This past weekend, Harker alumni Melissa Chen ’08, Kacie Kaneyuki ’10, Rebecca Liu ’13 and Daniza Rodriguez ’13 – who is also the upper school girls basketball coach – participated in some friendly competition with Harker students in this year’s alumni basketball game. Several alums who planned on competing unfortunately could not attend, so the alumni team was graciously joined by junior varsity coaches Melissa Cabrera and Pip Chan. The first alumni basketball game was held in 2013 and takes place every year over the Thanksgiving break.
On Saturday, three outstanding alumni – Alex Abarca ’09, Daniza Rodriguez ’13 and Amanda (Polzin) Sullivan ’06 – were inducted into the Harker Athletic Hall of Fame, along with the entire roster of the 2007-08 girls varsity volleyball team, one of Harker athletics’ greatest success stories. Sullivan and former volleyball team member Candace Silva-Martin ’09 were unable to attend in-person and Zoomed into the ceremony from home.
A highly prolific scorer, Abarca was a four-time boys varsity basketball MVP for the Eagles and posted more than 1,700 points. In his junior year, he was named the Private School Athletic League MVP. As a senior he was named to the WBAL First Team, a San Jose Mercury News Athlete of the Week, declared Harker Athlete of the Year and received the Eagle Award, which is given to athletes who demonstrate extraordinary dedication and enthusiasm, expressed in their willingness to help their teammates, act as role models and offer their maximum effort to every task. He graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in business management economics from UC Santa Cruz, where he also played basketball. Abarca now lives in San Jose and works as an accounting manager at AEye Inc., and is married and a father to a 7-month-old son.
In addition to being named co-MVP of the girls varsity basketball team in her senior year, Amanda Sullivan (née Polzin) received an honorable mention for the All-West Bay Athletic League Team. While performing as a key member of the team, Sullivan — who was born with amniotic band syndrome — also dedicated her time to serving student athletes with disabilities. She began volunteering with the Special Olympics, which eventually led to her winning the top prize in the San Jose Sports Authority’s REACH (Recognizing Excellence, Adversity, Courage and Hard Work) Youth Scholarship Program, an annual award given to Bay Area high school student athletes who have met significant challenges in order to achieve in both athletics and academics. She went on to study human development in college and found a fulfilling career in social work. Sullivan currently resides in North Carolina and is married with two children.
Daniza Rodriguez set a number of records in her time as a member of the girls varsity basketball team. She at one point held the record for most career points (1,214), most points in a season (511) and the best start to a season for any Harker athletics team (11-1). She received many accolades over the course of her upper school career, receiving Harker’s Female Athlete of the Year award in her sophomore and junior years, winning the Eagle Award in her junior and senior years and being named the WBAL Skyline League MVP and to the Skyline League First Team All League. She went on to play women’s basketball at Whittier College and has since returned to San Jose, where she works as a space planner at Cushman & Wakefield. In 2018, she assumed the role of coach for the girls varsity basketball team, which had a historic season that included a first-ever league title win and an appearance in the CCS finals.
The 2007 girls volleyball team remains one of the most successful teams in Harker’s athletic history. The team’s historic 38-5 run included a 12-0 league record, a win at the Maui Classic tournament and the first appearance Central Coast Section ranking ever achieved by a Harker athletics team. The season culminated in an appearance at the state finals against Santa Fe Valley Christian, in which the Eagles fell short but nevertheless left a permanent impression with their phenomenal talent, work ethic and record-setting performances. Featuring no fewer than three Harker Athletics hall of famers — Tanya Schmidt ’08, Kristina Bither ’09 and Candace Silva-Martin ’09 — and coached by decorated Harker veteran Theresa “Smitty” Smith, this team stands as one of the deepest in Harker athletic history to ever take any field or court. Due to their contributions not only to the team’s success but to this landmark chapter in Harker’s athletic legacy, all members of the team were recognized with this special induction.
At last month’s upper school winter choral concert, women’s vocal group Cantilena was joined by three Harker alumnae who are now faculty members. Upper school journalism teacher Whitney Huang ’08, upper school English teacher Bridget Nixon ’12 and middle school science teacher Kathy Peng ’05 – all former Cantilena members – gathered onstage with the current Cantilena lineup to perform Norwegian composer Frode Fjellheim’s “Eatnemen Vuelie.” They also sang “Truth” by Andrea Ramsay as a trio.
The collaboration was the idea of music teacher Susan Nace, who reached out to the three alumnae at the beginning of the school year. They began rehearsing once a week in October, and even though they were all from different graduating classes, greatly enjoyed the experience of working on music together. “Although I didn’t necessarily know all the other alumni at the time while I was at Harker, because I’m a lifer I’ve crossed paths with many Cantilena alums,” said Huang, who was involved with performing arts throughout her student life at Harker and currently sings with two local choral groups. “Being back in the same classroom … really brings back memories of what Cantilena used to be like.”
The concert presented Nixon with an opportunity to perform again, which she had not done much of in recent years due to being focused on her teaching career. “I like getting to sing again, and we all have this shared experience of being part of Cantilena, which is pretty unique,” said Nixon, who started singing as a middle school student. “Susan has been generous with her time and expertise, and I’m grateful that she has given us this opportunity to sing together.”
Peng, who became a member of Cantilena the same year Nace formed the group and sang for several years after graduating from Harker, described the experience of being directed by her former teacher as “kind of surreal,” adding that she was honored to have been asked to be part of the concert. “It is a testament to the impact that Ms. Nace had on me and her other students that we would feel drawn to sing together again, after all these years, and under the circumstances of the pandemic,” she said.
Tiffany Liou ‘08, now a reporter with the ABC-affiliated WFAA in Dallas, posted a video yesterday in which she speaks about the yearlong wave of violence against Asian Americans, including yesterday’s attacks in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent.
“I am angry, I am sad and I’m scared,” Liou says in the video. “I’m scared because I don’t want my family to become the next target.” She also shares personal experiences, such as a recent encounter at Target where the cashier would not speak to her or take her money: “I felt like she was disgusted by me because of my race. I felt like she was disgusted by my husband, who is Asian as well.”
Affirming her commitment to stand up for Asian communities, Liou also implores people to speak out and get active. “I need you to stand with us too,” she says. “Rhetoric matters. Speak up when you see hate, use your platforms to denounce racism, and reach out to your leaders and your elected officials to pass anti-hate legislation.”
Earlier this month, brothers Hassaan and Senan Ebrahim – graduates of the classes of 2011 and 2008, respectively – were featured in The Harvard Gazette for their work in helping Syrian refugees via software their organization developed specifically for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hassaan and Senan founded the 501(c)(3) Hikma Health in 2018 to create software organizations can use to provide better health care to refugees. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers needed a way to evaluate symptoms and risk factors. Hikma developed a tool workers could use to screen patients without the need for internet access, which is often lacking or nonexistent in the areas in which they work.
According to the article, the Ebrahim brothers are exploring ways to help spread the tool to more refugee camps. For the time being, they have released it for free to all organizations via GitHub.