Returning Grad Shares Powerful Message on the Complete Man

Chris Egi ’14 returned home on Jan. 19, delivering a reflective address on gratitude, growth, and the lifelong influence of community.

“It feels so good to be home,” he began, as he greeted the full school in Ketchum Auditorium, noting it was his first visit back to campus since 2019. From the start, his remarks blended humour – jokingly apologizing to former coaches for “never letting them win a staff-student basketball game” – with reflections on identity and responsibility.

Chris shared that the school motto echoed in his mind while preparing his speech: the development of the complete man, the well-rounded citizen.

“Who is the complete man? What makes a citizen well-rounded? How do you develop either?” he asked. “In today’s world, it’s an incredibly worthy mission, not in spite of its complexities, but because of them. It’s really confusing to know what it means to be Andrean.”

He explained that St. Andrew’s didn’t deliver a single definition. Instead, it offered countless moments, people, and lessons that shaped him over time.

“Inside the gates of St. Andrew’s, I started to piece together parts of my answer; not a final definition, but fragments that would matter later for the rest of my life,” Chris said. “And perhaps my first answer came in Mr. Kowaltschuk’s Middle School geography class. One of the first things he quoted every year was, “Good enough is only good enough for the garbage can.’” The line earned knowing chuckles from the audience.

Chris came to understand that the phrase wasn’t about perfection, but about effort.

Looking back, Chris notes there was no secret, perfect, man-building curriculum. “There was no single class where someone stood in the front of the room, stood on a chair, and said, ‘This is how you become the complete man.’ What there was, instead, were a lot of teachers who cared, who believed in you, and did those things with enough love that you believed you could be something special.”

He spoke about several who made a lasting impact:

“None of these people gave me this final definition of a man,” Chris said. “What they did was something quieter and more important. They cared, they believed, they challenged, they encouraged.” It was through all those small moments that a sense of the complete man began to take shape.

He reminded Upper School students that younger boys are constantly looking up to them. “I wish you knew just how cool you are to the younger students,” he said, sharing memories of idolizing varsity athletes and Prefects. Those impressions shaped his understanding of leadership and character.

Chris spoke openly about the importance of leaning on his network of friends and family when navigating hardships, such as making the tough call to leave SAC for his Grade 12 year to pursue an elite career in basketball at Mountverde Academy in Florida, to losing his father to cancer.

Through it all, his community remained his anchor.

“It’s your friends who believe in you when you don’t,” he said. “It’s your coach flying across the country to support your family. It’s choosing to show up.”

In closing, Chris encouraged students to dedicate themselves to one another and quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in honour of the U.S. holiday that fell on the day of his visit: “We are in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

“Look around you,” he said. “These aren’t just classmates, they’re your family. And together, we are the well-rounded man, the complete citizen. Do not let each other down.”

Following his address, Chris spent the day on campus, sharing lunch with the Leadership Team members, touring campus with the Prefects, sitting in on the Black Cultural Society, and checking out the mural featuring him from his days as Varsity Basketball Captain.