Notable Boston Alumni Who've Gone to the Head of the Class
With the annual influx of college students returning for the
fall semester, we can’t help but wonder what brilliant, beautiful minds will
next emerge from Boston’s
famed universities. However, we’re not simply some intellectual filling station
where students come to gas up their IQ before going out to cure cancer, solve
the energy crisis, and buy the world a Coke. Our schools make us a city where
interesting, ambitious people discover their passions, hone their talents, and
develop their personalities (and learn how to handle their liquor along the
way). We’ve culled through our class rosters for alumni who spent their school
days here in the Bean, each representing a familiar student archetype you’ll
recognize from any yearbook. Chatting about their favorite classes and
treasured watering holes helped us relive the student experience that’s such a
vital part of Boston’s
big picture … without resorting to keg stands.
Best Dressed
Clinton Kelly — co-host of What
Not to Wear
It’s a perfect fit that Clinton Kelly chose his college
based on fashion sense. “I’m moderately embarrassed by it,” he admits,
acknowledging his initial attraction to Boston College
was based on its inclusion in the satirical tome The Official
Preppy Handbook. “I grew up in middle-class Long
Island suburbia, and I wanted to get the hell out,” laughs Kelly.
Once he did, he used extra cash from a summer waiter job, plus a great fake ID,
to trade campus keg parties for downtown nightclubs, the dining hall for
favorite spots like the Cactus Club. But he didn’t just study the art of
fabulous while at BC. A Communications major in the class of ’91, he learned
the skills needed to become a multimedia fashion maven. Now the former
president of the university chorale is even working on a musical he likens to The
Music Man. “Except this is more, like, the makeover man,” he says. But
surely even Kelly couldn’t avoid every indignity of college life? “I ran out of
Mary Ann’s bombed and hopped
on the T in the middle of winter,” he remembers of one fuzzy
night at the ultimate BC dive bar. “I had to jump out and vomit in the street.
Then I passed out on the side of Comm
Ave. Some good Samaritan called me a cab, but the driver
threw me out. I was a mess!” A hot mess, of course.
Highest Marks
Erik Weihenmayer — the only blind person to climb Mt.
Everest
The best students are those who learn to teach by example.
Erik Weihenmayer attended three Boston area schools, spending his teenage years
at Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, studying as an undergrad at BC
(’91), and earning a Master’s in Middle School Education from Lesley University
(’93). But the active outdoorsman made his biggest mark outside the classroom:
in 2001, he became the only blind person to reach the top of Mt. Everest.
Not impressive enough? In 2002, he joined fewer than 100 climbers in history to
stand atop all “Seven Summits,” the highest peaks on each continent.
Weihenmayer doesn’t consider these daredevil feats, but accomplishments
achieved through logic (his hands “scan” ledges to chart his climb) and solid
communication with his climbing team. “I always worried the adventure of my
life was over,” says Weihenmayer, who was blind by 13. “You’re sitting in the
[school] cafeteria, listening to the jokes, wondering, ‘Am I going to be
listening to life go by, stuck on the sidelines my whole life?’ ” Not even close. Weihenmayer
also scuba dives and skydives, and he’s sought after as an author (his book
Touch the Top of the World has been published in 10 countries and
six languages) and motivational speaker, travelling everywhere from Tibet, to
teach with Braille Without Borders, to here in the Hub, where he’s worked with
Lesley and the Boston Public Schools to share his inspirational message with
students. “Life should be a great adventure,” he says. “That doesn’t mean
you’re necessarily climbing scary mountains or rocketing to Mars, but that
you’re motivated from within.”
Big Bird on Campus
Caroll Spinney — “Big Bird”
and “Oscar the Grouch”
Attention, flirting freshmen: here’s a pick-up line you just
can’t beat — “My dad is Big Bird.” Caroll Spinney says his son
threw around the weight of dad’s big, yellow feathers to pick up chicks at Lesley University
(hey, it sure beats “You on Facebook?”). But Spinney is a father figure to
anyone who spent their pre-school years with Sesame Street, having
played Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since the show’s debut 40 years ago. He
first studied illustration and commercial art at the Art Institute of Boston in
the 1950s but took some time off to join the Air Force (Big Bird flew around
dropping bombs in the Korean War). Commuting from Acton
on a scholarship, he didn’t have much time for college debauchery, but Big Bird
got his start entertaining kids with $8 birthday puppet shows for rugrats in Wellesley and Chestnut
Hill. Moving on to local TV shows, he eventually was
discovered by Muppets creator Jim Henson and asked to join his new show, Sesame
Street. Now in his 70s, Spinney is an active older bird, living in Connecticut, taping in New York, and leaving the nest frequently
for guest lectures and commencement addresses. But though being the man behind
the bird has helped him wow crowds of college grads and get his son some dates,
not everyone has been impressed. “One boy told him [Spinney’s son], ‘Your
father’s not Big Bird. Big Bird’s played by a woman!’ ” He chuckles about his son’s college stories.
“Being named Caroll wasn’t always an asset.”
The Nerd
Seth Grahame-Smith — author of Pride
and Prejudice and Zombies
“Apparently my parents didn’t love me enough or something,
because I went in with a lot to prove,” says Seth Grahame-Smith, self-described
overachieving “big film/TV dork” at Emerson
College (’98).
