<p>Ten Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Went Out Into The Real World, a book by Maria Shriver, published in 2000, evolved from a commencement address she had given at Holy Cross in 1998.</p>
<p>The Holy Cross campus is considered among the most beautiful in the nation. The current edition of the Princeton Review ranks it #12 on Princeton Review’s “Most Beautiful Campus” List.</p>
<p>On April 4, 1968, the death of Martin Luther King Jr. shocked the nation. A few days later, the Boston-born priest Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J., then a professor of theology at the College of the Holy Cross who shared Dr. King’s dream of an integrated society, drove up and down the East Coast searching for African American high school recruits, young men he felt had the potential to succeed if given an opportunity.</p>
<p>Among the 20 students he had a hand in recruiting that year were Clarence Thomas ‘71, the future Supreme Court justice; Edward P. Jones ‘72, who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature; Theodore Wells ‘72, who would become one of the nation’s most successful defense attorneys; Stanley Grayson ‘72, future New York City deputy mayor who would break the color bar on Wall Street; and Eddie Jenkins ‘72, who would play for the Miami Dolphins during their 1972 perfect season.</p>
<p>Now, the stories of their time at Holy Cross are being told in a new book, Fraternity (Spiegel & Grau, Jan. 3, 2012), by Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Diane Brady, who follows the five men through their college years, reporting on how their time at Holy Cross and their relationships with Fr. Brooks helped shape who they are today.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Fraternity: In 1968, a visionary priest recruited 20 black men to the College of the Holy Cross and changed their lives and the course of history. (9780385524742): Diane Brady: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Fraternity-visionary-recruited-College-history/dp/product-description/0385524749/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&tag=vglnk-c947-20]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Fraternity-visionary-recruited-College-history/dp/product-description/0385524749/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&tag=vglnk-c947-20)</p>
<p>In a new video released by the White House, Jon Favreau, a 2003 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and director of speech writing for President Obama, talks about the process of writing the 2012 State of The Union Address.</p>
<p>Take a look inside the West Wing as President Obama, Favreau, the other speechwriters and the policy team brainstorm ideas, rewrite language, reorder ideas, and put the finishing touches on this year’s address.</p>
<p>[Behind</a> The Scenes: Writing the 2012 State of the Union Address | College of the Holy Cross](<a href=“http://news.holycross.edu/blog/2012/01/24/behind-the-scenes-writing-the-2012-state-of-the-union-address/]Behind”>Newsroom | Behind The Scenes: Writing the 2012 State of the Union Address)</p>
<p>The event is all but lost in the mist because they weren’t really games when Dartmouth, Brown, Holy Cross and Yale gathered in New Haven for what was described as “The Gloomy Bowl” on a Saturday in December – 75 years ago.</p>
<p>It was a football tournament for unemployment relief. The participants, their regular seasons complete, convened in the Yale Bowl Dec. 5, 1931.</p>
<p>The price of admission was $2. In 1931, the height (or was it the depth?) of the Great Depression, $2 was a day’s pay for countless thousands who stood in bread lines, sold apples for pennies on street corners, and struggled to see the next sunrise. The New York Times reported that about 23,000 people came to the Bowl on a crisp, sunny Saturday in those gloomy times for what was described in The Dartmouth as “a gridiron rodeo … the most amazing football circus ever concocted.”</p>
<p>Records in Yale’s archives indicate the crowd was probably closer to 28,000 because, then as now, sports provided a window on optimism and better times. In 1931, horse races and pro wrestling dominated the sports pages along with the nation’s game – college football. Seventy-five years ago, the National Football League wasn’t much more than a vagabond road show in its embryonic years that included the Bears, Packers and Giants but also the Frankford (Pa.) Yellow Jackets, Staten Island Stapletons and Providence Steamrollers.</p>
<p>Read more: [Gloomy</a> Bowl in Great Depression made a difference for the unemployed](<a href=“http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06337/743068-134.stm#ixzz1mReRzwBY]Gloomy”>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06337/743068-134.stm#ixzz1mReRzwBY)</p>
<p>Holy Cross Stuns #4 Texas A&M In Extra Innings</p>
<p>On Friday evening, February 24, 2012, Holy Cross hung tight with #4 ranked Texas A&M, losing 3-2 in 11 innings. Saturday afternoon, Holy Cross got their revenge.</p>
<p>Holy Cross rallied, scoring four runs in the 10th inning to beat Texas A&M, 7-3. The win is believed to be the program’s first win against a top five ranked team since the 1950s, according to a member of the Holy Cross sports information department.</p>
<p>[Holy</a> Cross Stuns #4 Texas A&M In Extra Innings](<a href=“http://www.collegebaseballdaily.com/2012/02/25/holy-cross-texas-am-aggies/]Holy”>http://www.collegebaseballdaily.com/2012/02/25/holy-cross-texas-am-aggies/)</p>
<p>Book TV on C-Span will feature Diane Brady, author of “Fraternity” on 3/4/12 at 10 pm ET.
