St. Michael's High School

St. Michael's High School is a private Catholic high school located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the state capital of New Mexico. It is privately run with the blessing of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe. It is part of the international Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, better known as the De La Salle Christian Brothers. St. Michael's High School is founded on the LaSallian tradition, established by St. John Baptist de la Salle.

St. Michael's High School was established in 1859 and is currently located at 100 Siringo Road in Santa Fe. The school includes two gymnasiums and facilities for many other activities. The school is currently constructing six new, state-of-the art classrooms, to be completed well before the beginning of the 2007-08 school year. Prior to the construction of the school at its Siringo Road location, the high school and appurtenant boarding facilities were located on an historic campus on the Old Santa Fe Trail, just east of the current State Capitol. Still located adjacent to the Old Santa Fe Trail campus is the San Miguel Mission, reputed to be the oldest church west of the Mississippi River.

In 1968, the school was moved to the current facility and began allowing the admission of young women upon the closing of Loretto Academy. Today the school teaches grades 7 through 12 and has an enrollment of approximately 800 students, along with some teachers. The school is known for a strong academic program, including Advanced Placement classes, very dedicated and caring faculty , and a highly successful athletic department.

The Success of the Horsemen athletic Department has been very rich over the years, competing in class AAA, District 2 (2AAA. The Horsemen have won multiple state championships in basketball since 1940, including back-2-back titles the last two seasons, under two year head-coach Ron Geyer. Horsemen Basketball continues to be the most popular high school sport in the city of Santa Fe, and draws in the biggest fan bases of any sport at St. Michael's.

Football, too, has been very dominant in the state, winning it's first state title in 31 years over Lovington (Former school of NFL superstar Brian Urlacher) 41-26 in 2003. The Horsemen returned to the title game in 2004 only to lose to Lovington 40-14. The Horsemen then reached the state Semi-Finals in 2005 only to lose to Lovington once again 27-13. The Horsemen then had the number one ranked team in the state in 2006, only to fall short of expectations in a stunning upset in the state semi-finals again, this time to Portales 25-20. In 2007 the Horsemen Football team collected it's 2nd state title in 5 years with a 27-6 victory over Robertson, to give the school it's 4th title in school history.

St. Michael's baseball has also been dominant, sending 2007 graduate, Kevin Chavez (former Horsemen Pitcher, and Quarterback) to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays organization after this past 23-2 season. Ken Duran took over the horsemen last season after a dramatic run and 3-2 state championship loss to Lovington lead by coach John Chavez 2 years ago. Previous to John Chavez' two seasons was Coach Mark Pierce and his father Jim "Coach Old" Pierce, who in thier last two seasons coaching (2003,04) won the AAA State Championship title back-2-back.

External links

* [http://www.stmichaelssf.org/ School website]

Notes and references