Sixteen McCallie Seniors Sign to Continue Their Athletic Careers in College

 

The biggest guy in the room wore the biggest smile.

 

When 16 McCallie seniors gathered with coaches, friends, and families in the dining hall’s Brock-Lazenby Room on Wednesday to sign papers continuing their athletic pursuits in college, no one was beaming brighter than Moussa Seck, the towering, 300-plus pound offensive lineman who will be playing down I-59 this fall at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

 

“This is what you dream about, playing college football,” said Seck. “Florida State called this past week, but I’ve developed such a great relationship with Samford’s coaches. They really wanted me. I just felt comfortable there.”

 

That comfort level will extend to a brief return to the Scenic City on October 10, when Samford visits UT-Chattanooga for a Southern Conference game at Finley Stadium, where Seck helped McCallie win a couple of state titles.

 

“Yeah, the (Samford) coaches told me about that,” said Seck. “I hope a lot of McCallie people will come to that game.”

 

Athletic director Kenny Sholl believes a gesture of sportsmanship Seck made toward a losing Baylor School player at the close of that stunning 2024 state championship comeback win over the Red Raiders at Finley is one reason so many Blue Tornado athletes are pursued by various college programs.

 

“These young people don’t need athletics to go to college,” said Sholl. “They’re excellent students. But, just like here in their varsity programs, they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be part of a team and be good teammates and play sports the right way.”

 

To briefly return to that title game win over Baylor on a bitterly cold night at Finley, and to Seck consoling his fallen foe, when he was asked why he bothered to make such a gesture of sportsmanship, he told McCallie Board of Trustees chairman Gary Welch ‘87: "Football is more than just a game. We are all human. We are all boys with dreams."

 

Sixteen seniors realized those dreams of playing their sport in college on Wednesday. Some, like baseball players John Cardwell and Jerome Lehoux, will be attending Maryville College and Ohio Wesleyan University, respectively. Soccer’s Darius Otchere will head to Radford University in Virginia. Axel Ritchie will wrestle for Emmanuel College. Swimmers Ryan Ellis, Grant Goins, and Ocean Gorecki will hit the water for Centre College, Denison University, and Washington and Lee University, respectively.

 

In addition to Seck, football had three other seniors sign college papers: Cooper Gentle to Yale, Ryan Muxlow to Livingstone College and De’Shun Tipton to the University of the Cumberlands, where he’ll join former teammate Keylan Syam ‘25.

 

Crew continued its run of impressive signees with Patrick Caldwell going to Syracuse and Anthony Georgiadis to La Salle. Cross country saw two key members of the 2025 state title team, Taylor Combs and Ian Jacobs, ink with Tufts and Miami University, respectively.

 

Then there was Lee Fiorello, who will continue his tennis career at the United States Naval Academy.

 

None of these signees may have a more interesting family dynamic the next four years than Gentle, whose older twin brothers Jack ‘21 and Austin ‘21 went to Yale’s bitter rival Harvard.

 

“They told me they’d cheer for me, but not Yale,” said Gentle with a smile. To Sholl’s point about a lot of these students not needing athletics to get into college, when Gentle was asked what he’d be majoring in, he replied, “Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology.”

 

And what does he hope to do with that?

 

“Pre-med,” Gentle said, who added he’s looking forward to playing on Yale’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut, because, “I won’t sweat as much.”

 

Fiorello expects to sweat a lot as a plebe for the Midshipmen. 

 

“But it’s the only place I wanted to be,” he said. “I got a call from Congressman (Chuck) Fleischmann’s office on March 3rd that I had an appointment to the Naval Academy. My parents both went to West Point but didn’t finish. I feel like God has blessed me with this opportunity. I find myself getting really emotional now when I hear Lee Greenwood’s song, "'Proud to Be an American.'" 

 

What does he ultimately want to do in the Navy?

 

“I want to be a Navy SEAL,” he said. “This is the greatest country on earth, the world’s shining city on the hill. And I want to spend my life defending it.”

 

Talk about being a part of something bigger than yourself.