Considering that this film student’s first three books were titled The
Big Book of Porn, The Spider-Man Handbook,
and How
to Survive a Horror Movie, we’re not exactly inclined to disagree
with the nerd assessment. But when Grahame-Smith’s latest, Pride
and Prejudice and Zombies, became a bestseller earlier this year, he
didn’t just create a cult favorite: he pioneered an entirely new book genre,
the literary mash-up. PPZ retains about 85
percent of original text from Jane Austen’s English class staple, interweaving
Grahame-Smith’s irreverent, fan-boy addition of brain-munching legions of the
undead roaming the English countryside. Its sleeper success earned him a
two-book deal (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter debuts in
April), put PPZ in movie development, and led him to a role
as co-creator and exec producer of Hard Times, an upcoming
MTV comedy series about a class brain who finds popularity when his significant
— ahem, endowments — are revealed. Based in L.A.,
the writer remembers The Pour House and Charlie Flynn’s (now Intermission
Tavern) as two favorite spots for studying his draughts, but there’s one part
of Boston he
doesn’t miss: “I wasn’t much of a Lansdowne
Street guy.” A dork on Lansdowne? That mash-up
makes petticoat-clad zombies sound quaint.
Miss Congeniality
Elisabeth Hasselbeck — co-host of
The View
Elisabeth Hasselbeck inspires strong opinion. If you lean
right, you may love the conservative voice Hasselbeck brings to The
View and appreciate her mascot status as a PYT in the GOP; if you
lean left, you probably can’t stomach her politicking without squirting morning
coffee through your nose. But either way, you’re likely a little intrigued by
how her outward appearance — clasped hands, eager smile, demure ensembles —
belies one of the most argumentative personalities in the talk-show biz. She
was just as opinionated in the Boston
College classroom. “I
think if you went back you’d see parts of that quality in me,” says Hasselbeck,
who is originally from Cranston,
Rhode Island. “The willingness to
hold your breath and feel that rumbling in your stomach until you finally say
what’s on your mind.” Naturally, Hasselbeck used her brain’s right side as a
class of ’99-er, a Fine Arts major who created an Independent Study in
Industrial Design and designed shoes for PUMA after college. (Her shameful
leftie-brain love? Calculus.) BC’s also where she met footballer husband Tim,
enjoyed those famous Notre Dame game days, partied in “The Mods” (but never in
“Scary-Ann’s!”), and valued self-discipline as captain of the girl’s softball
team. “To this day, if I see the number 4:44 [practice time] on a clock, I
freak out. It reminds me of push-ups ’til you’re puking!” But she most loved
the campus’s camaraderie, a dress rehearsal for her TV career to come: “We were
encouraged to disagree in a civil way. [And] have conversations … on
a platform of respect, regardless of perspective.” And hey, if such lessons get
momentarily forgotten, at least those mid-morning catfights are good for
ratings.
Class Jock
Chris Nowinski — WWE wrestler turned activist
The stereotype of the “dumb jock” is as deeply entrenched as
the first wedgie we ever received from one. Yet not only does Chris Nowinski
have a Harvard-educated brain, he’s turned his history of head injuries into a
personal crusade to protect yours. Nowinski was a typical football player,
hanging with buds at Crimson Sports Grille (now Redline) and once dragging lawn
chairs to the steps of the school library to watch the film shoot of Good
Will Hunting. But after graduating cum laude (’00), he shirked the
rat race and followed up his sociology degree from Harvard with studies at
Killer Kowalski’s Pro Wrestling School in Malden.
(“Looking back, it seems a little odd — but at the time, not so crazy!” he
laughs.) Next came a spot on wrestling reality show Tough Enough
and life as a WWE performer, laying the smackdown on opponents with a signature
finishing move, “The Honor Roll.” But he hung up his spandex after a year and a
half of “toughing it out” through an estimated six concussions, which led to
memory loss, migraines, sleepwalking, and depression. Adopting the mantle of
advocacy, he’s since authored books, impacted policy, and
co-founded local think tank the Sports Legacy Institute (visit
www.sportslegacy.org for info on an October 21 fundraiser at the Langham
Hotel). Now, he co-directs a center for head trauma study at the BU School of Medicine. There, the Harvard grad
continues to literally expand the mind: he’s convinced more than 100 athletes
and former members of the military to donate their gray matter to the center’s
brain bank. Smart move.
Drama Queens
The Casilio Triplets — performance artists
You remember what those artistic types were like at school:
always raging against the machine, sticking it to The Man, and buying 100
percent recycled-material notebook paper from small, minority-owned boutiques
(even the coffee stains were Fair Trade) while the rest of us thoughtfully
debated the merit of “beer before liquor...” Older and wiser, we’re now more
grateful for those who push boundaries and buttons, and that’s why we love
sisters Alicia, Kelly, and Sara Casilio, identical triplets from Franklin and
all MassArt grads (’01). They share DNA and artistic vision, conceiving and
executing performance-art pieces that have taken them from Iraq War protests on
the steps of the U.S. Capitol — dressed as a representative World Trade Center
victim, American soldier, and Iraqi civilian, with lengths of red ribbon
reflecting their respective death tolls — to guerilla exhibitions at the ICA,
where they constructed makeshift platforms and encouraged patrons to pose and
be viewed as art themselves. In 2006, they teamed with National
Geographic photographer Cary Wolinsky to form triiibe, an artist
collective dedicated to art delivering social commentary. They’ve received
accolades and angry criticism, dropped jaws in confusion and awe, received
spontaneous street donations (and a 2009 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant),
and been hassled by police. But it’s all worth it, if these young artists
represent a new movement in local performance art. “The thing we like about
doing it in Boston
is that people don’t expect it here,” says Kelly. Expected or not, we’re glad
that our city is suddenly seeing triple visionaries.
