A Tribute to The Academy’s “Founding Father” – by Stew Pruslin, M.Ed
Mike Burg - circa 2010
I want to take a moment of your time here to pass along the news that a gentleman by the name of Sumner "Mike" Burg passed away on Thursday of last week at the age of 98. The odds are almost 100% that you have no idea who he was. You certainly never met him and almost as likely never heard of him. So you might wonder what his relevance is to this blog.
What I can tell you is that you are reading this blog post because of Mike Burg. Without him, the lives of every Academy child (and their parents/caregivers) would likely have been different, and not quite as sunny. My name is Stew Pruslin and I’ve been an Academy kid and camper, and a staff member at Academy, Academy MetroWest, Camp Academy, and Creative Adventures Day Camp. I would have never met Academy MetroWest owner Bruce Sabian and he wouldn’t have been the best man at my wedding (I still would’ve gotten married, but a guy named Dave would’ve been my best man and his speech wouldn’t have been nearly as clever as Bruce’s).
Without Mike Burg, Bruce and Academy MetroWest co-founder Gary Steinberg would have never met. Academy MetroWest would never have existed. No laugh or moment of joy that happened here would ever have occurred and no event that ever helped someone feel good about themselves here would have taken place.
In 1954, Mike founded "Sumner’s Health Club" in his hometown of Chelsea. It was quickly renamed "The Academy of Physical & Social Development" and moved to Brookline and then to Newton Centre where it stayed until the 1980s. Very early on, Mike’s nephew Gary Steinberg (mentioned above) joined the staff as a C.I.T. When I enrolled as an eight year old in 1974, I walked down the stairs into the lobby area and into the first activity room and the first thing I couldn’t help but see right in front of me was a big boxing ring. The program had a significant boxing/martial arts/self defense component to it back then. I was led past the riflery range (you read that correctly!) and past a speed bag into the gym where I sat on a green bench (the very bench which is now purple and sits in our current gym believe it or not).While I sat there waiting for my initial screening, a young counselor with a full head of curly black hair sat down next to me and asked me my name.
Mike Burg (L) with his Academy partner Marty Karlin - 1970's.
Being a bit anxious, I told him I didn’t have one. He said he didn’t have one either but people called him Gary. Taken aback, I laughed and from that moment on I lost my anxiety and we chatted about various things until it was time for me to proceed with that screening. By then I had come to realize that this place was much more than just boxing, martial arts, and self-defense. Between waiting to start, talking to this Gary guy, and doing a few activities myself, I watched all these kids having a blast playing a bunch of fun, creative games using all kinds of different equipment. When I was done, my parents and I went into Mike’s office and met with him.
What became instantly apparent was what a genuinely kind, caring man Mike was. My dad was a marathon runner and even though Mike wasn’t, the two of them immediately struck up a conversation about that. And for years to come, every time they saw each other, Mike would ask my dad how that was going. He also gave my dad an honorary staff t-shirt at one point. And even though it was the counselors and not Mike who worked directly with the kids in the program for the most part, he seemed to know everything that was going on with everyone. Every time he saw me he greeted me enthusiastically and treated me as if I was the most important kid in the whole place. Now either I WAS the most important kid in the whole place (which I assumed was the case until the mid 1980s), which made me feel great. Or… he treated everyone that way, which also made me feel great because I was at a place run by someone so genuinely caring. It was truly a no-lose proposition.
Soon after, I started going to Camp Academy, the summer camp program run by The Academy. There were probably 250 or so kids there during the summer and again, Mike appeared to know every single one of them. He would ask one about their basketball practice, another if they got their bike fixed, a third if they were going to be doing gymnastics again in the fall, and then he’d ask me if my dad had beaten his best time in his most recent Newport Marathon. I didn’t even know my dad was running in the Newport Marathon. It was truly a sight to behold. At the end of the day he’d stand atop the tall slide with a megaphone he didn’t really need and summon the energy of a thousand suns to make the end of the day announcements to a sea of kids that somehow were mostly all paying attention. Then we’d all go our separate ways, eager to do it all again the next day.
I joined Gary as a staff member in 1986 at The Academy after Mike had sold it and it had moved across town in Newton. Bruce joined a couple of years later as an intern and we worked together for a couple of years until I left to become a teacher in 1992. Bruce and Gary then left the Newton Academy to found Academy MetroWest in Natick in 1994. After I left teaching, I joined the Natick staff here in 2009 and here we are now, 68 years from when it all truly began!
Mike Burg was genuinely a pioneer; a man decades ahead of his time. His Academy program combined so many different elements from an eclectic range of activities that would focus on self-esteem, social skills, cooperation, self-control, and all in a fun, active, engaging, non-threatening way that would allow children to make mistakes, gather instant feedback, and apply that feedback immediately, all in a positive, accepting, and welcoming environment. It’s a model that we still use today and if you’re reading this, I don’t have to tell you how effective it has proven to be with so many different children over the decades.
So here we are today, in the middle of our 27th season of Creative Adventures Summer Camp. And while our focus is rightly on moment to moment things like making sure everyone remembers their towels on the way to the pool, removing that piece of salami that got stuck behind a mat and is starting to smell, figuring out who is taking forever in the bathroom, and getting whoever’s making that shrieking noise to STOP!!!!, we absolutely do have to pause for a moment to pay our respects. For Academy MetroWest has been full of those smells, shrieks, and moments of laughter and joy for these last twenty-eight years because of that day sixty-eight years ago in the primordial ooze of Chelsea when everything broke just right and Sumner "Mike" Burg started it all.
What a kind and beautiful tribute, Stew! Thank you so much!