Kudos to outgoing DeMatha Catholic High School band founder/director John Mitchell, who was profiled by the New York Times yesterday.

DeMatha’s athletic tradition is well-known around these parts (the school even has an Urban Dictionary entry extolling that the school is “awsome [sic] at almost every single sport”), but the Times’ piece (and the accompanying video, below) highlights how the band is actually right there, accolade-wise, with the athletic program:

Eighteen trophies and plaques, from an April music festival in Atlanta, smothered a table outside his office. He scooted a large box holding more into the faculty restroom. Mitchell, 65, is retiring this year — he will conduct a DeMatha concert for the last time on Thursday — and part of his legacy will be stashes of substantial spoils, to be unearthed by future band directors or archaeologists.

“If we could just melt these things down and get something for them, or if they’d just give us money instead of trophies, it’d be great,” Mitchell said.

The geek shall inherit the earth, oh yes.