In Episode 2 of Season Three of The Late Start Show, Charlie Martin and Jack Nelson sit down with Thomas Lodowski, our first student guest of the year, varsity track and cross-country captain, Ohio state record holder in the 600 meter, and two-time state runner-up in the 800. Thomas traces his path from a six-person class at Cleveland Montessori to earning a Jarvis Scholarship at University School, and reflects on the upperclassmen who shaped his early years on the team. He takes listeners inside the 800 meter, one of the most punishing events in track, and recounts toeing the line at New Balance Nationals as a sophomore, taking the school record with a third-place state finish, and the drive to climb from second to first.

Beyond the track, Thomas shares how he defines being smart, his love for math and plans to study engineering, and the teachers who pushed him most. He breaks down the reality of track recruiting, from emailing 100 schools to spending weekends on official visits, and explains the mental frameworks that keep him composed under pressure. He closes with his goal of a national title at Franklin Field and the team-first legacy he hopes to leave behind. This episode is full of insight on discipline, ambition, and competing for something bigger than yourself, a must-listen for athletes and students chasing big goals.

Credits to Theo Walter for Production and Editing, Russ Nobles for the Intro and Outro songs, Mr. Wickboldt for being our advisor, and you for listening to our podcast and keeping up with the latest US news.

In Episode 1 of Season Three of The Late Start Show, we open the new year with Mrs. Betsy Coy, Upper School Dean of Students, Freshman Class Dean, business law teacher, and a lawyer turned educator who has been on the US faculty since 2009. Mrs. Coy takes us back to a suburban street in South Euclid, where five people shared three bedrooms and one bathroom and where she stayed outside with her friends until dark. She talks about the younger brother with Down syndrome who made her want to teach long before she knew what teaching was, the senior project that put her in a special education classroom, and the special education degree she earned at Bowling Green. She also tells the story of the crisis that followed: an honest opinion about inclusion she was sure would cost her every interview, a father who pointed out she was good at arguing, education certification tests one weekend and the LSAT the next, and a first semester of law school that redirected her from advocacy toward corporate law. Four years at a firm, a rejected business plan to train young associates, an in-house move to Applied Industrial Technologies, and the loss of her father eventually brought her back to the work she had wanted all along.

From a part-time learning specialist role, the first US ever hired, and a summer interview where a student tour convinced her she had to work here, Mrs. Coy traces her path through director of learning services, head of Sanders House, and finally the Dean of Students job she had wanted since 2012. She opens up about a disciplinary process built around character rather than consequence, why she spends as little time in her office as possible, and what changes between the freshman she meets in September and the senior whose hand she shakes at graduation. She discusses integrity and respect as the pillars beneath responsibility, loyalty, and consideration, the humility she has learned from students, her son's senior speech about growing up at the school where his mom worked, and the off-duty Mrs. Coy who bakes chocolate chip cookies for the neighborhood kids and cannot get anyone in her family to play board games with her anymore. Seventeen years in, her why is straightforward: the relationships she gets to build here, and the hope that students remember her as tough but fair, and as someone who made them feel seen.

Credits to Theo Walter for Production and Editing, Russ Nobles for the Intro and Outro songs, Mr. Wickboldt for being our advisor, and you for listening to our podcast and keeping up with the latest US news.

In Episode 38 of The Late Start Show, we sit down with Mr. Stephen Murray, the seventh headmaster of University School, namesake of the Murray House, and current Head of School at The Lawrenceville School. Mr. Murray reflects on his journey from growing up as the fourth of six kids in northern New Jersey to becoming a lifelong educator, shaped by the public-school teachers who inspired him and by parents who modeled humility, kindness, and integrity. He shares the moment a teaching internship at Williams convinced him to dedicate his life to the classroom, his transformative year teaching immigrant students in a Paris suburb, and his early days at Deerfield, where a single late-night conversation with a struggling student taught him the lasting power of simply being a steady, reliable presence.

From stepping into administration almost by accident to becoming a head of school for the first time at US, Mr. Murray opens up about following a beloved long-tenured leader, managing a two-campus school through "the art of being seen," and what made the brotherhood and closeness of US so special. He discusses what it meant to have a house named in his honor, his philosophy that great teaching is fundamentally about love and trust, and how schools should think across thirty-year horizons about what to preserve and what to let change in an age of AI. Looking back on thirty-five years in independent schools, Mr. Murray reflects on watching colleagues like Mr. Gallagher rise to lead the schools he once loved, what still gets him out of bed each morning, and the deeply human relationships that, more than any building or title, define his "why."

Credits to Theo Walter for Production and Editing, Russ Nobles for the Intro and Outro songs, Mr. Wickboldt for being our advisor, and you for listening to our podcast and keeping up with the latest US news.