- Upper School
The video has been circulated among the 2026 McCallie senior class for a couple of years now.
“It’s me writhing in pain on the dining hall floor,” recalled co-valedictorian Johnny Blessing as he began to address his 196 fellow graduates, faculty, staff, family and friends at McCallie’s 121st Commencement ceremony on Sunday morning at Spears Stadium.
The reason for such pain and suffering? Had he slipped on a wet spot? Had his knee given out? Had he fainted?
“Mr. (Stuart) King had come through the dining hall with The Last Dab, known as the spiciest hot sauce seen on the show Hot Ones, Blessing explained. “We were putting it on some fried chicken. I love spicy food, but my body has a below normal tolerance for spice.”
Still, Blessing couldn’t resist. He tried one dab on the chicken. Then two, three, four, five, maybe even a sixth.
“For a few glorious moments, all I could taste was the fried chicken and the hot sauce,” Blessing said. “Then, suddenly, your entire body is engulfed in the flames of capsaicin.”
So Blessing fell to the dining hall floor, only finding relief when close friend Aubrey Raff sprinted off to bring him back a glass of cold milk.
But out of this culinary catastrophe, Blessing had an epiphany of sorts. Just as his own love of spice and his body’s low tolerance of spice is a paradox, McCallie also pushes a paradox of sorts on its students, encouraging them, in a figurative sense, “To take that extra dab of hot sauce, to encourage us, even push us to do things we’re not necessarily prepared to do.”
He soon added, “Taking on the impossible has led to so many great things – state championships, straight As, Science Olympiad medals, student leadership positions, college acceptances.”
Co-valedictorian Joshua Kim spoke of overcoming challenges, as well. His grandparents came to this country from South Korea to provide a better life for their families. As Kim spoke of that, of all the different McCallie personalities becoming one brotherhood, he also talked about the Wright brothers, about how the “Status quo will always try to tell you what is impossible.” He talked of how nine days before the Wright brothers’ historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, The New York Times had written a story about how man wouldn’t be able to fly for another million years at the earliest.
“We can revolutionize our world for the better,” Kim said. “Be the Wright brothers. The data of the past does not dictate the altitude we can fly, that we will fly today.”
Come the fall, Cooper Gentle, this year’s Grayson Medal winner, will fly off to Yale to play football for the Bulldogs, just as his older brothers, McCallie grads all, played at Harvard (twins Austin ‘21 and Jack ‘21) and continue to play at Tennessee (Carson ‘24).
Because of their academic successes, all four Gentle boys graduated with an above 4.0 GPA, and their athletic successes – all won football state titles. Gentle said he always knew he’d have big shoes to fill, figuratively and literally. After all, while Cooper has grown into a size 13-wide as he heads off to college, Austin and Jack wear a size 15 shoe and Carson checks in at 14.
But as he attempted to forge the same success on the athletic field, in the classroom and in various campus organizations that his brothers had, Cooper also began to understand that to match or pass his brothers’ considerable accomplishments, he needed to learn from them how they achieved their successes. What small, daily tasks helped them accomplish their goals? Could he do the same?
“When you recognize someone else and what they’ve done, that gives them value in your mind. This respect for the other person is vital to building a team, a classroom, a community.”
No one has spoken more glowingly or passionately about the McCallie community in recent commencements than outgoing Board of Trustees chairman Gary Welch ‘87, who will be replaced by Rob Huffaker ‘78 during the next school year.
On Sunday he recalled how the day after the 2024 state championship football win over Baylor, the game where Blue Guts came from 21-0 down in sub-freezing temperatures to mount a game-winning 99-yard touchdown drive that didn’t reach the Baylor end zone until 15 seconds remained on the clock, Middle School principal Scotty Jones blared Journey’s rock anthem “Don’t Stop Believing” as the MS students entered the building that morning.
“And isn’t that what McCallie students have been doing since the school’s inception in 1905?” asked Welch. “Believing in what’s taught here. Believing in Honor, Truth, and Duty. As you now become a part of the long, blue line, don’t ever stop believing.”
As Head of School Lee Burns readied to hand out diplomas Sunday morning, he told the graduates, “You are a source of joy and pride for McCallie. As you go forward, be authentic in an artificial world. When you disagree with someone, do so agreeably. Chart a life of significance, not simply one of worldly success. This diploma is a charge to become an uncommon man doing extraordinary things to make a positive difference in the world.”
If achievements be the measuring stick, the entire 2026 graduating class has already been one of uncommon young men doing extraordinary things to make a lasting, positive difference at McCallie. Multiple state titles over the last four years in cross country, football, swimming, wrestling and a No. 1 national ranking in soccer. International science competition awards. A multiple of National History Day honors at the state level and others at the national level. National music honors and a concert performed at Carnegie Hall, the most famous music venue in the United States. Multiple humanitarian trips to orphanages in Costa Rica. And there is also this, something that should make every alum and parent proud: for the past three years, the CHATT Foundation has named McCallie the region’s outstanding secondary school for volunteer service for its work with the Community Kitchen, which often begins at 6 a.m. on school days feeding the homeless and stocking shelves. This has not only been a class of great accomplishments, but of good deeds.
Soon enough, of course, Burns handed out 197 diplomas, the school fight song blared from loudspeakers, blue and white smoke rose over the Student Activities Center and this senior class of boys became McCallie Men.
“I thought I was going to cry, but I kept it inside,” said Blessing afterward. “Just leaving these friends. I can’t imagine I could have grown this close to people anywhere else I could have gone to school. It’s sad that it’s over, but I know these guys will be my friends for life.”
Elijah Cooper won the Campbell Award, which goes to the Grayson Medal runner-up. In the fall he’ll attend Vanderbilt. But as graduation ended, as his friends scattered, Cooper said of the experience, “I’ve cried a decent bit today. I’ve been thinking about all the amazing things that happened to me here. The friends I made, the activities I was a part of, such as VoCallie, Candlelight, Ultimate (Frisbee). It’s over before I wanted it to be over. I’ll never forget my four years here or the friends I’ve made here.”
For 121 years and counting, there’s been nothing paradoxical about that.
Read Commencement Speeches: Johnny Blessing, Joshua Kim, and Cooper Gentle
- Class of 2026
- commencement