Inducted in 2007
Basketball Player, NCAA

Induction Video

The Fordham Prep Hall of Honor was created to recognize illustrious individuals from the school’s long and rich history. Since June 24, 1841, the day the Prep and University first opened together as St John’s College, members of the Fordham family have labored tirelessly for God, country and the good of all, have served the school and its students in extraordinary capacities, and have distinguished themselves in various fields of human endeavor, ever demonstrating by example that all undertakings ought to be ultimately directed ad maiorem Dei gloriam, toward the greater glory of God. Among the honorees are individuals from all walks of life, from bishops to businessmen, from artists to athletes, and from physicians to philanthropists. With the addition of John Edward “Jackie” McLaughlin to the Hall of Honor, however, the Prep acknowledges not so much a celebrated accomplishment as a remarkable spirit — an enduring spirit which has transcended tragedy and continues to leave its mark on the heart of the Fordham Prep community.

When he graduated from the Prep in 1955, following his brother Walter in the Class of 1949, it would have been difficult to imagine a young man with more potential for success than Jackie McLaughlin. Born on the Feast of the Assumption in 1937, Jackie was the son of Walter McLaughlin, a detective with the NYPD, and Margaret Lynch McLaughlin, a homemaker.  He grew up a member of the Parish of the Sacred Heart in the Highbridge section of the Bronx until the family moved to Woodlawn in the northern part of the borough not far from the Yonkers border.  Two more McLaughlin boys would make their way through the Prep, Francis and Thomas, Classes of 1965 and 1968. The McLaughlins had a daughter as well, June.

Jackie was a class officer during all four years at the Prep and served as secretary of the Senior Council. He played first base for the baseball team and end on the football team. But six-foot-four-inch Jackie really excelled at basketball, and was co-captain of that team during his senior year. McLaughlin was active in several off-the-court endeavors as well. The Knights of the Blessed Sacrament and the Sodality were important parts of the spiritual life of the Prep in those days, and Jackie was involved with both, especially the Sodality.

Classmates and teammates respected him, young ladies found the towering all-star positively dreamy, and everyone who knew him could not help but like him — no surprise, for a former winner of the New York Daily Mirror Charming Child Contest: perhaps a bit quaint-sounding now, but a huge deal in New York at the time.

But there was something more to McLaughlin than just charm, or good looks, or even his naturally elegant athleticism — there was a spirit of genuine goodness about him, of honesty and honorability. He was dedicated, hard-working, devout, pure of heart, compassionate and truly grateful for the life and talents he had been given. Rather than eliciting jealousy from others, he inspired them, and made them want to be better people — a rare confluence of qualities in so young a man. These are the very attributes for which Jack McLaughlin is still remembered and is honored by the Prep to this day

Saint Louis University, a nationally ranked basketball power during the 1950s, offered McLaughlin a full hoops scholarship. For the short time he was at St. Louis University as a Billiken, he played for the legendary basketball coach Ed Hickey. Jackie was planning to major in engineering.

As he headed home from his first term at St. Louis to spend Christmas with his family in December of 1955, he was probably looking forward to a reunion with his friends and teammates from the Prep. His parents had covered his air fare, but he hitched a ride instead, hoping to save them some money. He died when the car in which he was riding collided with a truck not too far from the University. Instead of a holiday reunion, his friends attended his funeral two days after Christmas. At the time of Jackie's induction to the Prep Hall of Honor, more than half a century after his tragically brief college career, Saint Louis University was still presenting the McLaughlin Memorial Award to the  basketball player who had the best foul-shooting accuracy for the season.

“I still meet people today who remember the way that Jackie could light up a room” — the words of his brother Frank, a fellow Hall of Honor inductee and vice president of athletics at Fordham University. “He made a lasting, genuine impression on people.” Frank was just 8 years old when he lost his brother.

The mascot of St. Louis University — the Billiken — is a whimsical, happy beast designed by a local illustrator in the early 1900s. It is said to represent good luck and "things as they ought to be." Things ought to have been different for Jackie McLaughlin, but it is enough that he was the extraordinary young man that any family would be proud to call son and brother, and the outstanding graduate that any Catholic school would be proud to count among its alumni.