Inducted in 2007
Prep Teacher & Director of Admissions (1966-2009)
Father of Four Prep Graduates

Induction Video

Arthur K. McCormack was born to Alfred and Gertrude McCormack on Friday, February 29th, in the leap year of 1924. He was raised in Yonkers, New York. 

Young Artie graduated from St. Denis Elementary School, and then went on to the preparatory program at Cathedral College. After high school, he spent two years at Dunwoodie Seminary. Art would finish his undergraduate work at Manhattan College, obtaining a degree in political science. McCormack then set his sights on becoming a veterinarian and was accepted at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. But his father’s death would change the course of his life. He declined Cornell's acceptance, and to help support his family, applied to and was accepted by the US Foreign Service as a vice-consul. But yet again, his life would take a turn. With World War II coming to an end, the Foreign Service informed him that he would have to enter in the much lower-ranking (and lower-paying) position of courier.

Instead, McCormack chose to begin a career at Eastern Airlines, where he quickly rose through the ranks of ticket agent, supervisor and trainer to the position of manager at the East Side Terminal. In these positions, Art came in contact with many influential people of the time, including heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano and astronaut and US Senator John Glenn. It was also during his Eastern Airlines days that he met fellow airline employee Regina "Jean" Nelson, the woman who would become his wife. Married in 1949, they raised five children. Their four boys, Sean, Kevin, Kerry and Arthur, Jr. were all Prep graduates, Classes of 1969, 1971, 1972 and 1983 respectively. Not to be outdone by her brothers, their daughter, Maureen, obtained a Fordham diploma of her own, receiving her bachelor’s degree from the University in 1980.

Ever the inimitable raconteur, Art proved to colleagues at Eastern Airlines his considerable gifts as a storyteller and teacher, and they urged him to consider the possibility that his real place in life was in education. Consider he did, and so, in 1966, after a career in the airline industry, he touched down at the Prep as a member of the Social Studies Department. In addition to his work in the classroom, McCormack quickly became involved in other facets of Prep life. At various points he served as state textbook administrator, financial aid officer, school bus coordinator, and director of admissions. McCormack attended every meeting of the Board of Trustees between 1970 and 1996 and was the secretary of the Board from 1975 to 1995. He was the Board’s first faculty representative.

Though he retired from full-time teaching in 1999, Art immediately returned on a part-time basis as coordinator of student research. In this position, McCormack guided students from several history courses through research projects using a variety of articles, images and even advertisements from the Times, a practice begun decades before with fellow Hall of Honor inductee Frank Holbrook's acquisition of a microfilm collection for the Prep Library. Surprising much younger people by quickly mastering the intricacies of the Web, McCormack helped to ensure that the History Department’s long-standing tradition of requiring students to undertake extensive primary source research would continue in the digital age.

McCormack’s 21st century students soon learned what Prepsters had been finding out since the Johnson Administration, namely, that a question posed to the master would rarely result in a simple answer. A typically artful McCormackian response was always a fascinatingly sinuous affair, dotted with ancillary facts, and branching off into seemingly impossible tangents (that always somehow circle back on topic) — the whole package enlivened with pithy sayings and topical references. McCormack left his mark on 21st century faculty as well. Inspired by Art's faculty lounge tales of the wild blue yonder, Raymond Gonzalez of the Science Department would obtain a pilot's license and resurrect the Prep's Aviation Club, a student organization that has existed in one form or another since 1908. 

Adapting a line from Shakespeare, a former student once wrote of McCormack:

He made me think of history not so much as the study of the past as it is a prologue to the future. The history class I took with Mr. McCormack remains one of my fondest academic memories.

Another alumnus wrote of him: “I learned many things from Mr. McCormack, from how he drank his coffee — black with one ice cube — to his many memorable expressions, including ‘Take your hats off, fellas; you never know when a flag may go by.’ I also got to know that he was a religious man, a family man, a dedicated teacher and an all-around down-to-earth person.”

Yet another said of Art, “I have never known a more fatherly man. God is reflected greatly in his servant, Arthur K. McCormack Sr." 

And finally, as one nominator wrote in support of McCormack’s induction to the Fordham Prep Hall of Honor:

Arthur McCormack is a man who understands the true spirit of the following words of St. Ignatius of Loyola:

From among those who are now merely students, in time, some will depart to play diverse roles —one to preach and carry on the care of souls, another to government of the land and the administration of justice, and others to other callings. Finally, since young boys become grown men, their good education in life and doctrine will be beneficial to many others, with the fruit expanding more widely every day.

McCormack retired for a second time from the Prep in 2010. As he had often pointed out, he was perhaps the only person in the school’s history to have served the Prep for over 40 years before technically reaching his 21st birthday.

Arthur's wife Regina passed away in October 2013. The McCormacks had been blessed with 64 years of marriage.  

Art lived for many years in Pocantico Hills, New York. He passed away on May 26, 2016.