It’s a rainy, August day, and the manicured green grass on the golf course is tinged with falling rain. Mr. Millevoi, a South High health teacher, sharply bends over to pick up the ball while clenching the metal club between his teeth. As the club slams into his throat, blood spurts everywhere, scarlet staining the wet grass in erratic splashes. Using his hand to call for help and the other thumb to keep the spraying blood in his body, he stumbles to his car. He finally makes it, stomping on the gas while barely maneuvering the steering wheel as he clutches his throat. As he fights to stay alive, he can barely swerve his way to the hospital. Yet the incredible Mr. Millevoi does it—he stumbles into the emergency room, saving his life in the nick of time.
At least that’s the story Mr. Millevoi’s period five health class heard, watching their teacher with youthful fascination, laughing with wide eyes as they drank in the excitement that can be so rare on a weekday. Of course, Mr. Millevoi stands there in his nonchalant manner, poised cooly against the metal desk as the radiator clangs and clicks. He smiles as twenty-something freshmen gaze at him, in all of his storytelling splendor. After all, this anecdote is only one in a long list of Mr. Millevoi’s myriad spellbinding moments.
Mr. Millevoi’s story is a long and winding one. It starts just a few miles west of Great Neck. “I grew up in Glen Oaks, Queens. It’s on the border of New Hyde Park, and Queens, right down here off of Parkville Elementary School,” said Mr. Millevoi. “I grew up in a neighborhood that was very similar to Great Neck when I began to teach here. Kids were always outdoors, constantly physically active. We didn’t have computers, we didn’t have cell phones. We were very adventurous and creative, I guess.”
Activity and the outside world are pillars of Mr. Millevoi’s life—from a close encounter with a professional fly fishing career at a lodge near Yellowstone National Park to playing for the New York State All-Star Soccer Team (and eventually D1 Collegiate Soccer), it was only natural that he went on to graduate with a degree in a field where he could be active. Mr. Millevoi graduated from Adelphi University with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and then completed a master’s in health education.
Upon graduation, Mr. Millevoi taught Adaptive Physical Education—PE classes for kids born with serious birth defects and developmental disabilities—at Albert Leonard Middle School in New Rochelle, which he found “actually really rewarding.” Shortly after, Mr. Millevoi worked at Great Neck Summer Recreation in 1992-93 under Steve Liebertz, who recently retired as South High’s Boys Varsity Basketball Coach. As their relationship developed, Mr. Millevoi’s connection to South only deepened: he shortly began working as a coach and substitute teacher here at South in 1994-95. When a health position opened up in 1995-96, Mr. Millevoi quickly seized the opportunity and has been working here ever since.
However, Mr. Millevoi’s connection to South High stems back to his early childhood. Mr. Millevoi attended a private Catholic school and was able to roam the grounds of South High in his early years when school was out for him, but not for his cousins (who went here), allowing him to instantly get to know our school. Being able to do things such as practice with South’s Varsity Boys Soccer Team at age nine was also made possible by the fact his mother worked in the South High cafeteria for 35 years.
Mr. Millevoi’s link to South High spans over four decades, from his early childhood to eventually a career in teaching at the school that cultivated the foundations of his life. Growing up at South and seeing the school evolve and shift over the course of 40 years, Mr. Millevoi has noted the changes that have come about in the Great Neck South student community and culture: more specifically with technology. “Technology has made my job increasingly more difficult every single year. I noticed a huge difference from year to year even with technology because someone who teaches what I teach is about staying physically fit, taking care of yourself, and taking care of your mental and emotional health, and technology, in my opinion, is taking a large toll on kids’ emotional and physical health.”
As the invention of the internet has affected the lives of everyone, young and old, Mr. Millevoi has also observed the shift of South High away from athletics and towards academics, and that “it’s just a natural evolution of the way things have gone with technology.” As Mr. Millevoi has grown up, he has seen a general shift in the way people—specifically adolescents—behave. As social media has infected popular culture, it has also diffused into the minds and consciences of so many, and not without a significant impact on the social behavior of students. “I’ve seen people become more and more self-absorbed, much more antisocial, and not as much interested in the same things that we were as kids,” says Mr. Millevoi. “About going out, hanging out with others, being creative…not saying it’s better or worse, but totally different than how I grew up.”
With these rapidly occurring changes underway, Mr. Millevoi has seen the world of play and socialization that comprised Mr. Millevoi’s childhood evolve into a general decreased liveliness in our school. Mr. Millevoi strives to swap the deafening silence caused by smartphones with meaningful student interactions. In Mr. Millevoi’s classroom, laughs, debate, friendly conversations, and girls screaming about the newest and hottest teen heartthrob are not just allowed, but encouraged. This social interaction that so many academic settings can lack is balanced with a health education enriched by personal stories from Mr. Millevoi’s extensive and action-packed life—including the anecdote at the beginning of this article. “If I’m teaching about a subject that I think I have a personal situation with a story that could maybe help the kids understand it better, I have no problem divulging certain things that have gone on. I think that anytime a human being shares personal things about their own life, that always makes the other person more comfortable to open up. I’m a big believer in that.”
As a health teacher, Mr. Millevoi utilizes his position to educate his freshmen students not just on physical fitness, but social and mental fitness as well. On Fridays, Mr. Millevoi talks with his students about current events so that his students can have an increased awareness of the world they inhabit. He frequently takes his students on visits to the soccer field where they might play some games and laugh with each other. Mr. Millevoi is pushing for the social and active world of his childhood, even if he can only do it a handful of times per semester—and it works. Mr. Millevoi has seen the impact he has had on his students. Continual gratitude and even constant visits from handfuls of admiring students punctuate his classroom door and his daily life at South, serving as living, breathing examples of the connections he’s crafted over three decades with just a few laughs and conversations.
As Mr. Millevoi continues his career at South High, he will continue to encourage camaraderie among the students of South along with a plethora of his colleagues who agree on the significance of social interaction amongst the teenage population of South High. He advocates for extracurriculars, including sports, and overall just wants his students to be as social as possible while learning as much as possible, and to leave class every day grinning from ear to ear. “If you’re a student reading this right now, I just want you to know that this is a great place and even though it’s changed, there are a lot of opportunities to learn here, and there’s a lot of opportunities to form relationships and bonds and to still have fun. Fun, and being social, and looking forward to coming to school should still be a reason why you live in Great Neck and come to Great Neck South High School. It’s a special place if you let it be.”
