Principal Laurence runs the school and can help decide our future. But do we really know the man behind Paly? We at the Voice wanted to get to know him better and hope you do to.
The Paly Voice: First, where did you grow up?
Laurence: I grew up on a farm about 30 miles outside of Fresno.
TPV: What kind of farm was it?
L: We grew raisins.
TPV: Raisins?
L: Yeah, raisins, Sunmade, Dole, the raisins in those little boxes. My parents still live on the farm. It’s not very big but it’s were I grew up.
TPV: What was your childhood like growing up on a farm?
L: It was a lot different then it is around here. When you grow up on a farm you go out and water the plants, and it was back when you watered by using a shovel and made ditches. So I grew up doing that sort of thing. When I went to high school, it was a fairly small school of about 400 students. About 75% of the kids were all kids that grew up on farms and just a little piece of Fresno was attached. When I started getting involved in sports in high school, my dad used to give me a hard time about playing sports and not working on the farm.
TPV: What positions did you play in sports?
L: I was a QB in football, a point guard in basketball and a pitcher and shortstop in baseball.
TPV: What do you remember from your high school experience?
L: Well when I was a freshman we had a building about 100 years old, a lot like the Tower Building, and a big truck on highway 4 rolled by one night and the building, the roof collapsed and we actually went on a split schedule in my 4th year of school. The younger students went in the afternoon until about 5 p.m. and the older students, the juniors and seniors went from 7:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Because like I said, it was a small campus and that was a big building they had to renovate.
TPV: Yeah that doesn’t happen much.
L: No it doesn’t.
TPV: Did you do any extracurriculars at school?
L: I was student body vice president, I belonged to a lot of clubs, fairly active in a lot of the, oh what is it? The CSF. I get the letters confused.
TPV: The California Scholastic Federation?
L: Yeah that one, the CSF. I did a lot a lot of those things. I also worked, my grandfather was a mechanic, a truck mechanic, and so my junior and senior years I actually worked on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays for a big trucking firm as a mechanic. I changed tires, oil, did that stuff for two years, so between sports and he farm and working for my grandfather I was fairly busy.
TPV: Wow that’s a lot. Where did you go to college?
L: Stanford
TPV: What did you study at Stanford?
L: I have a bachelor degree in history and a bachelor degree in economics. I played baseball for a couple of years until I got hurt.
TPV: How many years was that?
L: Well, I played for two and then I hurt my shoulder real bad and couldn’t play anymore so I became an assistant coach and I was an assistant coach their for three years.
TPV: What do you remember from your university experience?
L: Oh, all sorts of interesting stories. The interesting stories were meeting people like John Elway. He was on the baseball team when I was there, and Steve Buchell. All the famous professors that were wandering through in the 1970s are now big name people. There’s a guy named Prof. Zimbardo who does sleep and dream studies over there. Well I actually took that class and now he’s a big expert in the field and he was teaching a basic Psych 1 class when I was there.
TPV: After college what did you do?
L: I went to grad school at Stanford and got a master’s degree and a teaching credential. Right after college I went across the bay and I taught at a Catholic high school over in the East Bay and I did that for a year and I missed coaching baseball, so I started my journey around the country coaching and teaching. I got a job at the California Institute of Technology as head baseball coach and assistant football coach. It’s a small Division 3 school down in L.A. When I was in my graduate years at Stanford I actually interned here when I was getting my teaching credential. I worked in the social studies department and taught World History and Contemporary World History for a year. Then I left and in 1984 the head football job, the baseball job and a full time teaching position opened up at Paly. So I interviewed and ended up getting the job.
TPV: As a principal?
L: No as a teacher. I taught five classes of World History and was the head baseball coach and the head football coach here.
TPV: When did you become principal?
L: In 2000. I was assistant principal here [first]. Over the course of about 12 years or so, from 1984 to 1995, I had been a teacher, became the dean of students, and then I became assistant principal. Then in 2000, the principal at Paly and the principal at Gunn both moved on to different things so I applied for and got the job as principal of Gunn.
TPV: What was your favorite part of the job of being principal?
L: I think the best part is feeling like I have some part in student’s success and it can be in a variety of ways. Like finding resources so we can buy new computers for the Voice and Campanile. Or helping solve problems so that people get to do things they’re going to enjoy, make high school a good experience. I think that probably for me, what is best is that I can look out and around campus and say, "Well I helped do that, and there are students really enthusiastic about it." And that’s cool.
TPV: What about being a principal is your least favorite part of the job?
L: Yeah if you look back through my history you’ll notice that I love coaching and teaching and I did it for a long time. The farther you go up the management pyramid, the farther away you get from the students and that’s the piece I don’t like. I get to know very few students as much as I would like to. That’s my biggest concern. I fear I’ll lose touch with what’s going on. It helps that I have a senior at Gunn and a seventh grader at Terman. That helps me keep in touch.
TPV: When and where did you meet your wife?
L: She was an athletic trainer at Stanford. I actually went out with her best friend and so we spent a lot of time together when I was going out with her best friend. When I came back up from LA I would stay with her just as friends and hang out. Just one thing led to another. So I knew her for about four years before we actually went out.
TPV: What do you do for fun? You know hobbies, or anything like that?
L: I’m a high school principal. Ha, Ha! What do I do for fun? Actually up until this year I coached baseball in the summers. I spent a lot of time going to my kid’s athletic events and I spent a ton of time reading. And again, between what I do for a living and doing family stuff, and reading, that takes up most of my free time.
TPV: What are your plans for the future?
L: I’ve been here 22 years. I go away and for whatever reason I’ll always come back to Paly. Never in my wildest dreams when I was an intern here in 1979 did I ever think I’d be principal of this high school. So I’m living a dream right now of getting involved in this wonderful organization in a wonderful place; having made a lot of friends and knowing people in the community. Probably the biggest change in my life is going to be next fall and this spring when I take my son to college and start looking at that piece of my life without him, because this has been a big piece of us for a long time.
TPV: Is there anything you want the students to know about you?
L: Just say hi. It’s hard enough as it is to try to get tot know people. One of my goals this year is to get out in the classrooms and I’ve been doing a real good job so far as I’m scheduled twice a week and then randomly everyday just walking around campus and saying hi to people. Just say hi.
TPV: Any advice for the students?
L: Take advantage of what you have offered here and just realize that they have wonderful opportunities that a lot of folks don’t have. You need to take advantage of what’s here because it’s real special. They probably won’t realize how special it is until they get out of here.
TPV: Well, thank you for your time.