Adviser’s Note: Monday Mrs. McKay informed me that a former student, a former Triton, was the principal of the school our football team plays Friday night. When I contacted Todd Willems and teased him about the upcoming confrontation, I also asked about his life after NDA. The following response is SO good, it needs nothing but your attention. Enjoy!
The mere presence of your note gave me a tremendous smile! I was actually at the state championship game last November as I was serving on the WIAA Advisory Council — and was regretting not taking the opportunity to cruise through the NDA fan section.
My initial reaction to the playoff game announcement was joy, as while we were confident that we deserved a playoff berth, we were the victim of a mistake by the WIAA that kept us out a year ago. Once I saw that we would be traveling to NDA, I smiled more.
I am excited by the opportunity to return home, and I am a big believer in the meaning and value of competition. I believe in our young men and am excited to see them compete with great teams. We have played a few very good teams during our regular season, and while the results weren’t what we may have hoped, I have always been proud in our team’s toughness and fearlessness.
We try to be a fairly balanced offensive team; however we do typically run the ball a bit more than throw. Not likely we’ll have a fan bus — we don’t have school on Thursday or Friday this week, and we aren’t sure how many kids would take advantage- – however, I do anticipate us bringing a small, but mighty, student section.
It is my complete intention to be at the game. I am planning on coming up with my son (a sophomore at GHS) either Thursday evening or Friday morning. I won’t be torn…while I was a Triton first, I am a proud Hustlin’ Hawk. After the game I will be cheering for whoever wins to keep the train going all the way to Madison!
Now, as for Life after NDA . . . .
I graduated from UW-River Falls in 2004. During my time at UW-RF I was a 4-year men’s basketball team manager and did a semester-long internship at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Upon graduation I was blessed by the opportunity to teach Social Studies, Theology, and (a little bit of) English at Catholic Central High School in Burlington, WI.
I was lucky enough to join the boys basketball coaching staff and was a part of our WIAA State Championship team in 2006. In 2008 I became our girls varsity basketball coach and enjoyed that work for the rest of my time at CCHS.
As much as I have loved my work as a teacher and coach, I felt called (and was in part prodded by our mutual friend Dr. Tom Kiely) to explore leadership and graduated with a degree in Educational Policy and Leadership from Cardinal Stritch in 2012.
In 2013 I accepted my first principalship at Messmer High School on the north side of Milwaukee and spent 5 joyful years serving in one of the most amazing and historically important schools in our state. During my time at Messmer I was asked to serve as the founding Chief Academic Officer for the Siena Catholic Schools of Racine.
My role in Racine allowed me to stretch my work across grades K-12th grade and allowed me to coach and support the principals of the 4 Catholic elementary schools and St. Catherine’s High School.
While I felt super challenged and engaged in my work with our leaders in Racine, I missed the energy, life, and relationships that day-to-day life in a high school brings. So, in the midst of COVID, in June of 2020 I accepted my current position as principal of Greenfield High School. The past 5+ years have been great. I love our community and staff and deeply believe in the work we are doing. I hope to be here for a very long time!
I am married to my amazing wife Kate (who is a school counselor at St. Robert’s School in Shorewood) and am the proud dad to Bennett (15) and Keaton (13).
The memories of NDA are ridiculously long….a few highlights would be my time managing the basketball team and doing then senior highlight tapes with Coach Neises, all the musicals with Mrs. Schmidt and Mrs. Hearden (especially Godspell my junior year), Mrs. Hollenback’s scotch-a-roos, the choir trip to Disney, co-producing the senior awards show with Liz Egan, and – of course – being in one of the first sections of Creative Dramatics.
I was shaped in immeasurable ways by NDA; it is in my heart and I couldn’t possible name all the teachers and experiences who were foundational to my life as an educator.
When I was teaching Senior Theology we would spend a full unit on the Lord’s prayer – it has been the underpinning of my spiritual existence for years. A true grounding phrase in that prayer is “thy will be done.” We are here on God’s plan, on His timeline, and in service to His kingdom.
While all of my siblings ended up at Southwest High School, I was meant and destined to be at Notre Dame. And while I want to win on Friday, I will always be a supportive Triton!
Cheers,
Todd
