Ryan Lupo and Sean McNulty play different sports at different schools, but there are common threads that tie their careers and their lives. The two have been friends since the age of three, and were in classes together throughout grade school. As will happen in WW-P, the two were separated, with McNulty assigned to Community Middle School and eventually High School North, and Lupo to Grover Middle School, then on to High School South.
Both have excelled in the classroom and in athletics, and each has been chosen by the News as his school’s stand-out athlete of the fall season.
Lupo’s Dream Season
Ryan Lupo said before the 2006 football season that he aimed to gain 100 yards per game and average two touchdowns. It was a lofty goal for someone who hadn’t been a starter in the previous season, and who had been mainly a defensive player until his junior year. As bold as the prediction was, the reality was more impressive. Lupo scored 25 touchdowns and averaged 197 yards per game.
After the first game of the year, Lupo was recognized by the 12th Man TD Club, a county-wide booster group that holds a dinner each week to honor the brightest stars on the football field. While speaking on Ryan’s behalf, Coach Todd Smith told the entire room, which included coaches of many of South’s rivals, that the Pirate offensive plan would be to get the ball in Lupo’s hands and let him run right at them.
“I thought, ‘Don’t tell them that’,” said Andy Lupo, Ryan’s father, who is president of the South booster club. “He said he was going to tell them what we were going to do, and he’d just let them try to stop us.”
The strategy produced a 7-3 record for the Pirates, and a record-setting season for Lupo. Lupo was injured for one of the Pirates’ losses, against Hamilton. Number 9 set season records across the board while playing in only 9 games. The 12th Man TD club presented Ryan with its player of the year award, the Frank “Mammy” Piscopo Trophy, on Wednesday, November 28.
“People say, he’s a power runner,” says Smith. “But he’s more than that. He’s also got the speed to break a run open. And he’s got finesse, too. He’s the complete package.”
Smith turned the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Lupo into a running back in Ryan’s junior year, Smith’s first as head coach at South. Under Smith’s predecessor, Lou Solomon, Lupo had played defensive back for a team that went 5-15 over two years. Smith’s practices included infamous sessions when the entire team would run up and down the bleachers. After one of those sessions, Smith told Ryan, “You’re a running back.”
Over the next two years, South went 17-4 and won a CVC title. Lupo ran for 3,”072 yards and 42 touchdowns. “He and the coaching staff taught us how to win,” said Ryan. “The talent was there, he just put it into our heads that we were going to win all the games. Coach Smith is great at motivating us.”
Over the course of the school’s turnaround, Lupo set 15 school records, including the most rushing yards and rushing touchdowns for a season and a career. This year against cross-town rival North, Lupo ran 20 times for 169 yards and two touchdowns. Statistically, that was his worst game all year.
But in his mind, it was his best. He says his favorite memory as a member of the Pirates was being led onto the field by a band of bagpipes before that game. He and his teammates were greeted by a crowd of over 5,”000, and they proceeded to beat the Knights 49-0.
Lupo has made his collegiate decision, and as long as the admissions office at Williams College complies, he will be in Williamstown, Massachusetts next fall. The Division III school is regularly among the nation’s best at its level, both on the football field and academically.
Ryan doesn’t yet know what he wants to do for a career, but he knows who he is. It’s important to him to be a well-rounded individual, and that ideal has led him to success in divergent aspects of the high school experience.
Lupo has been recruited by dozens of schools for what he’s done on the field. He gets calls from coaches from all over, including many high-profile division I programs, but he favors Williams for the fact that he’ll be getting a top-tier education. “I liked the atmosphere there, and there is so much opportunity at the school. I’ll be getting a great education. I just have to get used to the cold,” said Ryan. Among the reasons he’d like to play at Williams is the school’s storied rivalry with Amherst, and the coach’s contention that he could play as early as his freshman year.
“Even at the Ivy League schools, I would have to wait a few years before playing,” says Lupo, whose weighted GPA is 3.9. “I liked everything about Williams, that it’s a smaller school. I won’t be just another face. I do better in that environment, when everyone knows me.”
