For their excellence in both the classroom and their respective athletic endeavors, St. John’s Prep skier CharlIe Danis and Gloucester High girls hockey player Mia Salah have been selected as the Moynihan Lumber Student-Athletes of the Month for January.
Charlie, an 18-year-old senior from West Newbury, plays soccer and lacrosse at St. John’s Prep in addition to being a member of the Eagles’ ski team, of which he served as a team captain.
He had skied recreationally on the mountain at Sunday River in Maine his entire life, but never raced until he joined the high school team his freshman year at St. John’s.
“I wanted to join the ski team like my brothers did before me, and I ended up being pretty good at it,” said Charlie. “It was a matter of transferring the natural comfortability I felt on the slopes to racing, and it worked out well.
“The team culture is what I enjoyed the most,” he added. “There were a group of 15 varsity and 15 junior varsity skiers, and we were a tight knit group. We love to compete, but to have a good time, too.”
Charlie was a starting outside defender for the Prep soccer team, which went unbeaten in regular season play this past fall. He has applied to serve as a team captain for the Eagles’ lacrosse team, where he plays middie.
The fourth of four Danis brothers (including Peter, Jonathan and O’Neil) to attend St. John’s Prep, Charlie has a 4.51 grade point average and is a member of the Brother Linus Chapter of the National Honor Society, the Spanish National Honor Society, and is a 2021 National Merit Scholar.
“A lot of my personal motivation as a student and an athlete comes from my older brothers, where I’ve always competed with them and tried to be better,” Charlie, who is still waiting to hear from some of his top colleges (where he’d like to study biology pre-med), said with a chuckle. “St. John’s Prep has the perfect situation where you’re around a bunch of guys with the same interests, study habits and passions as you, but we all come from different towns and backgrounds. It’s a community you can always find yourself in.”
Charlie has also played the guitar for most of his life and plays in both his own band, Circa The Barn, and the Prep’s Jazz Combo. He enjoys the music theory that studying jazz guitar encompasses and has gotten into jazz giants Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock as well as some funk-rock such as Phish.
Mia, a 17-year-old senior, is coming off of a stellar campaign with the Gloucester girls hockey team this winter. She led the team as a captain with 14 goals and added six goals as the Fishermen made their return to varsity hockey after several years off.
“From the beginning of the season to the ending, it was like an entirely different team,” said Mia. “All but 4-5 girls were freshmen, and they learned so much during that time. As a senior leader, it was my job to help them learn what it was like to play at this level for the first time. They did a great job and we won some big games towards the end of the season.”
Mia was also a captain for the GHS field hockey team last fall, scoring six goals and adding the same number of assists despite being forced to miss two weeks of the season for quarantining. She is a three-time All-Northeastern Conference player and was a key member of two NEC title clubs.
A member of the Gloucester High National Honor Society, Mia is a member of the school’s Honor Roll with an 89 classroom average. For the last four years she’s been a member of both the Student Council and Italian Club, and she volunteers at the Open House as well as her local church.
“It’s all about finding that balance between schoolwork, sports and my outside interests,” said Mia. “You have to find a way to manage your time correctly so you make time to get everything done to the best of your ability.
As Gloucester’s all-time leader in goals scored in field hockey, she’ll continue to play that sport at Assumption University in Worcester. “I’m not sure what I want to study there yet,” said Mia, “so I’m going in with an open mind and seeing what happens.”
