Class of 2021

Good afternoon, everyone. This is a moment of importance and transition for us all, and it is an honor for me to be providing this commencement address today.

Had you told me on my first day here at NVU-Lyndon that a few years later I would be addressing hundreds of my peers and their supporters, and virtually nonetheless, during a global pandemic; I wouldn’t have believed you.

But as we have all learned by now, a lot can change when you least expect it to, and sometimes it is the most challenging times of our lives that bring out the best in us.

I would like to thank my parents and younger brother. We are a family that invests in each other’s goals, and this moment here is a reward that we will cherish together. I would like to also thank Dr. Parisi and Professor Egan for their constant and impactful support. I would not be where I am today, ready to pursue my professional career, without you.

While I’ve grown up in Lyndonville, this town has never seemed to be as special as I see it now.

Being raised here always seemed to be tainted by the long winters and small-town life. When working in my family’s restaurant, The House of Pizza, I always struggled to understand the customers who came in and had enormous pride when stating they were an alum of “Lyndon.” For some reason I just didn’t get each time someone talked about their times here at Lyndon, their face lit up with joy and memories.

Honestly, I never expected that I, too, would have this experience or that it would be right here in Lyndonville. Instead, like many in our Northeast Kingdom Community, I felt the need to explore and see what other places had to offer, turning a blind eye to the potential that was right here in front of me.

I graduated from St. Johnsbury Academy in the spring of 2017 with no plan. I had no idea where I was going and what I wanted to do, but I knew I loved one thing: motocross.

Anyone who speaks to me for more than five minutes learns that our family races motocross all over the United States, and that we take it quite seriously.

By the time I graduated from high school, it seemed clear that I was never going to make it a profession, but I had the potential to make it to Loretta Lynn’s, the largest amateur national competition in the world.

I will never forget the day I received that “Golden opportunity.” My parents and I were stretching pizzas at our family restaurant when my dad suddenly looked over to me with a giant grin on his face and a proposition on mind: “I’ll give you one year to race and train down south, but afterwards you’ll come back for one year of school at Lyndon and work here at the restaurant full time.”

I was an 18-year-old without direction or a sense of what I wanted to do the next day, so I took it. I took it not knowing what I would be experiencing. I took it not knowing that what I thought was going to be one year of grinding and pushing to achieve one goal, would turn into four years of building myself a strong foundation and achieving new goals here at NVU-Lyndon.

So, I went south and spent my year training, traveling, racing, and experiencing a new lifestyle. I trained hard that year to finally achieve my goal: Qualifying for Loretta Lynn’s beside my younger brother. This was a huge accomplishment for our whole family.

When the week of racing finally arrived, it was an all-out rollercoaster, plagued by simple racing mistakes and injuries that quickly took my brother out of racing and gave me a clear reality check. As hard as I had worked for this moment, as many expectations as I had set for myself about exactly how things would be, I still struggled to be near the front in my first few races.

It was on the line of my last race that I finally realized that it was those expectations that were getting in my way. I had to trust that the expectations that I had set for myself leading up to that week were what had gotten me there in the first place, then let them go and race in the moment. Things can change, and winners ride with the changes.

That realization was a reset for me not only in racing, but in life. Lucky for me, that subtle change in mindset was all I needed to surpass all expectations that I had ever had.

I remember the final lap of my last race at Loretta Lynn’s so vividly that it has influenced each day that I have lived since then. That last lap was so far beyond both any stress and any joy that I had ever experienced. It was a game of ping pong in my mind between excitement and nervousness.

I had been racing all week over the same track, but during that last race I remembered a lesson that every rider learns: No matter the track, no matter the racer, or the conditions of that day, the track changes each lap. With 42 people and 20 minutes of racing, there is not a single moment of a race that is ever the same. No rider races the same track twice.

This lesson about riding the changes is what was running through my mind for the final laps non-stop, and it is the lesson that carried me across that finish line in first place, where I celebrated my accomplishment and success with everyone who was a part of my journey.

Those lessons I learned riding—about the importance of putting in the time to practice, about competition, about picking yourself up to keep pushing after disappointment and being prepared for quick changes —helped me grow as a person and prepare me better for my college experience here at Lyndon.

Just like no racer rides the same track twice, we all know by now, whatever we may have expected when we first arrived on campus, that a lot can change quickly, no two years in college are the same, and when times get hard, even during a pandemic, you have to double down to win—or in this case, graduate.

Coming to that first day at Lyndon looked very different for many of us. Some knew from the day they submitted their application to NVU that they were going to come and leave their mark, others took many years off to pursue careers, start families, or even protect our great nation by joining the armed forces.

I personally never thought I would come back to the Northeast Kingdom once I had left. Traveling all over and seeing many parts of the United States, I had always planned on attending school outside of the town I called home.

I remember pulling into the ASAC parking lot that first day telling myself that this was an experience that I needed, even if I had not fully seen its potential before. It was there and I needed to be ready to let go of my earlier expectations and ride the changes. I knew there must be a reason that every alum I had ever met smiled at the one simple word, “Lyndon.”

I’m glad I learned that lesson during my final moto at Loretta Lynn’s and found a way to carry it with me to campus. My time here at Lyndon, and your time, too, I know, has been so much more valuable than I expected it to be. Here at Lyndon, we were given far more than a place of higher education, teaching us what we need to know to go out into the world and be successful in our careers; we were also given a place of a tight and welcoming community.

This community proved its strength more than ever over the past year during the COVID-19 pandemic, and when we were faced with the potential of this school we love closing forever.

We gathered and strengthened our bonds further than our campus here in Lyndonville. We were supported by those near and far, alumni of our community and supporters for higher education across the Northeast Kingdom. We were supported by those who we celebrate with today.

The track we are racing on has changed—a lot. They always do. But here we all are at the finish line. During our time together we have faced challenges that are far larger than we could have anticipated. And in true Lyndon fashion, we dropped our heads, persevered, and rode our race.

In his book The Magician King, the author Lev Grossman writes, “That was the thing about the world: it wasn’t that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn’t expect.”

Expectations are important in many ways, for better or for worse. As we leave today, I challenge all who are listening, students, faculty, family members: At any moment that you shatter your expectations, or your expectations shatter you, you take that moment to reflect and think about how you move forward. Trust your confidence in yourself and trust the expectation that on your next lap, the track will be different. There is no lap that is the same. Sometimes, you have to race in the moment. Only you can decide how you make your next lap.

Things can change, and winners ride with the changes.

 

Thank you.