“I feel Boy Scouts is important because it teaches you to become more independent and reliant on yourself which is increasingly important through college and beyond,” said Eagle Scout Aidan Burich.

Burich, a senior here at NDA, has been in Scouts since he was in second grade, over ten years ago, and made a tennis backboard for his Eagle Project.

Burich is one of four Eagle Scouts here at NDA along with John Murphy, Joshua Metzentine and Paul Goral.

“I built a tennis backboard at Green Isle Park. A tennis backboard is used to hit against when you are alone. It is great for new players trying to learn the game,” said Burich.

“My project was important to me because I play tennis and wanted to help the tennis community in my area. I believe tennis is a great sport, and I wanted to help players learn and improve their game,” he added.

Green Isle Park is located in Allouez and is down the street from Father Allouez Middle School.

“The best example of how my project has helped others is a week after I completed my project I went to look at the board to make sure everything was looking good, and there was a family with little kids playing tennis. The kids couldn’t play on the big court as they weren’t strong enough, so they used the backboard to learn how to play. I would like to think that many people since then have used the backboard to learn and improve their game,” Burich said.

The senior said he also gained a lot from the experience of working on the Eagle Project.

“The biggest thing I learned from this project is how to plan and how to adapt when the plan inevitably fails. There were many issues during my project, but I was able to adapt and work through them to be successful.”

To any aspiring Eagle Scouts along the way he said, “The biggest piece of advice I would give to Scouts working on their project is to be prepared and to make a detailed plan. This will help to limit as many problems as possible.”