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Fraternity-visionary-recruited-College-history/dp/0385524749[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Fraternity-visionary-recruited-College-history/dp/0385524749</a></p>
<p>From the Book TV Website:
“Diane Brady, senior editor at BusinessWeek, recalls the efforts of Rev. John Brooks, a theology professor at the College of Holy Cross, who following the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 traveled the East Coast and recruited African-American students to the College with the hope of realizing Dr. King’s goal of an integrated society. Rev. Brooks, the future president of the College, introduced several students to Holy Cross that year, which included a future Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas and a future winner of the Pulitzer Prize in literature, Edward Jones. Diane Brady speaks at the Harvard Club in Boston.”</p>
<p>In 1976, Evil Knievel cleared 10 trucks on Holy Cross’ Fitton Field:</p>
<p>[Boston.com</a> - Nation - News](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/113007_evelknievel?pg=9]Boston.com”>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/113007_evelknievel?pg=9)</p>
<p>June 21, 1905 Teddy Roosevelt Visits Holy Cross</p>
<p>Crowds lined the streets to catch a glimpse as President Theodore Roosevelt’s train arrived at Worcester’s Union Station on June 21, 1905. Across town more than 6,000 people gathered at Fitton Field for the first commencement ceremony to be held there. To the President’s great delight, students greeted him with their traditional “Hoiah” cheer. He then offered the address for the 62nd Holy Cross commencement. Congratulating the College for its baseball victory earlier that year over his alma mater, Harvard, he went on to commend Holy Cross for its excellence in training the next generation of American citizens. He personally greeted each of the 37 students receiving their BA degrees and the three students receiving MA degrees that day. Following the event, he planted a commemorative elm tree near what is today the tennis courts, which remains a testament to his visit and the growing national reputation that Holy Cross was establishing at the turn of the 20th century.</p>
<p>June 1964 Lyndon Johnson Speaks at Commencement</p>
<p>Just seven months after JFK’s assassination, the new president comes to Holy Cross</p>
<p>Poised for his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater just a few months later, LBJ came to Massachusetts in June of 1964 to pay tribute to the state’s slain favorite son and to introduce himself to northern Catholics who viewed this southern Protestant politician with suspicion. On Fitton Field he evoked both John Kennedy and Pope John XXIII-who had died “within six months of each other” the previous year-and tied their legacies to his ambitious Great Society agenda. Their work, he said, “flowed from the message that burst upon the world 2000 years ago,” and now Johnson spoke of creating “a place where every man can find a life free from hunger and disease-a life offering the chance to seek spiritual fulfillment unhampered by the degradation of bodily misery.” He spoke of ending poverty, battling disease, putting the space age to work predicting the weather with satellites, conserving resources and harnessing nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The rhetoric of the “Great Society” is most commonly associated with his commencement speech at the University of Michigan a few weeks before, but at Holy Cross, Johnson’s articulation of it was fused with a spiritual seriousness that better captures its scope and humane ambitions.</p>
<p>November 9, 1962
Martin Luther King Speaks at the Holy Cross Fieldhouse</p>
<p>MLK spoke to an audience of 1,500 students, faculty and Worcester residents, “there were some people who hissed when he came in and who sat there for awhile with a sneer and a dirty look.” This was before Birmingham, before Selma, before the March on Washington, before it was easy to see what King would mean for America; he still had many minds to change, and he came to Worcester looking for them. King’s visit was a challenge to Holy Cross, a wake-up call to the complacent, a warning that we could not forever stay above the fray here on the Hill. King called for the rise of “creative maladjusted men,” men like Jefferson and Jesus; through such leaders, he asserted, “we can emerge from the bleak and desolate state of man’s inhumanity to man into the glittering daylight of freedom and justice.”</p>
<p>Last week’s episode (episode 5 of season 5) of the TV show Mad Men titled “Signal 30,” Jim “Handsome” Hanson mentions that he has a track scholarship to Holy Cross.</p>
<p>Michael Harvey, class of 1980, recently completed his fourth fiction thriller We All Fall Down. He has won multiple Emmys and earned an Academy Award nomination for his works as a journalist and filmmaker. He also authored The Chicago Way and The Fifth Floor and was co-creator of the TV program Cold Case Files</p>
<p>Holy Cross was featured today on NBC’s Today Show to honor the recent death of former HC presient Fr. John Brooks and the work he did to help attract and mentor minorities to Holy Cross in the 1960s who turned out to reach the highest echelons in their careers:</p>
