Mentoring Relationships PETER WALDINGER ’63 AT THE HEART OF MANY NOBLES stories are themes of relationships and how strong relationships allow us to develop resilience, skills and a capacity to contribute our best. The story of Peter Waldinger ’63 a rms this paradigm. “I have to give credit to the great man Eliot Putnam,” Waldinger said. At the suggestion of the former headmaster, Waldinger took a gamble that might have felt at the time like failure. In 1958, Putnam suggested to Waldinger and his parents that he should repeat his Class IV year. “Eliot thought it was a good idea. My parents thought it was a good idea. I wasn’t so sure.” Young Waldinger reluctantly joined the Class of 1963. “It turned out to be the best thing that ever hap- pened to me.” Before his repeat year, his father rented a cottage on the Cape, which happened to be next door to another member of the Class of 1963, Ted Partridge. “Over the course of that summer, we became best friends,” Waldinger said. They remained best friends until Partridge’s death in November 2011. Waldinger credits Putnam’s insight as responsible for his success at Harvard and as a hockey player in the Ivies. His recognition of how Nobles shaped him inspired him, to include a bequest to Nobles in his will. “Nobles was a great experience for me,” he said, “This is my way of giving back.” While Waldinger believes the school has changed in the decades since his graduation, he cites the strong leadership of heads of school Putnam, Ted Gleason, Dick Baker and Bob Henderson as key to the school’s realization of its mission. “The school continues to improve in all areas,” he said. “At Nobles, I learned to study. Through athletics, I learned a lot about leadership [even before joining the Marine Corps].” Leaders, he learned, show up and get things done. One memorable example: the day after Thanksgiving in 1962 when he and hockey coach Dave Horton put the first sheet of ice on Bliss Omni Flood Rink, without aid of machinery or a Zamboni. “We had been skating on Motley Pond. I was captain of the hockey team. I was glad to be there—glad to do the work. “Those were pretty exciting times, and Dave was the best coach I ever had,” said Waldinger, who credits the strength of his relationships with Putnam, Horton, his great friend Ted Partridge and others in teaching him how to give back his best.