Honors Convocation Speech 2026

Since I was a young child, I have loved soccer.

As a player, I loved the long car rides to games on a weekend morning, the feeling of a perfectly timed slide tackle, and the pass that slips between defenders and finds a teammate’s foot at exactly the right moment.

One of my earliest memories of watching soccer is sitting at lunch in a restaurant in Maine with my Uncle Bruce during the summer of 1994, craning my neck to keep one eye on a World Cup game playing on the TV across the room. Much to my uncle’s confusion, I remember getting excited about moments that did not lead directly to a goal. It was the buildup to a potential scoring chance that was just as exciting for me. And in just a week, more than 30 years after that lunch in Maine, the Men’s FIFA World Cup returns to the United States, with matches as close as Foxborough.

This game, known by most as football, as science teacher Mr. Hardman often reminds us, or soccer here in the United States, is also known as o jogo bonito, “the beautiful game.” It is a phrase that originates from Brazil that describes the game not by the outcome, but by the way it is played.

In the United States, o jogo bonito is often misunderstood because we focus on the final score, casting judgment solely based on a number. But the beauty of the sport is never only in the goals scored.

A goal does bring a moment of euphoria or despair, because they can be hard to come by. The beauty in the game comes from all the small things that led to that moment: the pass played through a crowd that reaches its target, the way a person dribbles a ball that seems to defy the laws of physics, the run no one noticedthat pulled a defender out of position making space for a teammate, the determination to win the ball, the patience to reset, and the thousand small choices that eventually create one opening.

The celebration may happen at the end, but the beauty was being built all along.

And that is the part of the school year I hope we reflect on today.

This morning, we gather to celebrate the collective work of this community and the learning process that began in September and carried us all the way to this week.

We celebrate the moments that do not always receive applause and do not appear in the highlight reel, but they are the evidence of learning:

• The paper you rewrote one more time, improving your writing.

• The math problem in Geometry, Algebra, and Precalculus that you kept working at until it finally made sense

• The lab you designed to test consumer products and what you learned about meaningful scientific research

• The designs you continuously iterated for Problem Solving, Engineering, the Bridge Project, and Biomimicry so you could build the best possible solution or product.

• The moments you helped a classmate with vocab and conjugations in Spanish, French, and Mandarin.

• The stage managers who helped ensure everything was perfect for the performance and the players on the bench who lifted their teammates with their cheers.

• The way you continued to search for more evidence to support your research projects or claims in Humanities seminars.

Each of you has been part of that kind of build-up this year. Each of you can tell a story of something you did for school that did not come easily, pushed you to be better, and contributed to our learning environment. And like soccer, none of that happens alone. O jogo bonito depends on trust, and so does school: the trust between students and teachers, the classmate willing to ask the first question, and the person doing quiet work on a project.

The World Cup reveals one more thing I love about soccer: there is no single right way to play. Every nation brings something different to the game, shaped by its history, culture, rhythm, and imagination. The beauty is not that everyone plays the same way. The beauty is that it is a global game and has room for everyone.

The same is true of this school. No two of you learn, create, lead, or contribute in quite the same way. One student solves the problem with pure logic. Another sketches it first. One student leads from the front of the room. Another changes the room through kindness, humor, or steady presence. You each bring your own experiences, knowledge, culture, and lens to Brimmer. The beauty of this learning community is not that everyone plays the same way. It is that we have learned to work together.

As I think back to 1994, if I could sit again at that table in Maine with my Uncle Bruce, I think that is what I would try to explain. The game is not beautiful only because someone scores. It is mesmerizing because of all the movement, patience, trust, and imagination that most people miss if they are only watching the scoreboard.

That is how I hope we look at this school year.

Not only at the final grades. Not only at the certificates. But at the build-up: the extra attempt, the better question, the revised project, and the quiet assist that helped someone else move forward.

Maybe that is what Dani Rojas means in Ted Lasso when he says, “Football is life.” Not that life is always a goal celebration, or that every moment ends with people cheering. But that the most meaningful parts of life are often built the same way the most beautiful goals are built: through patience, trust, mistakes, recovery, and the willingness to keep moving when the goal is not yet in sight.

Some of that growth is easy to see. Some of it is quiet. And some of it may not be fully visible until next year, or even years from now. 

So today, as we celebrate the end of the year, let’s remember where the beauty really lives. It lives in the build-up. It lives in the work. It lives in the small choices, and the way you kept playing.

Congratulations on a wonderful year.