<p>[TODAY</a> Video Player](<a href=“http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/48070263#48070263]TODAY”>http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/48070263#48070263)</p>
<p>thank you for posting this. that was amazing.</p>
<p>Football began at Holy Cross in 1884 with games against teams from other schools beginning in 1891. The first home game played at Holy Cross was a 6-0 defeat of Massachusetts Agricultural College (now called UMass Amherst) on September 26, 1903.</p>
<p>This year’s game against UNH is the second Fitton Field night game – but it is also a “first” in HC football history. It is the first game ever played in the month of August.</p>
<p>Ted Wells, HC class of 1972, was elected to become the newest member of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.</p>
<p>Wells is a 1972 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, where he went on to serve as a trustee. His undergraduate experience at Holy Cross, as one of a small group of outstanding African-American students who navigated a turbulent time on campus and who rose to remarkable careers, is chronicled in the 2012 book “Fraternity” by Diane Brady. Wells pursued his graduate studies at Harvard and received his J.D. and M.B.A. degrees in 1976.</p>
<p>[Mathews</a> and Wells elected to Harvard Corporation | Harvard Gazette](<a href=“http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/09/mathews_wells_elected/]Mathews”>Mathews and Wells elected to Harvard Corporation – Harvard Gazette)</p>
<p>Holy Cross ranked the top college in Massachusetts When Rated on ROI & Not Just Reputation</p>
<p>The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester earned the highest ranking among all colleges and universities in Massachusetts, ranking fifth in the nation, just below Washington and Lee University, Yale, Princeton and Rice.</p>
<p><a href=“http://bostinno.com/2012/10/21/how-massachusetts-colleges-stack-up-when-rated-on-roi-not-just-reputation/[/url]”>http://bostinno.com/2012/10/21/how-massachusetts-colleges-stack-up-when-rated-on-roi-not-just-reputation/</a></p>
<p>Former Holy Cross Star Kaftan Named a March Madness Great</p>
<p>For the 75th anniversary of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the NCAA has released its list of the greatest players and teams in March Madness history, and Holy Cross was well represented.</p>
<p>The 1946-1947 Crusader national championship squad made the list as one of the Top-25 teams in March Madness history, and center George Kaftan was named one of the Top-75 individual players.</p>
<p>While that great Crusader team featured the legendary Bob Cousy, then only a freshman, it was Kaftan who would claim the 1947 NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award. Kaftan averaged 21 points per game during the tournament, culminating with Holy Cross’ national championship game victory over Oklahoma in Madison Square Garden.</p>
<p>Despite standing just 6-foot-3, considered undersized for the center position, Kaftan became Holy Cross’ all-time leading scorer before the end of his sophomore season. His NCAA Tournament numbers were equally impressive, as he averaged 17.3 points per game, including 18 in the 1947 national championship game.</p>
<p>“Over the 75 years, the basketball championship has grown from a small eight-team tournament to one of the world’s most popular sporting events,” said Dan Gavitt, vice president of men’s basketball championships. “To honor the growth of our sport, we are celebrating past players, teams and moments that have helped turn March Madness into one of the year’s most anticipated sporting events. We invite all NCAA basketball fans — both new and loyal — to take a stroll down memory lane. And of course, we encourage friendly debate among fans around all their favorites.”</p>
<p>From a pool of more than 100 former players, NCAA staff analyzed statistical data compiled exclusively from performances in NCAA tournament games [e.g., points, rebounds, field goals, free throws, three-pointers (since 1987), assists, steals, blocks] to determine the 75 player finalists.</p>
<p>The lists were compiled and researched by the NCAA’s basketball and statistics staffs, which consulted with the NCAA’s media partners and selected members of the United States Basketball Writers Association.</p>
<p>To see the complete list of teams and players, click here:[NCAA</a> honors all-time greats as part of 75 years of March Madness celebration - NCAA.com](<a href=“http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/marchmadness75/2012-12-10/ncaa-honors-all-time-greats-part-75-years-march-madness-celebrat]NCAA”>http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/marchmadness75/2012-12-10/ncaa-honors-all-time-greats-part-75-years-march-madness-celebrat)</p>
<p>U.S. Sen. John Kerry visited Holy Cross on 31-Jan-13 as part of a farewell tour of Massachusetts before formally stepping down from the office to become secretary of state.
[Sen</a>. John Kerry Visits Holy Cross as Part of Farewell Tour | College of the Holy Cross](<a href=“http://news.holycross.edu/blog/2013/01/31/sen-john-kerry-visits-holy-cross-as-part-of-farewell-tour-4/]Sen”>Newsroom | Sen. John Kerry Visits Holy Cross as Part of Farewell Tour)</p>