In the Long Run

Trip Norkus put his career in information systems on hold for a bit as he tried out a different vocation: high school teacher at STrake Jesuit in Houston, his alma mater. He and two other alumni signed on for a year with the school's Alumni Service Corps.

Fall 1993

A teenager named Trip is waiting outside his coachs office at Strake Jesuit College Prep in Houston, trying to gather the courage to go inside and do what needs to be done. Two nights earlier he was caught drinking at the schools homecoming dance.

Trip Norkus is a good kid. He almost never steps out of line and has never in his life been in so much trouble. His parents are upset with him, the dean of students is upset with him, but no one is more upset with Trip than Trip.

Now, on Monday morning, he stands at his cross-country coach's door because he needs to tell Mike Crowley what has happened and that he may not be allowed to compete on the team for a while.

Coach Crowley handles the situation with wisdom, grace, and love. He tells Trip how disappointed he is. He tells Trip that he relies on him to be a leader of the team and that this incident has set a poor example for the younger kids. But he never raises his voice; he never talks down to Trip.

Instead, Crowley discusses the situation with Trip as though they were two colleagues seeking a solution to a problem. He tells Trip that, as a consequence of his actions, hell have to miss out on the glory of competing and will also have to increase the number of inglorious miles run at practice. Trips love and respect for Crowley is so strong and his desire for reparation is so deep that when Crowley asks him to run eight miles, Trip goes for ten. It is his first ten-mile run, but it will not be his last.

Trip's reasons for
leaving the corporate
world to join this
fledgling program
have nothing to do
with pay and
everything to do
with priorities.

The T-shirt and sunglasses set off Matt Hoffman, another Alumni Service Corps member, from the freshman football players he coached this year at Strake. A graduate of Texas A&M, Matt earned a BS in agricultural development with an emphasis on construction science. Off the field, he teaches American history to sophomores, has worked on Kairos retreats, and lent a hand setting up labs in the science department.

Fall 2003

Trip is back at Strake, waiting outside the office of the schools president, Fr. Dan Lahart, SJ. He is applying to become a member of the newly formed Alumni Service Corps (ASC) at Strake. As a member of the corps he will live in community with two other young alumni in a small house next to the Jesuit residence on a far corner of campus. They will spend a year teaching classes, coaching athletic teams, playing in the high school band, cleaning out the chem labs, leading religious retreats, and so on.

In exchange for all this work, they will receive a whopping $250 a month. A University of Texas grad with a degree in management information systems, Trip had already sprinted far down the road of his career as a software developer for the Houston energy industry for the past three years. He was knocking down more money in a month than he would make for his entire ASC year. But Trips reasons for leaving the corporate world to join this fledgling program have nothing to do with pay and everything to do with priorities.

Trip felt lost in the sea of cubicles and computer code. He found the air in the corporate office stifling and lifeless. He was disillusioned by the experience of being—for the first time in his life—a resource rather than a human being.

Alumni Service Corps member Colin Butler graduated from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, in '02 with a degree in philosophy. He teaches English, coaches golf, works on retreat programs, and is in the band program as well. (Below) He's at the sink in the campus apartment he shares with fellow ASC members Matt Hoffman and Trip Norkus.

Trip explains it this way: the company needs to win a new software contract before the competition does. The execs calculate how much money, equipment, office space, and warm bodies they can throw at the project and still make a profit. As soon as the project is over, the “human resources” will be dropped from the payroll. The good ones might be picked up again as soon as the next project comes along, but no guarantees. At the end of any one day Trip never felt like more than a line item on a spreadsheet.

December 2003

Trip, while busy teaching computer science at Strake, has also been suiting up after class to serve as assistant coach for the tennis team. He finds in his mailbox an envelope from Ricky, a freshman tennis player. He winces as he opens it; he remembers telling Ricky a few weeks earlier that he did not make the cut and would not play on the team. Trip reads the card: “Dear Coach Norkus, thanks for being such a cool coach and friend.” He cant help smiling and thinking of his own relationship with Coach Crowley.

Early January 2004

It's 6:15 a.m. Trip is riding in Mike Crowley's pickup. The former coach is now dean of students at Strake. Since that penitential ten-mile run years ago, Trip has now run several marathons, and on this Houston-hot spring morning, Mike and Trip are on their way to run together in a 10K in Angleton, Texas. In a few more weeks Crowley will run a half-marathon in downtown Houston, and he knows that his former student and present colleague will run past him and complete the marathon. Crowley couldn't be happier for him.

Late January 2004

Trip has been struggling with a decision for several weeks now. Should he go to grad school for an MBA or should he leave the corporate path behind and apply for a job at Strake?

When Trip began his ASC year, the plan was to go to business school the following fall. But he is not the same person as when he began the year. Embedded in the ASC schedule is time for prayer, communal faith sharing, spiritual direction, retreats (both as a leader and participant), and, of course, plenty of opportunities to be the “cool coach and friend” for his students that Crowley was for him. These experiences have led Trip to question his corporate vocation.

Frustrated, Trip had been praying quite a bit about his dilemma, but his spiritual director said something that stuck with him and gave him hope. He told Trip that if he prayed faithfully about it, he would not have to force a decision. A special moment would come soon, a moment in which he would know just what to do.

That moment came a week or so later. At a school mass, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez challenged the entire school community to think about the things that really make one happy. Trip thought of running beside his long-time mentor and friend, Coach Crowley. He thought of the Christmas card that Ricky sent. He thought of the bond he forged within the ASC community and the great ministry that flowed from that bond. He also thought about how much closer to God he'd grown in the past year and how much he desired to continue down that path.

Fr. Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ, theology teacher and school chaplain at Strake Jesuit College Prep in Houston, is the author of Armchair Mystic: Easing into Contemplative Prayer (St. Anthony Messenger Press 2001).

Memories of the business world also came to mind. But like Ignatius hundreds of years before, Trip was able to distinguish clearly the desolation that accompanied those memories. He recalled how much he could relate to Peter, a character in the movie Office Space. Peter simply walked away from his cubicle and didn't return for several days. His boss called him and said, “I've noticed you've been missing several days of work.”

Peter answered back, “Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it.”

February 2004

Trip, waiting outside the office of the assistant principal, is and isn't the same kid who waited outside the coach's office years ago. Like his adolescent self, Trip is nervous and is asking God for strength. Unlike his younger self, he's excited and happy. He knows that every encounter with this place has led him to the magis, to the longer run. Now he's about to ask to run a few more miles. He'll ask if there are any openings for the next school year.