Though South is by no means a small school, everyone there knows Ryan Lupo. Even a student who has never been to a football game knows his name. He’s a member of student council, the National Honor Society, a peer leader, and a member of the choir. Last year, he played the lead in the school musical, as Danny Zuko in “Grease.”
While it’s clear he’s proud of his own accomplishments, both on and off the field, he attributes his success to the people around him. On the field, he cites Todd Smith and the rest of the coaching staff as the reasons he not only enjoyed playing football but also for all the Pirates’ recent success. “Before Coach Smith got here, we were awful. But he came in and got us to play well together. He’s just the kind of guy who makes you want to play well for him.”
Lupo also gives all due credit to his teammates. He’s planning on taking his offensive linemen out to dinner to show his appreciation for all the blocks and beatings they took while supporting his average of 27 carries per game. Where does a high school football star treat the guys who have been his teammates for years? “Hooters,” says Ryan, with his trademark grin.
Off the field, he’s been fortunate to have support and guidance from his father, Andy, his mother, Carolyn, and his older brother, Jon. “They’ve been so important to me. The way they’ve always supported everything I’ve done, and pushed me to do what I like and do it well,” says Ryan of his parents. He says his greatest influence in becoming a football player was Carolyn’s father, his “Poppy,” John Steeber.
Ryan played Lacrosse his first two years at South, but stopped once Jon graduated and moved on to Washington & Lee College. “Jon’s always been there for me. He’s a great older brother.”
While Andy and Carolyn feel empty nest syndrome looming, they say they won’t leave West Windsor once their sons have left. “We love it here,” says Andy, who is chairman of the township’s Parking Authority in addition to his career as an investment banker for HypoVereinsbank in New York.
“The boys told us we couldn’t leave even if we wanted to. Ryan says he always wants to be able to come back here. It wouldn’t feel like home if we were anywhere else,” says Carolyn.
McNulty’s Hurdle
High School South’s lopsided victory on the football field, along with Pirate victories over North in soccer and tennis, created an inferiority complex at North, at least as far as fall athletics went this year. Sean McNulty says he heard his fellow North students say “We never beat South in anything,” and he had to remind them that his cross country team had, in fact, defeated South, and that it was, by the way, among the best squads in the CVC.
McNulty found it difficult to get the community as interested in cross country as they might be in other sports, particularly football. No one outside the McNulty family would think to hold a tailgate party at a track meet. Sean and his father, John, traveled to Indiana for this year’s collegiate track championship, but by Sean’s own admission, cross country as a sport is not spectator-friendly. The fact that the meets are not held at the school also makes it a tough sell.
Raising awareness about cross-country is an uphill climb, but his father, John McNulty, is quick to point out that Sean had great success doing just that. “As well as he’s done running his races, he’s had a great year developing as a leader,” says John. “When Sean started at the school, there were about 10 guys on the team. This year, there were about 30 of them, and most of them joined because Sean has talked it up so much. Alot of those kids say they’ve never before felt the sense of being a team that they have this year.”
Sean led his team to a 12-1 record, and to a second place finish in the CVC championship meet. He is able to convey the team concept, even though his chosen sport is commonly seen as one dominated by individual achievement.
“Sometimes, we would need to have me finish the race first for the team to win,” says Sean. “So I’d break away and try my best to do that. Sometimes, coach [Gould] would see that we needed me to pace everyone else, so I’d lead the pack to try to get everyone to keep up and move up a few places.”
One of the things Sean loves most about the sport is the opportunity it provides those who try it. “In other sports, the coach picks the best players as the varsity team, and they get the chance to play. In cross country, everyone on the team runs the race, and the best seven guys are the varsity team that day. Everyone gets the chance.”
Says his mother, Sue McNulty: “As a mother, it’s a great sport to see your child get involved in. They’re not just competing head to head, but they’re competing against their own best time. You can have seven winners in every race if everyone sets a personal best.”
