Church Assembly talk: Matt McKenna '18
Most of you know me as Matt or just McKenna. However, I've been given a lot of other nicknames in my four years here at the Abbey. Some of you know me as Mac, Mateo, Matik or The Better MM. Unfortunately, I've also been known as Mckankles, Banana Man, and Liquid McKenna. Those are just the ones I know about. I'll also say that these days most of my teachers call me Matthew, because adults always use your full name when they're mad.
Despite the incredible embarrassment some of my nicknames cause me, they all hold an incredible significance in my heart. Nicknames are inherently special because they indicate a special bond between two people. Whenever I hear someone call me by one of my many names, I almost always know who it is, and it almost always brings a smile to my face. I know it may seem silly to focus this talk on something as trivial as a nickname, but in eleven days all the Sixth Formers and I will be gone, and all some of you will remember us by is a nickname.
This brings me to my main topic; the underappreciated term "legacy." You know the cliché speech opener, "the Oxford dictionary defines legacy as. . . ?" Well, I'm going to use it, because their definition of "something left or handed down by a predecessor" fails miserably to truly capture what it means. Legacy means so much more than that, though I'll admit it is hard to put into words. So the best definition of legacy I could come up with is "the impact and memories a person, place or thing leaves behind on another person, place or thing." I don't think that sentence is even close to being grammatically correct. So instead, I'll tell a story to clarify what I'm trying to get across.
I was fortunate to make the varsity football team my Fourth Form year. I weighed a chubby 180 pounds and had one full season of JV football experience under my belt. I distinctly remember two things about that first varsity season: first, getting dressed in the bathroom every day with Karl Jackson because there weren't enough lockers, and second, Kevin Ellicks. Wherever you are Karl, you can relax. I promise I won't tell everybody about how you didn't wash your football pants all season long. Now, let me explain about Kevin Ellicks. Every day in practice we would play a game called Thud, which basically involved the offensive starters running plays with full contact at game speed against the second team defense. Every day, I would line up across from Kevin Ellicks, and every day without fail I would end up on my back groaning in pain after he had bulldozed me into the ground. And every single time I got flattened I'd look up at the sky and question why I decided to play football. But what I remember most is that then I would see Kevin's hand outstretched, waiting to help me up. I wasn't really friends with Kevin and I haven't talked to him since he graduated, but you could say that the way he helped me up every time had more of an impact on me than his blocks—which is saying something. His gesture was a legacy, an example that taught me how to be a football player and how to be a captain.
Eleven days, and then all that will be left of us Sixth Formers are stories and legacies like that. They matter more and last longer than the record-book stuff. Yes, the football team made it to a bowl game for the first time in eight years. Yes, the baseball team won its first EIL Championship. Yes, we are the first graduating class ever to reach 100 percent participation in donations, mostly because of the really annoying pestering by our class agents, Ally Ponte. But what we'll remember are the little things, like Kate Hughes' laugh that you can hear across the dining hall and is so funny until you've heard it nonstop for half an hour. Or seeing Arthur Shipman sprinting to class at 8:17 am in pajamas with a toothbrush in his mouth. Even the memory of something as small as Lucia Billings' obsessive love for the Patriots will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Four years have flown by and I never thought I'd be addressing the entire school body. Since I have this chance, I want to acknowledge the legacy you've given to me, along with all those nicknames. No matter who you are, whether we hang out every day or if we've only spoken a handful of times, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making my Abbey experience truly incredible, one little moment at a time. Those of you who know me well, know that I am actually really soft. If it wasn't for my shaking legs and racing heart, I would probably have tears running down my cheeks right now. So, before I lose it, I'll end with a quote that I found it last night at 11:43 pm on Google Images. It pretty much captures what I'm trying to say:
"Moving on is simple. It's what we leave behind that's hard."
Thank you.