Address to the Class of 2026 by John Germak ’26
John Germak ’26 was selected by his classmates to speak on behalf of the Class of 2026 during today's 109th Graduation Exercises at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. You can read Germak's remarks, as prepared for delivery, below.
I was an idiot at 13 years old.
I still do some pretty idiotic things, but nothing will ever come close to what I wrote — and I checked the version history — on October 22, 2021, on my Regis application.
When asked the question "Tell me about yourself," here is how I answered:
My name is John Marciano Germak. I am an exemplary student, I am very athletic, and I am eager to contribute my skills to the Regis varsity baseball team.
My family, friends, students, parents, faculty, assembled guests —
that entire sentence was a lie. We can start from the top: As a student, I was only exemplary in my laziness. I was about as athletic as a 5'0", 145-pound eighth-grader could be. And as for my baseball skills, I'll have you know I put up a historic .000 cumulative batting average in my JV career.
But I was telling the truth about one thing.
My name is John Marciano Germak, I am from Edison, N.J., and I am so happy that you all — my friends and classmates — chose to give me the honor of addressing you today.
I owe so many people so many thank yous.
I have to thank my parents, and we all should. Mine have had the misfortune of putting up with me for a whopping eighteen years. We have to thank our siblings; mine were dragged here today. We have to thank our friends and everyone who cares about us so much. I love you all.
We have to thank our teachers and Regis staff. What would we do without a Pancake Breakfast, a "go ahead man" in the lunch line, a "plug and chug" in physics class, a "biennnn" in Spanish, or a visit from A.J. DeBonis, "philosopher."
With you guys, it's been a hell of a four years.
And although it pains me to think about the young boy I was four years ago — the same one who wrote that application that was miraculously accepted — I have to.
I have to because that little boy who loved Uncrustables and barely knew how to walk down the street gave me the greatest gift that anyone has ever given me by choosing Regis.
It was an awesome decision — the second biggest one of our lives — that we were saddled with at just 13 or 14 years old. And if the question posed to us at the time was Regis or Not, the right answer was by no means clear. And over these past four years, it has not been either.
At 14 years old, on my birthday, after eating fully four slices of cake, I sat at the foot of my bed and asked myself truthfully whether or not I could do it. Whether or not Regis was the right decision.
Since getting here, I have done that several times. For all of us, there were times that we questioned whether any of this was worth it. Whether 14-year-old me and you knew what we were doing. Whether the immense hardship we had to put up with was actually a fair trade for those pieces of paper.
There was a point in junior year when I actually believed I had
made the wrong decision. I know I'm not alone.
I questioned whether or not I belonged. I was exhausted by Regis's mental toll. I got sick of getting such little sleep. I was tired of NJ Transit getting cancelled all the time. I'd had enough of smelling the subway.
There's really no way to romanticize that. I thought about how much easier everything would have been if I had stayed close to home and never carried the burden of a Regis education.
Today, and only today, can I truly realize I was wrong then.
And 14-year-old me got it right.
Now, I have no intention of selling the students on a school you're already graduating from, parents from a school they've already probably donated to, and teachers a school that you freely choose to work at.
What Regis has given all of us is something that could never be explained. It definitely couldn't be done in 10 minutes by a "wised-up idiot" who can't play baseball. So I won't try. The most that I can do is make one observation.
I am not the same person as that young 14-year-old boy. This goes for all of us.
Four years ago, we walked through the 85th Street doors as special little boys. Or at least I thought of myself as such. For that, I want to apologize to my freshman advisement.
1E-2, Dr. Baldassarri — I was really annoying.
I thought that just because I knew the state capitals and did a half-passable Trump impression that I was the king.
Turns out that's not enough.
I also came in looking out for myself only. A student in a middle school graduating class of 600, I didn't really understand the whole community and brotherhood thing.
And let's be honest: It's hard to believe. Every speaker at every graduation insists that his community is special, that the bond between students is really like no other.
That's true at Regis.
I didn't see it in the moment.
Not in sophomore year Martorell.
Not during Michael's solo in Something Rotten.
Not over lunch at Fresh & Co.
But somewhere in all of that, these became my people.
What Regis has given us is a lot like the Subarus I pass in the left lane on the Garden State Parkway — it can only be seen while looking in the rearview mirror.
Today for the first time, we get to look forward.
But we're not little boys anymore.
And a lot of that is your fault.
Teachers, you guys have told me a lot of things — many of which, I'll be honest, I had no idea what they meant.
Here, we have had a lot of slogans shouted at us. "Men for Others," as opposed to boys for ourselves. "Building bridges" — where exactly, we don't know. And most recently: "Is that a phone?"
I'd like to give you all my two favorites, and I think they go very well together.
The first: "Go forth, and set the world on fire."
The second: "Go forth for God and country."
It's become clear to me that Regis really wants us to go. Anywhere, really. And I think that's important.
The purpose of our education was never to stay at 84th Street. Not that we wanted to. Let me tell you, February 13 was a very special day for me.
But the point was never the leaving.
It was always what we would do once we were gone. Whether the things built into us — in those hot classrooms, in this beautiful church, in that flooded cafeteria — whether any of that would hold when the Regis bubble burst.
I think it will.
Not because we got Order of the Owl.
Not because we won a heated club election.
Not because of a college acceptance.
Only by the men we choose to become do we justify what was given to us here.
That is how we set the world on fire.
That is how we bring greater glory to God.
That is how we make our families proud.
That is how we make that 14-year-old who made an uncertain decision proud, too.
He chose right.
God bless you.
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