©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

CHA pair win Patterson Cup
by TOM UTESCHER

Julian McFadden

Julian McFadden and Jon Salem are both members of Chestnut Hill Academy’s Class of 2006, and last winter they were co-captains of the Blue Devils’ basketball team. At the local school’s graduation ceremony earlier this month they found they had something else in common when they were named co-recipients of the Patterson Cup, presented each year to the outstanding athlete in the outgoing senior class.

McFadden, who also had a distinguished track and field career at CHA, will focus on basketball as he moves on to Chestnut Hill College. Salem was a three-sport athlete for the Blue Devils, but will forego participation in basketball and lacrosse when he joins the football team at Bucknell University this fall.

Salem came to CHA as a seventh grader, and was already playing three varsity sports as a freshman. In the spring season of his ninth and tenth grade years, he followed in the footsteps of his older brother, Tony, a tennis player for Chestnut Hill. When the school started a lacrosse program in 2005, he traded in his racquet for a stick.

Jon Salem

“It was a great addition for the school,” he says of the lax squad, “and it’s a good spring sport for guys who play football.”

In basketball, he began to start as a forward when he was a sophomore. On the gridiron, he saw action on special teams and as a wide receiver for his first two seasons, then became a full-time starter as a junior. He made an immediate impact as a safety, and would be picked as defensive MVP of the Independence Football League as a junior and a senior.

“As a high school safety he had it all: size, speed, and being a hard hitter,” remarks Rick Knox, the Blue Devils’ head football coach. “He’s tall and rangy, so he was able to cover the deep middle of the field very well, and at the same time he was able to come up and play the run effectively.”

His CHA football career ended with the Blue Devils winning the IFL championship for the third year in a row, setting the stage for the team’s return to Inter-Ac League competition in the 2006 season.

“I think it’s a great thing to get back in the Inter-Ac,” he comments. “I’ve wanted that for a while, and I’m sorry it didn’t happen earlier.”

Salem’s achievements, particularly on defense, attracted the interest of several Ivy League colleges, and he also considered Johns Hopkins and Lafayette.

“When I went up to Bucknell for a visit I liked it a lot,” he remembers, “and I just felt it was the right place for me.”

A spate of injuries contributed to a sub-par performance by the Bison last season, but traditionally they’ve been one of the top teams in the Patriot League. Currently, they’re thin at the safety spot, and that could give Salem the chance to earn playing time as a freshman.

“The colleges liked his size,” noted Knox. “They see someone who’s going to cover a lot of ground back there. He’s also just a good guy to have on a team; he’s got that strong work ethic, and he leads by example.”

On the academic side, Salem enjoyed history and English. He did some outside writing for School Sports magazine, and he was a member of CHA’s student government as a freshman and sophomore. For his senior project, he worked with a real estate property manager, and at this point he’s leaning towards becoming a business major at Bucknell.

“When I was up there, I met one of the professors in the department and talked with him for awhile, and he was really helpful,” Salem says.

His fellow Patterson Cup recipient, McFadden, is also considering a business-related major as he prepares to enter Chestnut Hill College this fall. For his senior project at CHA this spring he worked at the Paoli, PA headquarters of the basketball shoe manufacturer And 1, where he was involved in developing sales strategies focused on various segments of youth market.

In the classroom at CHA, he found that history courses held a special appeal, and he was active in the school’s Multicultural Student Association, which explored and discussed a wide range of controversial social issues. He’s also an accomplished drummer, and may consider a minor in music at CHC.

McFadden played basketball and ran track from a young age. He participated in cross country as a freshman and sophomore, and after that he spent the fall season training for basketball. In track, he was one of the school’s top sprinters, and at the Inter-Ac League championships he won the triple jump as a junior, and the long jump as a senior.

For college, however, he says “I was focused on basketball. I grew up as a big Penny Hardaway fan, and I knew basketball is what I really wanted to do.”

A varsity player for four years and a starter for three with the Blue Devils, McFadden averaged 17 points, six assists, three rebounds and three steals per game as a senior. In one of his last outings, a game-high 27 points against nationally-ranked Episcopal Academy moved him past the 1000-point milestone, and he finished with 1028 points for his career.

Chestnut Hill College head coach Jesse Balcer observes, “What stood out for me is the way Julian can control a game with his speed and ballhandling ability. He’s very quick, he’s a good shooter, and he creates scoring opportunities for himself and for the players around him. He’s a good kid, and a good student, so I won’t have to worry about how he’s doing in the classroom.”

Philadelphia University, Georgia State, Millersville, and Widener were among the college programs on his short list. Chestnut Hill College’s decision to move up from NCAA Division III to Division II (starting in the 2007-2008 academic year) was a major attraction, as well as the fact that his family would be able to attend most of his games.

He only tapes in around 5’10”, but at CHC he’ll be joining a group of compact guards who are already on the team, chiefly Cardinal Dougherty grads Isaac Greer, Shawn Bolling, and Dwight Lyons.

“I know a lot of guys on their team already,” McFadden points out. “I played a lot of summer league ball with them before they went to college.”

He quickly took to CHC’s Balcer, who has run the Griffins’ program since the local college started its men’s basketball team in the fall of 2003.

“He was so easy to talk to,” McFadden recalls. “He was different from a lot of the other coaches because he seemed truly interested in what you’d be doing outside of basketball. He gave me that vibe, and it reminded me a lot of Coach Ed [Aversa, CHA’s head coach], who was basically my mentor through high school.”

He remembers arriving at CHA as a freshman, and reveals “I’d been in public school all my life, and coming to CHA was very difficult for me, because it was a very different kind of studying and a new kind of teaching environment.”

Fortunately, he continues, “I made friends really easily and my grade took to me pretty fast. It was easy to get close with the teachers. They’re easy to talk to, and there are a lot of people there who want to help you. That was very important to me at that time of my life, because my father had just passed away a week after I started ninth grade at CHA. I definitely want to give a shout out to Coach Ed, because he was always there for me.”

Jon Salem agrees with this assessment of the school, saying “I liked how it was a tight-knit community; you knew everybody and they knew you. I thought all of my coaches were great guys and very good coaches.”

Both of the Patterson winners would like to see the Blue Devils’ basketball team move up within the Inter-Ac.

“Recruiting is a good thing if you do it right,” Salem says. “CHA’s starting to do it, I think.

“They need to just get some more players in who can help win some games in the league,” McFadden concurs.