At Father Judge High, a new sheriff in town

Father Judge High School sits on a peninsula created by a dramatic northwest turn of the Pennypack Creek, as if the stream suddenly remembered from a couple of blocks away that it owed Frankford Avenue money.

The campus fronts Solly Avenue on the south bank of the Pennypack. North and west of the Pennypack, the Northeast is infested with cul-de-sacs and loop streets that lead back onto themselves like a child's concentric circle puzzle. Only a cop or a fireman could navigate those streets, and guess who lives there?

I was invited to the school by a Judge guy - that's what they call themselves with Marine Corps pride, Judge guys - who wanted me to meet the new president. He's not only the first non-cleric to be named the school's CEO, but may well be the youngest head of an archdiocesan high school.

"What are you, the student body president?" I joked when I met Brian Patrick King, 36, the trim bundle of energy with a hip Ryan Reynolds beard who took charge in January with a personal mission to rebrand Father Judge with a Make It Happen sense of urgency and limitless student possibilities.

"Step out of your comfort zone" became his mantra and challenge to students and faculty. Any doubts that there's a new sheriff in town is dispelled immediately by the "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way" message sent by his desk.

On the left is a big jar of M&Ms and on the right a hand grenade (unarmed). In the middle is a shiny brass plate with the message: "Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!"

This from a Judge alum (Class of '97) who, as a student, seemed as likely to lead his alma mater into the 2020s as Archie and Jughead were to run Riverdale High School.

The operative comic character comparison here being Jughead.

Since the Salesian Catholic school opened in 1954, its disciplinary tradition has included a period of enforced silent contemplation before and after school for boys exhibiting varieties of behavior deemed unworthy of Jesus Christ.

The public schools called this form of punishment detention, but the Crusaders at Judge knew its heaven-sent origin and referred to it by the majestic acronym JUG, short for Justice Under God.

Such sessions were overseen by legendary disciplinarians, including the ones known - at least behind their backs - as Huck and Duck.

As a student, Brian King was no stranger to Justice Under God. In fact, if JUG had been run by SEPTA, King would have had a daily TransPass. "They just told me to keep on coming," the new president acknowledged. Three, maybe four days a week. "Just keep on coming."

Teenaged King was what TV bus driver Ralph Kramden would have described as "a blabbermouth . . . a blabbermouth!!"

Huck and Duck were more muted in their assessment of young Brian's JUG-worthy inclinations during a recent interview. "He was a character," said Jim "Duck" McDonald, the school disciplinarian during those years. In 1970, he teamed up with Judge's development officer, Charles "Huck" Huckel, to form a good cop/bad cop JUG squad controlling as many as 50 students at a time in the cafeteria.

"I was the bad cop," Duck said.

"And he was good at it," Huck interjected.

Duck described the process: "Pat 'em on the head. Give 'em a hug. Send 'em to JUG."

Both men are hard-core Judge guys from neighborhood parishes who have devoted their lives to what they call "the blue-collar scholars," the sons of Philadelphia cops and firemen and military first responders who have traditionally made up a large percentage of Father Judge students.

They look at the new president with the glow of proud uncles. "We like to think that we had something to do with it," Huckel said of King's success. "We helped round Brian into what he is today."

"He knew we cared about him," McDonald added. "That's why we're here. To do some good." And that was the bad cop talking.

You can't talk about Father Judge without acknowledging the number 27, which hangs over the school like a promise to be kept. The number appears discreetly on walls, in classrooms, and on the Crusader mascot painted at center court of the gymnasium floor.

On a memorial in front of the school are etched the names of the 27 Father Judge boys whose brief manhood ended suddenly while serving their country in Southeast Asia. That is the highest number sacrificed by any one Catholic high school in America during the war in Vietnam.

Judge guys don't like to talk about it, but they never forget. It comes naturally with the name of the school. Father Thomas Judge was ordained in 1899 and lived in Germantown.

Until his death in 1933 he was an urban missionary who "realized the tremendous power of the ordinary person to influence the lives of others," according to a school promotional flyer.

He wasn't a saint, he wasn't an archbishop, he wasn't a cardinal. He was a man who lived his words to others: "To be good, do good, and be a power for good." That's all a Judge guy could ask.

Clark DeLeon writes regularly for Currents. deleonc88@aol.com