In addition to his team’s accomplishments, Sean became the first runner from North to qualify for the State Meet of Champions. McNulty, at 6’3”, is a born athlete. He took fourth place overall in the New Jersey Triathalon, by far the best finisher in his age group. He feels his best shot at making the Olympic team is as a triathalete, but first he’ll finish his senior year at North as a track tri-athlete. He played baseball and basketball in his early years at North, but has since abandoned all other sports for winter and spring track. He does everything from anchor the 4×400 team to run the 3200 meters, and says he’d be in all the events if the rules allowed it. He holds 14 class and school records in cross country alone.
Sean might not know how he’s getting there, but characteristically, he knows where he’s going. He wants to be a special education teacher, and has already gotten experience in the field through the High School’s “LARKS” program, wherein regularly abled students help differently abled students during the school day. He’s a member of student council, and a peer leader in addition to remaining active in the youth group at St. David the King Church.
He’s also a student representative liason to the school board’s wellness committee. It’s a natural position for an athlete, particularly one whose mother is a nutritionist. He’s looking to find just the right college, but so far hasn’t found the perfect place. He wants one that will allow him to run the steeplechase (a 3000 meter race with 48 hurdles and 7 water jumps) as well as meet his high academic standards.
Sean has developed a strong sense of responsibility, out of necessity as much as anything else. For the past year, Sean has been virtually on his own. John has been in Manhattan for 67 surgeries due to hydrocephalus, commonly known as “water on the brain.” Sue has stayed with her husband in New York as much as possible. Sean’s older sister, Kaitlyn, graduated from North a year ago and now attends Penn State University. As a result Sean has taken care of himself, and matured far beyond his 18 years.
“It’s been hard. When you’re in high school, you want to be able to sit and talk with your parents when you’re bored. But only when you’re bored. And they haven’t been here as much as we all wish they could be,” says Sean. “But they’ve still kept on top of what I’m doing, and they’ve supported me. Even when dad’s been in the hospital, he’s called me just before my race starts.”
John, a compliance officer for Guardian Insurance, was a track star at Rutgers, a winner of the Yonkers marathon, and a major force in Sean’s development as a runner. He would take Sean with him when he trained at the track. As a baby, John ran and pushed Sean in a baby jogger. As a young boy, Sean would play in the long jump pit while his father ran laps. As an adolescent, Sean began to run with him.
Sean has since seen all the benefits of life as a runner. John’s doctors have told him that he’s been able to survive his many surgeries as a result of having stayed in such good shape throughout his life. Running has been John’s life, and it has saved his life. John’s illness has taken a lot from his family. They don’t get as much time together as they’d like, they haven’t been able to visit all the schools that have called to recruit Sean. Two years ago, they very nearly missed Christmas.
“It was one of the worst times,” Says Sue. “He had been in the hospital from December 2 to the end of January, two months all together. I was ther with him in New York, and there was no way to decorate the house and buy presents. Well, our friends and parents of the kids’ friends all took turns making sure Sean and Kaitlyn had what they needed. All Sean wanted that year was a pair of size 16 Birkenstocks. That’s not easy to find, but our friends made sure he got them. I don’t think we could find friends who would do that if we were in any other community.”
Said John: “I came back from being in the hospital, and they had put up and decorated a tree, there were Christmas lights in the house and everything was decorated, and I thought, ‘There really is a Santa Claus.’”
Among the families that have been so important to helping the McNulty family through the difficult times: Andy and Carolyn Lupo.
Teammates
“We’ve known them for years,” says John of the Lupos. “The boys were on little league teams together, and we’ve stayed in contact. I’ll see an article about Ryan in the paper, and call Andy to congratulate him. Then a week later, he’ll do the same because he saw one about Sean.”
The fathers have stayed in contact through their sons as well as through sports. Throughout the years, they have played “Old Man Football” every week with other fathers of boys from the little league teams. It’s informal and all for fun, but it’s been a sacred tradition, including a father and son game held every year on the night before Thanksgiving. They all play catch-up with the younger generation, and then go out together and catch up on the past year. Where does a group of aging fathers take their sons for the sacred tradition of male bonding? “Hooters,” says Andy, with his trademark grin.
