Whatever Happened To ... Cardinal Mooney High School?

Cardinal Mooney High School was a co-ed Catholic school in Greece for 27 years before it abruptly closed in 1989.

Other local high schools have closed before and since. But the suddenness of Mooney's closing caught many off guard and led to bitter feelings and aggressive efforts to change the decision, including a hastily thrown together "Save Mooney Committee" and a last-ditch lawsuit.

The efforts were to no avail. The class of '89 was Mooney's last. The Greece Central School District bought the school on Maiden Lane shortly after and reopened it as Apollo Middle School the following year. (The building now houses Odyssey Academy.)

The Brothers of the Holy Cross, who ran Mooney, didn't announce its closing until late April 1989, less than two months before the school closed forever. Declining enrollment and mounting debt were the reasons given. Longtime Greece Town Justice David Michael Barry wrote of the community anger in a letter to the Democrat and Chronicle that ran in July 1989.

"The closing came as a complete surprise to everyone but a select few," wrote Barry, who was chairman of the Save Mooney Committee and now is the town's administrative judge. "The chaplain of nearly 27 years found out about the closing the day before the announcement was made. Most of the student body, faculty and staff found out upon their arrival at school."

In a May 1989 story, Democrat and Chronicle reporter Jennifer Hyman quoted a student who said, "We had to hear on the radio that our school was closing. Everyone was crying, even the teachers. (Officials) have ignored us, but it's our lives that are being ripped apart."

Mooney opened in 1962 and was named after Cardinal Edward Mooney, a former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester. The school quickly established a reputation for its academics and athletics. Its sports teams were called the Cardinals. Mooney's star athletes over the years include football player Jeff Weston, who went on to an NFL career, and basketball star Glenn Hagan, who played in the NBA.

Baseball, though, is the sport for which Mooney was perhaps best known. Ed Nietopski, who was at Mooney from 1964 until the end, was the only baseball coach and the only boys' basketball coach in the school's history.

"Mooney was supposed to be the only place I'd be until I retired," Nietopski said in an April 1989 news story. He went on to coach at Bishop Kearney High School after Mooney.

Reached earlier this month, Nietopski said the closing still hurts. All seven of his kids graduated from Mooney.

"It was a stunning surprise," said Nietopski, now 86 and coaching basketball to seventh-graders in the Honeoye Falls-Lima Central School District. "We all said the same thing — we wish we knew (earlier) so we could have helped out. I truly loved the place."

Much of the anger was directed toward then-Bishop Matthew Clark. He said the decision was made by the Brothers, not him. Catholic high schools, Clark said, are owned and operated by the religious communities that sponsor them, and he said then that the Brothers of the Holy Cross "went as far as they could to stabilize the school."

"It was their decision and they made it," Clark said in a June 1989 Democrat and Chronicle article. "In the minds of some people, nobody breathes in the diocese unless I say inhale now."

A lawsuit filed by parents and alumni was dismissed in state Supreme Court. The school was sold for $9 million, and an auction of desks, art tables and other items was held in November 1989. The following spring, a group of 60 or so former students skipped school and went to Mooney, which was being renovated.

Greg Livadas quoted one of those students in an April 1990 Times Union story who said, "We don't want to cause trouble … but we just kind of owe it to the school."

Nietopski said he still bumps into former Mooney students all the time.

"It's extraordinary the affection they have for that school," he said.

Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.