Stanfield to retire as McNick’s first president

Dr. Denver Stanfield, will retire at the end of this school year after serving as McNicholas High School’s first president for the past three years, even though Stanfield has been involved with McNick for closer to 30 years. He began his involvement with McNick in 1993 as the team physician and has continually been involved with the McNicholas community ever since.

Stanfield’s children graduated from McNicholas, his daughter in 2007 and his son in 2012. Throughout that time, he played a major role with the Project Paradise committee helping bring the creation of Penn Station Stadium to fruition.

When the McNicholas school board decided to hire a president three years ago, Stanfield had just announced his retirement from orthopedic surgery. He said he received a phone call from someone he had worked with on the Project Paradise Committee. They asked him about his plans after retirement and encouraged him to apply for the president job. Stanfield did apply, and after a long process of interviews he was approved by the McNicholas board, Archdiocese, and others, Stanfield became McNicholas High School’s first president in the president-principal model.

Stanfield said that McNick has an amazing administrative team and thinks that “we’ve moved the school forward” and that “we have good people in good positions.” He said he will miss the kids most and explained how “we have great students who do goofy things,” and how “sometimes those goofy things are what keeps you going.” Stanfield also spoke about how he enjoys attending sporting and theatre events.

Stanfield said his most important advice for his successor is to remember that McNicholas is a business, but it cannot be managed like a typical business because it is a school. He said that one must keep in mind how the students are your clients. “Everything you do is about the students,” he added, and how the product that McNicholas is producing is a student.

Stanfield said he plans to stay involved with the McNicholas community after his retirement. “My title is changing, but I am not going very far,” he said. He added that he’ll be around, he’s just not sure what he’ll be doing. Stanfield closed by saying how he hopes that all students that are in attendance and that have graduated from McNicholas are proud of where they attended high school. He added how he thinks they are all amazing and as president he is proud of them.