90 Seconds With Mr. Jarcho

How did you find Deerfield?

I was introduced to Deerfield about 15 years ago when I was a teacher at Vermont Academy. And 

I got to know Deerfield because I coached soccer against it. In fact, my first ever game that I coached was against Deerfield, but more important than that, a very good friend of mine from childhood is Mr. McVaugh. I knew that he was an hour down the down the road, and so we had been in touch, and almost immediately, when I started Vermont Academy, Tim [Mr. McVaugh] reached out and asked if I wanted to join an indoor soccer league at night, so I would come down every Tuesday night to play on a team that was mostly Deerfield faculty. So Mr. Flaska, Mr. McCraw, Mr. Dancer, Mr. Keller, and a handful of others that have been here for a long time, that’s the sort of the community that I got to know. And so it took about 15 years for me to circle back to Deerfield, but I'm really happy that it happened eventually. 

What did you major in in college? 

I majored in economics with a minor in English literature.

Are you currently reading any books?

Yes, I just finished a book called There Are Rivers in the Sky. And just last night I started a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami. The collection is called First Person Singular, and they are excellent!  

Favorite thing so far about Deerfield?

This is such a cliche answer, but the community. There are genuinely good people here, and every aspect of my day is interacting with genuine people.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I always hesitate to answer that question, because I like to be open minded to whatever experiences come up in life, but realistically, I see myself here. I think that my wife and I have had a variety of experiences in our adult lives, both together and separately from one another, and this is a community that both of us would be like, “Okay, this feels great. Yeah, I'd like to stay.” 

What's a fun fact about you that people on campus probably wouldn't know just by looking at you?

Given what I teach, probably very few people would guess that I read as much as I do, and one of my favorite things to do with colleagues and students is to trade reading lists or trade book recommendations. So if there's anything that I would like people to learn about me, it would be that. Come give me your book recommendations.