He doesn’t light up the scoresheets on the tennis court and he wasn’t always one of the leaders in the pool, but Myles Stelling channeled both his athletic abilities and his academic prowess to earn Marlboro High School’s male scholar athlete-award for 2019-20.

“I’m happy about it, definitely,” said Stelling, who finished third in the senior class with a 99.8 grade-point average. “I’ve played sports all four years at Marlboro High School. I’ve worked very hard to keep my grades up. I’m happy to receive that title.”

Stelling swam on the Iron Dukes’ swim team in 2016 and 2017 and was a member of the boys’ tennis team during his entire four year-year high school career. At least, he would have had the spring 2020 boys’ tennis team had it not been wiped out by the COVID0-19 pandemic.

“In a word, it’s disappointing,” Stelling said. “I played tennis since sophomore and junior year. Senior year, after we had graduated all that skill and the goal was hopefully you would get to MHALs (Mid-Hudson Athletic League championship). That would have been the time to get that. And we didn’t even get to be a part of it.”

Stelling joined the Marlboro swimming team during the 2016-17 season. He didn’t know much about either of his sports before joining them but joined swimming because he said he had been a decent swimmer and thought the sport could help him improve his technique.
It was an eye-opening.

“My freshman year, I wasn’t in very good shape,” Stelling said. “At the beginning of our season, they had us do a 500-yard swim and that’s the longest event. My time was very high, and I got that down quite a bit in a couple of months.”
He only swam for two years but played tennis during every season that was available to him.

“I didn’t know anything about tennis going into it,” he said. “It opened up a whole new world to me. I’ll watch it and I might play it recreationally later in life. It’s a very pick-up and play sport. There are a lot of facilities for it.”

Marlboro boys’ tennis coach Scott Hisel said Stelling brings a lot of tenacity to the court and puts 110 percent into his game.

“He started playing tennis recently, so he doesn’t have the years that the other athletes have,” Hisel said. “But he competes through the entire set, regardless of his opponent’s skill.”

But you don’t get named your school’s scholar athlete by succeeding athletically alone. It also takes a strong showing in the classroom. His female counterpart, Alexa Bernicker, was Marlboro’s valedictorian. He wasn’t far behind, finishing third in the class.

“It’s very rewarding,” Stelling said. “I’m very happy where I’ve pretty much been, but the numbers are just numbers. It’s great to see them, but I care more about what I’ve actually learned.”

He’s learned he can handle a heavy course load and extracurricular load. Academically, he’s taken high-level courses all throughout high school, blazing the most ambitious route he could.

“(Academic performance is) very important to me and they know that,” Hisel said. “I think I’ve taught every single one of them. That comes first and I make them very aware of that when they first start the season.”

Stelling also is a member of the National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, Boy Scouts, (where he’s working on his Eagle Scout project), drama club, wind ensemble, chamber choir and Link Crew.

“I think it’s good life experience that I’m definitely going to be able to use in the future,” Stelling said. “I have the ability to balance those kinds of things.”

In the fall, he’s headed to Rochester Institute of Technology, where he will major in Motion Picture Science.

“I wanted to go into that because I’ve always loved science and math,” Stelling said. “I’ve always been pretty good at those. I’ve always had a background in music and other creative outlets. Drama Club has helped embellish that. I saw a lot of that in this program.”

He’s going to miss the tight-knit Marlboro community, but he is looking forward to the new opportunities that wait for him in Rochester.
He’ll be missed, too.

“I’m going to miss his easygoing nature and personality,” Hisel said. “He’s a guy that works a lot. If I ask him to do something, he’ll do it. There’s no rebuttal and no argument. He’ll just do it.”