It is not too often that students attend a high school assembly and watch a man bend a metal rod with his teeth, crush a frying pan with his bare hands, and do push-ups with a student standing on his back. This was only a small portion of Devin Wyman’s performance.
Former NFL sta and Carlmont High School graduate man attended Carlmont High School on Sept. 19 to inspire and motivate the present-day Scots of Carlmont to shoot for the stars by sharing his story of success and how he bounced back from his hardships as a high school student.
ASB’s Assembly Committee is compiled of sophomores Annie Klups and Gabi Dimick who are lead by their supervisor, Carlmont junior Anna Shutovska.
Shutovska said the Assembly Committee had lots of responsibilities in preparation for the assembly because “[The Assembly Committee] had to find a guest speaker, email them to work out logistics, choose a date, publicize the assembly, make sure the speaker knew everything that was going on; stuff like that.”
Shutovska also stayed committed to pulling everything together outside of school too, and explained that “[She] did work on it outside of school, as it involved a lot of emailing.”
ASB Human Relations Commissioner, Veronica Pontis, said that it was “really good to get a more fun, energetic, and enthusiastic speaker. I think that because [Wyman] went to Carlmont, endured life-changing experiences and lived in EPA, people felt that he was much more relatable than other speakers we’ve had in the past. But I think the most important thing was to see how humbled he was, even after being in the NFL and a media icon. For kids to see someone they might have looked up to come to tears talking about his life story is something powerful, and people stuck to that.”
Senior Kiana Yekrang perceived the assembly as a powerful motivation and reported that “Wyman’s story really motivated us and inspired us to better ourselves by showing us that when you hit rock bottom, there’s still a chance for you to escape from that position and move on to succeed, and I believe that really made people reevaluate their life and the choices they make.”
Many students felt that aside from his personal life story, Wyman brought up other admirable points. Yekrang said, “When Wyman spoke about how women don’t give away their money so easily and compared that to how they often give away their bodies easily, that was a really strong point and so true He was the best speaker I have ever seen at Carlmont in all my four years. He definitely left us thinking.”
Spanish and AVID Instructor Rosa Arguleza was impressed by Wyman’s appearance and said, “Devin created a nice way to give students an in-depth analysis about themselves. I think he helped them see what they must do to work harder and internally motivate themselves.”
Wyman’s performance was captivating and memorable in the eyes of ASB, students, and teachers. His motto, “If you’re trying you’re flying, if you don’t you won’t,” is surely here to stay.
