He’s known for his quick wit and sometime challenging quizzes, but behind the History teacher that we have all grown to love, Mr. Corcoran or “Mr. C” is a dedicated family man to his two daughters and his wife, whose dream can be defined as  God, Glory and Gold.  I had the opportunity to spend about an hour with Mr. Corcoran and learned more about the man than the teacher.

Mr. Corcoran was born in Maplewood, New Jersey and attended Columbia High School. After graduating from high school, he went on to attend Rutgers University where he played Center Mid for the soccer team.  After college, he started his career in the building industry where he built houses for a few years before he went into the teaching profession.  For a boy who wanted to have a career in politics, being Oratory’s resident History teacher is a great honor for the Ram.

Mr. Corcoran has been teaching for 18 years, which is longer than many of us have been alive!  For the last 10 years, he has been at Oratory Prep and he describes his teaching style as “blended learning”, using a mix of lecture, discussion and question and answer.  He has seen much over the years in the classroom, but one of the things that he has seen change is the evolution of technology – he has seen kids going from note taking the old fashioned way with paper and pen to taking notes with laptops and iPads.  When reflecting on some of his favorite students, Lutero, Lally, and Logerfo to be exact, he would have to describe them as “Hear No Evil”, “See No Evil”, and “Evil” @WillLogerfo.

If you’ve made it this far, which most of you have not, here is where the article gets really interesting.  You may be wondering what really makes Mr. Corcoran “the man” – well, keep reading to find out.   For retail therapy, Mr. Corcoran’s favorite store is the Home Depot (yes, you read that right!), where he can browse the aisles to his heart’s content searching for his favorite power tool.   His favorite sports team is the Jets, even though, in his opinion, they are tough to watch.  As a result, he is now a Giants fan (go G-Men!).

What some of you might not know about Mr. Corcoran is that he is on a radio show called the “Julie Briggs Show”.  You should tune in this Sunday, September 24^th at 8:00 AM to hear him.  If he had the opportunity to speak with any political figure, living or dead, his choices would be Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) or his cousin Teddy Roosevelt.

“Hey Mr. Corcoran!”

“What are Saturdays for?”

“Family ,Football, Food…. THE BOYS!!!!!