Since September of 1992, Mr. Sweeney ’83 has been a cornerstone of the Belmont Hill community. From his classroom on the second floor of the Eliot Building, where he has taught four classes and led a middle school advisory for his entire career, to the fourth football field, hockey rink, and fourth baseball field, Mr. Sweeney has left his mark on generations of young Belmont Hill students. Griffin Vail ’26 reflected that “he really shaped my Belmont Hill experience.” Mr. Sweeney is the Belmont Hill role model, serving as a defining reason why this school has, for the last 32 years, produced so many young men unafraid to jump into challenges head-first.
Mr. Sweeney’s Belmont Hill journey began before he was even born. In the summer of 1964, months before his birth, a Belmont Hill student visited his childhood home in Reading, MA to talk with his older brothers. This visit resulted in Mr. Sweeney’s older brother, Paul ’66, enrolling as a junior the following year, 1965. The year after Paul graduated, Mr. Sweeney’s brother, Pat ’74, began at Belmont Hill. More Sweeney brothers (yes, Mr. Sweeney is the youngest of ten) took another path, enrolling at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. For freshman year, Mr Sweeney applied to the two schools his brothers attended, but only Belmont Hill accepted him. “Thank God!” he exclaimed as he reflected on this moment.
However, Mr. Sweeney thought he would be a boarding student, and because of this, he felt some disappointment that St. Paul’s did not accept him. Still, Mr. Sweeney was ready to step into Belmont Hill: “I became a bit of an ‘I always wanted to be here kind of guy.’”
Mr. Sweeney has endless stories of his time as a student at Belmont Hill. Namely, he said, sports were always the aspect of campus life that stood out to him most. He vividly recalls his Form III sports seasons, including an undefeated football season with Mr. Martin ’65, a hockey season coached by Mr. Gallagher in which the team let up zero goals, and a season with all wins save one tie in baseball under Mr. Sherman. Later, as a varsity baseball and football star, Mr. Sweeney stepped back from varsity sports in the winter, playing on JV hockey. He humbly reflected, “it was so nice to watch my friends shine.”
He also loved his teachers and their sense of humor, and quoted his freshman year report card from his English teacher, Mr. Hawley: “Chris will achieve great success if he could only learn to spell it.” Mr. Sweeney joked, “And that’s it. That was the whole thing he wrote.”
In Mr. Sweeney’s senior year, his father suddenly passed away. Mr. Sweeney explained that his father underwent what was then a groundbreaking open-heart surgical procedure. During the surgery, Mr. Sweeney played football against BB&N at home, and some of his brothers watched the game. “We got destroyed,” he explained, but the team still threw a party in the locker room because of his brother’s attendance. Mr. Sweeney’s eldest brother told him his father had made it through. While Mr. Sweeney’s father did make it through the operation, he passed away from complications related to the surgery later that day.
After the death of his father, Mr. Sweeney explained, “I missed time emotionally, mentally, and so my teachers were stunningly helpful.” Mr. Sweeney was the antithesis of a typical senior spring student and recalls yelling at classmates goofing off in class to stop talking, so he could focus on the work he had missed. He comically reflected, “Imagine that: Some guy you’ve gone to school with for four years telling you to shut up. It didn’t go over well with anyone.” He added, “And I didn’t care.”
Belmont Hill stayed with Mr. Sweeney when he began college at Harvard in the fall of 1983. At this point, Mr. Sweeney was running a paper-shredding business (called Ace Destroyers to be first in the phonebook), and used his company van to move himself into his freshman dorm. He moved in and then drove home, planning to take the train into Cambridge and leave the van at home. On that stop at home, he checked the mail: “I [got] a card, and it was signed by several of my Belmont Hill friends, some of my best buddies, many of their parents, and some of their siblings that I knew pretty well from over the years, and they gave me a check that basically covered my freshman year in college.” After this incredible display of affection and care from the Belmont Hill community, Mr. Sweeney explained, “I always had a kind of a little pointing [sic] back to here.”
While at Harvard, Mr. Sweeney connected with Mr. Dewar, the former Belmont Hill Athletic Director, and coached two seasons of fourth football with his former coach, Mr. Martin. Subsequently, Mr. Sweeney jokingly explained that he was offered $4,000 to “teach four [classes] and coach three [sports]” at Belmont Hill. He rejected the offer and entered commercial banking for about three years. He then earned his Master’s in Education from Columbia University and began his teaching career at Loomis Chaffee. Mr. Sherman, Mr. Sweeney’s “big draw,” eventually helped guide him back to Belmont Hill.
After he had begun to teach, Mr. Sweeney realized what Belmont Hill had done for him as a young man: “I felt that, when I was here, so many people made a difference in my life. If I could ever do that for even one person, then that would be really special. And I just felt as though the desire to want to do something, and it’s ironic, because it’s the desire to want to do something for someone other than me.”
Shortly after Mr. Sweeney re-embarked on his Belmont Hill journey, his life changed yet again. He recalls walking up to the academic side of campus between the Art building and the dorms and suddenly seeing a woman. He remarked, “Oh my God, who’s that? And I just said to myself, ‘That must be my wife.’ And then I looked down, and right on her hip was this little girl. And I said, ‘That must be my daughter.’ And that was it.” Mr. and Mrs. Sweeney married four years after their initial encounter; the rest is history. Mr. Sweeney quipped, “I’m winning big time!”
Since he began teaching at Belmont Hill, Mr. Sweeney has coached baseball, hockey, and football every year save sabbaticals. Mr. Sweeney has always arranged his sabbaticals so that he never missed football season; he says he will miss this most during his retirement. As a teacher, he has taught every class except for the levels beyond AP Calculus BC and AP Statistics, and was awarded the Trustees’ Chair in STEM in 2014, which he held for four years.
One memory of Mr. Sweeney was recounted by Tyler Smith ’26. He talked about how he vividly recalls that the fourth football team in 2022 had to run ten moose laps because “guys were not hustling,” and that Mr. Sweeney took time to meet with him in Form I in the evening, on Zoom, to raise his grade average from a D to an A in pre-Algebra. Ms. Iandiorio, Math Department Chair and longtime friend and colleague of Mr. Sweeney’s, reflected, “I’ll miss coming to school every morning and, no matter how early I get here, seeing Mr. Sweeney’s car in a spot.”
In his retirement, Mr. Sweeney plans to “start doing something for [himself].” After serving others for so long, Mr. Sweeney plans to look inwards and improve his physical and mental health while learning more about himself. Additionally, he plans to work around the house and spend time with his new grandson. He added, “We [Mrs. Sweeney and I] have our kayaks and camping gear ready,” and are excited to spend time outdoors with family. He quipped, “I’m glad to have Mrs. Sweeney…I thought she might have had three or four years of retirement on her own. But, oops!”
Mr. Sweeney, the entire Belmont Hill community is eternally grateful for all the extra hours you have put into making this place special. From the small things, like embodying our traditions of dress code and sit-down lunch, to the formative experience of watching boys grow into men, everyone who has interacted with you is consistently impressed by your commitment to this school. The Panel wishes you the best of luck in your retirement and hopes that you and Mrs. Sweeney return to pay a visit now and again.
