When Bill Belichick ’71 was offered the head coach’s position with the New England Patriots, team owner Robert Kraft offered to give him a “free pass” his first year—an opportunity to settle in and get the feel of his new job. The same free-pass offer was made to Andover chaplain Michael J. Ebner ’70 when Secretary of the Academy Peter R. Ramsey asked him to be director of alumni affairs while also continuing in his campus ministry.

Both alumni have gone on to extraordinary success in their new positions. Belichick’s Super Bowl win was the ultimate sports triumph, while Ebner has created new connections between students and alumni, bridging the generation gap with innovative intergenerational programs. While he has re-energized alumni, he also has actively been teaching students to be alumni.

He notes that the words “minister” and “administrator” come from the same root. “Ministry is about looking at core values and creating tradition and celebration around those values,” says Ebner. “My ministry here as a chaplain is getting kids to look outside their routine lives, see a greater purpose and realize they can influence the world. The alumni affairs position has enhanced that by bringing to the students the reality of that outside world through our alumni base.”

According to Ebner, the all-male Phillips Academy he attended in the late ’60s was characterized by anger, resentment and constant conversation about what the establishment was doing wrong. “But I don’t know anyone who would deny the school had a profound influence on us, giving us the confidence to think things through and be open-minded, responsive and proactive,” he says.

It is just those qualities that Ebner credits with enabling him to successfully combine his two major roles on campus—Protestant chaplain and director of alumni affairs—while also wearing the hats of house counselor and leader of the annual community service trip to Johns Island, S.C., to refurbish homes in a low-income community.

“I have a passion for connecting kids with each other as a class and also helping them connect with alumni who are willing to come in and share their experience, their knowledge and their journey,” Ebner says.

The gem in the midst of Ebner’s first year as director of alumni affairs was last spring’s Alumni Council meeting, “Broadening Horizons,” featured in the Summer 2002 Andover Bulletin. Nearly 120 participants, including 47 students, joined in intergenerational discussions with alumni about career paths.

“When students hear the life stories of people who were in their shoes at one point,” Ebner says, “they really get a sense there’s a whole big world out there. Life’s a long journey with many twists and turns, and it’s OK to follow its meandering path.”

Ebner’s own journey has been filled with interesting twists and turns. Growing up in Providence, R.I., and attending inner-city schools, he became active in the Boys’ Club and was named “Boy of the Year.” The club’s adviser urged him to consider attending prep school, and the teenager visited Andover, falling in love with the campus and town. He was offered admission as one of the academy’s ABC (A Better Chance) scholars, participating in a scholarship program for disadvantaged youth. That program has evolved through the years and now provides educational opportunities for students of color.

As a student, Ebner became involved in art, and he names art teacher John McMurray as a big influence on him. “He had this incredible way of getting you to understand that you could pretty much figure out how to do anything,” Ebner says.

Following graduation, he majored in art history at Rollins College in Florida, where he met his future wife, Terry. After earning a B.A. degree, he spent his early career working in the art world, in a business environment, in a brokerage firm and in a self-owned venture that he sold at a loss.

While he was pursuing a business career in Florida, he and Terry became involved in their church, leading outreach trips with high school kids. Increasingly passionate about his church work, Ebner called a university for information about its seminary. “When I told Terry, she just cried. She was so happy,” he says.

He sent applications to all the Methodist seminaries, and soon got a call about a position for a student minister at a church in North Reading, Mass. Ebner applied and was hired as a student pastor before he started seminary studies at Boston University.

In 1995, when his three-year position in North Reading was about to end, Ebner learned PA had an opening for a Protestant chaplain. After a lengthy interview process that included preaching at his own 25th PA reunion, Ebner was offered the part-time position of chaplain.

He expanded his role on campus by adding duties in community service, admissions, advising and house counseling, while also working part-time as youth minister at South Church in Andover.

In 2000, believing that the skills Ebner used daily in his ministry work would translate well to working with volunteers in an educational institution, Ramsey approached him about the alumni affairs opening.

Ebner says he took the position, leaving behind the South Church ministry, because it seemed like a solid way to connect with the school and the constituency outside the school. “Even when I took the position, I hadn’t fully recognized the possibilities for connecting and reconnecting alumni to the school,” he says.

One of the many new programs Ebner has instituted is senior-faculty dinners with speakers like ABC News anchor Peter Jennings and Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas ’69. “The kids love these dinners, and the chance to connect with successful alumni and leaders makes them feel very special,” he says. The Ebners are themselves parents of three children, Johanna, 24; Mike, 23; and Scott, 17.

One of Ebner’s goals as director of alumni affairs is to teach students what an alumnus is. “We try to teach them the word ‘alumni’ is not synonymous with dollars. Andover’s a place you are privileged to have been a part of. You’re privileged after you leave to continue to be a part of it and to offer yourself to it, whether by donating financial resources, volunteering to serve on a committee or sending an occasional letter of encouragement to a student.”

Because of the successful programs this past year, Ebner reports alumni are “coming out of the woodwork.” People who heard about the “Broadening Horizons” conference want to be a part of something similar next year and are offering suggestions. Alumni with little or no prior contact with the school came to that event and are e-mailing the Office of Alumni Affairs with ideas.

“And you know what? If you’ve got a good idea, you may as well run with it,” concludes Ebner. “I’m ready to put the ideas of our alumni to work.”