Saint Louis president goes back to basics

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

The boys of Saint Louis School filed into their sweltering school gymnasium in white shirts, ties and dress pants, not a pair of jeans or shorts in sight.

Father Allen DeLong, Saint Louis president, is earning a reputation as a methodical thinker and communicator. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

It was really just another opportunity for DeLong, Saint Louis' president of one year, to teach a few simple lessons.

Every boy, in his own way, is a leader at Saint Louis School, DeLong said. Earlier in the week, DeLong asked the boys to write down the names of new students, shy ones or boys who simply didn't seem to fit in. At Mass, DeLong told the students to remember the names of the boys and asked that they be invited into their social circles.

"You can influence people to good or not so good," DeLong told the boys. "We want the world to be better because you pass through it."

And then, looking over the crowded gym, DeLong repeated a constant theme at Saint Louis:

"We are all brothers here," he said.

It's back-to-basics time at Saint Louis, Hawai'i's oldest Catholic secondary school. And by some measures, the approach of the 69-year-old DeLong is working.

Enrollment shot up 10 percent after DeLong's first year — to 833 students this fall. Despite a high school tuition of $7,000, applications rose 33 percent. In June, Saint Louis received accreditation for another six years, the maximum.

DeLong also has hired a public relations firm and a separate marketing company to help rehabilitate Saint Louis' troubled image as a football factory that dominates a campus battered by internal politics.

Internally, DeLong is pushing administrators and teachers to focus on the way they treat one another. Their relationships serve as role models for the boys, he said.

"If we do have some people that are carrying wounds, we need to heal them," DeLong said. "If there are things that need to be said, we say them in a loving way."

Sticky situation

Enrollment at Saint Louis has risen 10 percent since Father Allen DeLong arrived. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

Father Mario Pariante, DeLong's predecessor, conducted a one-man investigation into the Las Vegas trip that concluded with his suspending a third of the football team, forfeiting a game and docking coaches' pay.

The fallout divided the Saint Louis campus and upset parents, alumni and the Saint Louis trustees, who fired Pariante in November 1999, saying he had failed to lead and communicate.

DeLong is earning a reputation as a methodical thinker who is trying to communicate and build support for his ideas.

"Father DeLong is a real gentleman, a real gentle person," said Betty White, principal at sister school Sacred Hearts Academy. "He thinks things out well, gets a plan of action and carries his ideas out slowly and meticulously. He does not get ruffled."

DeLong sent out 4,500 surveys to alumni, parents and others to get their thoughts about expanding Saint Louis to include kindergarten through fifth-graders. He is also encouraging the boys to attend expanded off-campus, weekend retreats full of self-examination about their relationships with God, their families and "most of all, themselves," DeLong said.

Unlike similar, smaller retreats in the past, the girls of Sacred Hearts are not invited.

"Boys will talk about their feelings on a deeper level without strangers around," DeLong said. "A boy in his raw form is very open."

When the news is announced at Sacred Hearts, the change will upset the girls, White said.

He also has had to cope with the distraction of the recent announcement by head football coach Cal Lee that he plans to resign at the end of this season after 15 state championships. Although Lee is expected to continue as Saint Louis' athletic director, the possibility of a new football coach has fueled widespread speculation that DeLong and Lee are feuding.

Lee did not return telephone calls, but some have said his decision has more to do with frustrations with the Interscholastic League of Honolulu over new rules designed to help weaker teams.

"Cal Lee is a good man," DeLong said. "He influences the boys on a deeper level than normal guys. That's a great asset for the school. I don't want to lose him."

Despite DeLong's efforts, he has not mollified everyone upset with the events of the past few years.

"The administration at Saint Louis is in sorry shape," said Bruce Benson, whose son graduated in the spring. "It would take an enormous event to pierce the veil of secrecy that surrounds it."

Rules are rules

Other parents complained during DeLong's first year when their sons' pagers and cell phones were confiscated on campus. But they had been warned of the rules in the student handbook, which both parents and students are required to sign.

"Some parents were upset when the rules were enforced, but they were clearly written in the policy handbook," said Leland Ching, who was the Parent Teacher Association president for most of last year. "Overall, I would say, yeah, things are better from Father Mario's administration. Communication is better, and I like the philosophy that Father Allen has brought."

It's a philosophy that DeLong readily shares, in sometimes blunt language, through monthly letters sent to students' homes.

He worries about an overindulgent society that pushes young men and girls to grow up too fast. And he occasionally brushes up against touchy topics like drugs, sex and abortion.

But the overarching theme in his letters is that parents need to realize the powerful roles they play in their sons' lives.

"Some fathers may not know how to express their love, their strong feelings of pride in their sons, or their wonder at having sired such unique individuals," DeLong wrote in one of his first letters. "... I encourage you to sit down with your son, look him in the eye and tell him 'Thanks' for being your son."

In his Easter letter, DeLong urged parents to discuss the "topics that concern LIFE: death penalty, abortion, drinking and driving, drug addiction (in all its forms), how people depend on each other ... your son's importance in the family, how much he is loved, responsibility for one's actions regarding sex, driving, fighting, carelessness, taking risks, the implications of lying, repeating rumors and gossip."

LaJoy Lindsey-Hanohano, Parent Teacher Association president, has followed DeLong's suggestion to read the letters with her son.

Lindsey Hanohano, a 16-year-old senior, is exactly like the boys DeLong describes in his letters — smart, respectful and silent about his feelings.

"You would think that Father Allen himself was a parent," Lindsey-Hanohano said. "You could swear that he's been there, done that. A lot of my friends save Fathers' letters. I'm just thrilled with him. That's why I sent Lindsey to Saint Louis, to be under someone with strong morals and values."

The ideal Saint Louis student

DeLong's attitudes about boys took shape while growing up in the Northern California town of Cotati, where he attended a Catholic school of 100 students. His father was a carpenter-electrician, and his mother was a housewife.

At the University of California at Berkeley, DeLong studied physics and hoped for a career as a research-scientist. But the Marianist order called, and Delong began a religious teaching career that took him between Northern California and Hawai'i.

At Saint Louis, DeLong boiled down his feelings about the ideal student into a poster in January called the "Saint Louis Man." It lists 15 attributes, such as promoting peace and nonviolence, making moral choices, accepting differences and respecting all people, "especially women."

Under DeLong, the boys are expected to stand whenever any adult, girl or woman enters their classrooms.

"We start every class with a prayer," said Kellan Kubo, a 15-year-old sophomore. "We didn't do that when Father Mario was here."

The changes have been easy and simple to follow, Kellan and other boys said.

"We don't complain about it," Kellan said. "We understand the rules."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.