SPS Today: Outdoor Leadership

Gordon Learns Wilderness Skills - And Mindfulness

Gordon overcame swarms of mosquitos to enjoy a day of fly-fishing.

Humanities faculty member Max Gordon learned in the spring of 2018 that he had been nominated for the Form of 1973 Mentor Fellowship. The award, presented at the end of each school year to exemplary faculty and staff who have demonstrated strong rapport with students and an outstanding ability to inspire and motivate them, provides funds that past winners have used for a variety of previous activities. They range from sea kayaking trips in South America to bread baking classes in San Francisco to a magic convention in Las Vegas to researching scientist Alan Turing in England. Gordon quickly submitted his application, detailing the plans of his proposed activity – a two-week wilderness training trip with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).

“As soon as I was nominated,” says Gordon, “I knew I wanted to do a NOLS trip. It was something I always wanted to do.” A product of boarding school himself (at New Hampton, where his mother worked in the admission office, and Phillips Exeter), Gordon came to SPS by way of the inaugural year of the Penn Fellows program. Following his two-year stint as a humanities fellow and assistant coach of the boys varsity basketball team, Gordon was hired on as a full-time faculty member in 2014 and took over head coaching duties for the Big Red basketball squad soon after. His fellowship application was accepted and Gordon headed to Lander, Wyo., for his excursion this past summer. A group of 10 “students” and two leaders departed from a local horse farm on the first day of the trip, eager to conquer the many 10,000-foot peaks surrounding them.

An avid hiker (he and his wife have summited 40 of the 48 4,000-foot peaks in New Hampshire), Gordon had never climbed in the region and was awestruck by the remote, snow-kissed peaks of Wyoming’s Wind River Range. His conditioning allowed him to tackle the oxygen-deprived ascents and near-constant bushwhacking with relative ease, but Gordon’s biggest highlight was his triumph over the swarms of mosquitos. “They were relentless, and there were millions of them,” recalls Gordon. “There was an option to go fly-fishing on a layover day and I almost didn’t go because I didn’t want to deal with the mosquitos, but I decided I wasn’t going to let them dictate my trip.”

Along with new wilderness skills and the knowledge that he could survive two weeks without a cell phone, Gordon’s overcoming of the pests was one of the biggest takeaways from his trip, and has helped him better manage the stresses of his role at the School. “It taught me to be more mindful and focus on the task at hand,” he says, “and I try to bring that mentality to my students and players.”