By Ken Mammarella
Contributing Writer

Court Dunn, a teacher, coach and mentor at Upland Country Day School for an astounding 51 years, knows the power of story in making lessons stick and nurturing his students’ growth. 

“I want people to know other people’s story,” he said. “You become interested in what they’re doing, and they become interested in what you’re doing.”

Here’s some of what it takes to know Dunn’s story. At Upland, there are subjects he has taught (music, history, science, math, health, ethics), sports he has coached (soccer, hockey, lacrosse), music he has shepherded (Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, choir, organ for assemblies), clubs he has advised (student council, photography) and 50-mile hikes he has used as team-building exercises.

He founded SPORTRIP, which organized trips for young people, primarily skiing and scuba diving. He has led young people to many nations, including 24 two-week trips to Finland, focused on hockey. 

From 1973 to 1989, he served as organist and choirmaster for the Church of the Holy Trinity in West Chester, leading choir members on performance tours around 47 states, including a Christmas concert at the Carter White House. 

At New Garden Flying Field, he founded a flight school and co-founded an aviation summer camp.

His story is partly told in the memorabilia decorating his small, windowless office at the school, in East Marlborough Township. “All the stuff has a little story, which the kids like to hear,” he said. “And in a way it makes them say ‘What kind of stories will you tell about me?’ ”

Praise from former students

“He has this incredible way of making you feel you’re the only one he cares about – and he does that to everyone,” said Matt Bedwell, a 1995 Upland graduate and now president of Provident Homes.

“He helps you become well-rounded. Even as a coach, he’s teaching you other aspects of life. He’s always giving you a bigger picture, even if you don’t realize it,” said Bedwell, a multi-sport athlete at Upland who is sending his son Tanner to Upland.

“He was our choir director, tour guide, historian, comic relief and mentor,” Brennan Barnard wrote in a 2024 essay on mentorship for Forbes.com. “Coach, teacher, organist, aviator and scuba diver, Court’s passions are diverse, sustained and eagerly shared with others. … He reminds us that if you live what you love, then your life will be full and connected.”

In that essay, Barnard – now director of college counseling for Khan Schools Network and for the College Guidance Network – also quotes Kevin Bream, who sang in the choir more than 30 years ago. “Court was known to stop practice if there was a life lesson to be learned.”

 “He did not simply employ a single [coaching] system and plug players into it,” said Charlie Gerbron, a 1993-95 hockey player at Upland and now an attorney at MacElree Harvey. “To the contrary, he would design systems and styles of play annually that suited the players and talent that he had. He had a similar approach to mentoring the young men in his charge; he found unique ways to help different kids do their best, pursue their passions, achieve their goals and reach their potential.

“Court’s diverse talents – a teacher, a musician, a coach, and a mentor – are Upland’s ‘Four A’s’ (Academics, Athletics, Arts & Attitude) manifest. He is a living embodiment of the school’s philosophy.”

In second grade and sure of his future

Dunn was born in Bryn Mawr and moved around with his parents and two siblings before attending high school in Camp Hill. He counts his parents as heroes, citing their “positive contribution, hard work and morality.” His father was a Honeywell salesman, his mother a homemaker. “Mom insisted that I continue with piano lessons through junior high school, though at the time, sports interested me more. It was a sacrifice for my parents at the time, even though I didn’t practice as much as I should.” He played football, basketball and baseball, and “our family activity was competitive sailing.” 

As a second-grader, he decided he wanted to be a teacher, emulating his stellar teacher that year. “Too many teachers think that this is a job, not a calling,” he said. “For me, it’s a calling.”

At West Chester State University, Dunn first studied how to teach music and switched to how to teach science. He was a sophomore when Jane Moore, the organist at Holy Trinity, asked him to play the piano for a musical at Upland, where she was the music teacher.

He was floored by Upland, citing small classes, the discussion-based teaching philosophy, Moore’s “electric personality” and the equally dynamic Head of School Jack Cleveland, “a sort of god to me.”

He played piano for more musicals, coached hockey and joined school trips. More importantly, “I started to get to know education firsthand. … My finest education was experiential in nature, outside of the four walls of school buildings. I learned about education working with the finest teachers, this time outside the four walls of the classroom, here at Upland.”

In January 1974, he started full time, first teaching music, to replace Moore, who had moved. He turned his formal training and personal interests to expand into other subjects. “Of all the classes I taught, I found teaching ninth grade health/ethics to be the most rewarding for me and, from what I’ve heard from past students, for them as well. We have a small window of opportunity at this age, when impactful discussions around teenage issues can change a life.”

Life outside school

He’s now part-time, tutoring, substituting and assisting with hockey. “I’ll work as long as they want me. It’s nice to be needed. It keeps me happy,” the 73-year-old said. “And it keeps me young.”

For two decades, Dunn lived in an apartment on the school’s 23-acre campus. Then he decided to build equity by building a house in Chatham, a seven-minute drive away.

The house sits on three acres, enough room for his Subaru Crosstrek and the ambulance he converted into a camper (he was once an EMT), but not enough for his two airplanes.

The house is small enough to reduce time spent on upkeep yet large enough to hold an organ, a piano, plus large collections of books (with a lot on Abraham Lincoln), sheet music and recordings. His musical interests go from classical to classic rock, and during the interview he also name-dropped Celtic Thunder and English Evensongs.

“The more interests you have, the less impact any one particular thing has on your life, and the less likely you are to be depressed or anxious or whatever,” he said. “Even now, if I’ve had a bad day, I might turn the organ on, and I’m playing away, just as happy as anything.”