When Latin’s new faculty band, Staff Infection, debuted at gathering last November, Upper School history teacher Ernesto Cruz was the one keeping the time. His son, junior Ramon Cruz, felt thrilled to watch his dad perform.
“I think it’s awesome watching the teachers get up there, because it’s something that students are often afraid to do because of student body judgment,” Ramon said.
Though Mr. Cruz hadn’t looped him in, Ramon figured something was up well before the first performance.
“He was staying really late on Mondays, and I just assumed it was a band because he kept saying, ‘I’m in the Middle School cafeteria,’ which is historically where bands practice,” Ramon said.
For Mr. Cruz, who has been playing drums since fourth grade, the debut wasn't just a chance to rip through "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with his colleagues; it was a return to a passion that he thought he’d left behind.
“What I bring to both teaching and music [is] creativity, for sure,” Mr. Cruz said. “The music came first.”
Growing up in the suburbs, he joined band in fourth grade. His band director ran a one-week summer camp in Valparaiso, Indiana, with a group of Catholic-school band directors from DePaul. Mr. Cruz attended the camp every year from fifth grade through eighth grade, then came back as a counselor in high school, teaching 10 year olds to play drums and playing in the counselor jazz band at night.
At first, his professional path looked like it might keep heading toward music. Instead, it bent toward teaching—almost by accident. After graduating from Carleton College in 2001, Mr. Cruz watched the 36 job interviews he had lined up over winter break dry up as companies pulled hiring during the recession. He called his old dean from boarding school, who hired him on the spot to work at a residential school outside Kansas City.
“I told the kids, ‘Listen, I was better at being bad than you've ever dreamed of being, so don't even try it,’” he said. Within weeks, he was sitting by the dorm's front door at 4:30 a.m., calmly waiting for two students who had snuck out three hours earlier to wander back in.
What kept him in teaching was the people. “Teaching kind of came on just as the more serious music stuff was ending for me,” Mr. Cruz said. “So it really replaced that need for community.”
Yet these days, Mr. Cruz is back behind a drum kit on a stage, with five colleagues and a setlist of '90s alt-rock. The community he stopped looking for in music has found him there again.
“I think it’s really cool that there is a staff band, and them doing somewhat niche songs was really special,” junior Lily Scherberg said. “Mr Cruz was really good at the drums, and he definitely brought some more fun to their performances.”
Though the pivot represents an important shift for Mr. Cruz, music never quite left his home. “My family has a huge vinyl collection [of] probably 5,000 records,” Ramon said. “My dad and I listen to music in the car every day to and from school. We’re very diverse musically.”
