Meet the Scholar Athlete who has persevered through two school closings
School doors closed around him.
So Nathan Stellmach found new doors to open.
Out of nowhere following Stellmach’s sophomore year, Chase Collegiate School in Waterbury closed in August 2020. Only 12 days before the start of the school calendar.
Stellmach scrambled to get into Sacred Heart for his junior year. Wouldn’t you know it? Sacred Heart announced in February 2021 it was closing at the end of the school year.
So it was on the road 30 minutes to St. Paul Catholic in Bristol for his senior year.
Yes, it’s impressive that Stellmach, swimming for Bristol Co-op, took third in the Class LL 100-yard breaststroke in 58.69. Yes, it’s impressive he took fifth in the State Open in the same event in 58.72.
It’s more impressive that not only was he recently named St. Paul’s male CASCIAC Scholar-Athlete, Stellmach was named a National Merit Scholarship Finalist.
The Waterbury kid was bounced around three schools in 13 months. He never faltered from being a straight A student. By St. Paul’s grading scale of 100, he graduated last week with a weighted GPA of 103.45. He is headed to Middlebury in Vermont the fall. He’ll swim at the NESCAC school.
“Nathan is so articulate and such a great kid,” St. Paul assistant athletic director Mike Madden said. “He doesn’t like to brag about himself.”
Student-athletes overcome injuries. Studentathletes overcome diseases. Few high student-athletes in Connecticut the past two years have better demonstrated a resilience in academics and an ability to acclimate to new surround
ings.
We celebrate the extraordinary athlete so much. We shouldn’t miss a chance to celebrate the extraordinary student-athlete.
“Regardless of circumstance, I learned I had to be able to rely on myself,” Stellmach said. “Be confident in my work ethic, my character, who I was as a person. Find strength in that. I do think by being able to stay true to myself and my values that wherever you go you’ll find people who those ideas align with.”
Chase Collegiate was a private, day prep school for kindergarten through 12th grade. There were about 300 total students. Stellmach counted 22 in his class. Athletically, Chase competed in the Housatonic Valley League.
“There was no indication the school would be closing,” Stellmach said. “We had no idea. We were family friends with the schoolmaster. She had been working on scheduling and figuring out protocols with COVID.”
An email arrived on an August Thursday.
“It was a form letter, an unsigned, undated form letter from the controlling company that owned the school,” Stellmach said. “Effective immediately the school was closing.
“To be honest, we all thought it was a scam. That the school had been hacked. It was such an unorthodox email. Pretty unprofessional, I guess, in terms of its outline. But it was true.”
The family had already planned a trip to Vermont that weekend, so while they were up there Nathan and his mom, Caryn, started contacting schools. By the next week he was enrolled in Sacred Heart, a couple miles from Chase Collegiate and about 10 minutes from home.
“The turnaround happened so quickly I was still in that denial stage,” Stellmach said. “I still wasn’t over the fact Chase had closed. It was hard. Initially I was getting feelings like, ‘Am I really supposed to be here?’ ”
He had built a rapport
with his teachers at Chase. It was a small school. He had some teachers multiple times for classes. At Sacred Heart, he didn’t know teachers. Teachers didn’t know him.
“I had to figure out how the workings of their class, their curriculum,” Stellmach said. “Socially, making new friends, that’s a given.”
He gives considerable credit to Madden, who had been athletic director at Sacred Heart.
“He took me under his wing,” Stellmach said. “Even when I was a little hesitant to put myself out there, he put in me in positions.”
Stellmach got involved in doing the school podcast. The kids involved in that podcast have become his closest friends. He got involved in the swim team.
“I really enjoyed my time at Sacred Heart,” he said.
It didn’t last. On Feb. 11, 2021, word came down from the Archdiocese of Hartford that Sacred Heart, which opened in 1922, was closing in June. Stellmach got a call from Madden while he was on his way to swim practice at the Greater Waterbury YMCA.
“When Mr. Madden first told me, I didn’t believe him,” Stellmach said. “He likes to joke around. I thought he was messing with me.”
Madden wasn’t joking. “It was like being in a time loop,” Stellmach said. “It was such an odd feeling. Oh, my God, this is happening again.”
Nathan called his dad Matt, a social studies teacher at Northeast Middle School in Bristol. He told his son to take a deep breath.
“He was like, ‘OK, we’re going to have to take this one step at a time,’ ” Nathan said. “It was a little more organized this time, but still shocking.”
Both were archdiocesan schools, Stellmach said, and the Sacred Heart administration advocated for its students to attend St. Paul. In April, he decided.
“I had created a strong connection with Mr. Madden and I found out he was going to work there,” Stellmach said. “Also one of my
dad’s good friends, his kids went there and always spoke highly of the school. It seemed like the logical next step.”
After Chase, he was much more confident. He’d already done it once. There were other Sacred Heart kids who transferred to St. Paul. And the cloud of the pandemic was lifting.
“At Sacred Heart we were in the midst of COVID, so it was difficult for any sort of socialization,” Stellmach said. “A good portion of the year was virtual. With St. Paul, COVID was still there, but we were in school all the time and had social events.”
Caryn, a guidance counselor at Kennedy High, swam at Dickinson College and later coached the Waterbury boys co-op. She was always big on water safety. Nathan learned to swim at a very early age.
“I joined the Y team the summer after first grade,” he said. “At first it was casual. I played baseball, basketball, soccer, too.”
He found success after he turned 12. He decided to concentrate on the pool. At Sacred Heart, he broke the breaststroke record that had stood since 1998. He would break the Bristol co-op record. He won the 50 freestyle and 100 breaststroke in the CCC-South meet. And along with Mikel Palaj, who won the State Open 50 freestyle, Bristol Co-op broke two relay records.
Stellmach knew he wanted to swim in college. He also didn’t want the demands of a Division I school. He said he wants to discover new passions. This is the kind of knowledgehungry guy during COVID quarantine who memorized all the capitals of the world. He plans to major in political science and minor or double major in French.
“I honestly think the journey almost helped me with the achievement,” Stellmach said. “It really kept me on my toes. One thing I could be confident in was academics. Math is math. History is history. You could always apply yourself 100 percent.”