh or we would get a beating or worse JUG and miss football practice. Freshman year would go by without a hitch, 1 year down three to go.