When the Archdiocese announced in 1993 that it would be closing Northeast Catholic, I was a 12-year-old, 7th grade student, and I remember holding back tears. Obviously, I'd yet to attend a class at North, but I was already a Falcon through and through.

Luckily, a dedicated community repelled that initial closure.

Now, it's 16 years later and, once again, the Archdiocese has announced that it's closing North. I'm a 28-year-old, living 90 miles away with a job in New York City, and I'm holding back tears.

I am a third generation Falcon, having graduated in 1998. It's kind of unusual to hear about someone who went to the same high school as his father and grandfather - unless you're talking about North. When you grow up in a Falcon family, there's never really any discussion about where you're going to attend high school. It's just understood.

That's because when you attend North, you become part of an extended community that offers the type of camaraderie that I imagine isn't found anywhere else in the world outside of the military.

My grandfather, a member of the North Catholic Alumni Hall of Fame, was an All-Catholic football player at North during the 1940s before being called away to serve in World War II after his junior year. He loved North so much that when he came back from fighting in the war, he returned to the school to complete his senior year (his age made him ineligible to play football, so he served as a coach for the freshman team).

My dad was also an All-Catholic football player during his time at North in the '70s. Also like his father, my dad coached the freshman team during '80s. Some of my earliest memories are hanging out in that sardine can of a locker room, watching my dad coach North Catholic legends and University of Notre Dame alumni Chuck Killian and Marty Lippincott.

While I didn't share my family's football prowess (I went on to play for Chuck and Marty, who were coaches by the time I arrived at North), I do share their love for North Catholic. I often wonder what I'd currently be like if I didn't attend the legendary school at Erie and Torresdale. I can guarantee you that I wouldn't be the man I am today.

And that makes me wonder what thousands of other guys who graduated from North would be like if not for the guidance of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, the priests who've run the school since its opening. I can't help but wonder if this will have a more negative effect on Philadelphia's river ward neighborhoods than just forcing some kids to transfer schools.

While you might be able to receive a great education at a charter school, there are many things that you can only get at North, including a tradition that dates back to 1926.

With that deep tradition comes a type of pride that is rarely found these days.

Once you attend North Catholic, you know that, for the rest of your life, you'll have thousands of other men that have been through the same experience as you. That's because not much has changed in the eight decades that North has been open.

The same thing has always been objective number one at North: Molding young men into upstanding gentlemen that are prepared to face the world in a confident, yet humble manner.

With that in mind, parents have been sacrificing to send their children to North for years.

Whether J.U.G. ("Justice Under God") was being doled out by Father "Knobby" Walsh or Mr. Ernie Koschineg, North Catholic was always a place that these mothers and fathers of Philadelphia's river wards and Lower Northeast could send their young boys to school, knowing for sure that they'd come home men.

When I visited home two weekends ago, I heard a rumor that North might be closing. So I wasn't completely shocked when I heard the news on Oct. 9 that the Archdiocese would be shuttering both North and Cardinal Dougherty at the end of the current school year. Apparently, I was in the minority.

One of the main reasons that North alumni everywhere are so shocked is because of the swiftness of this decision.

Were we na•ve to think that the Archdiocese would continue to keep open a school that has gone from being the largest Catholic high school in the country 55 years ago to enrolling just 551 students in 2009? Maybe.

But that doesn't give the Archdiocese the right to stomp out 83 years of tradition without as much as a meeting with the leadership of North's 20,000-member-strong alumni group.

This wasn't a fair fight. The archdiocese caught North Catholic with its guard down. It's a sucker punch. In the neighborhood, we call it "getting snuck." Both North Catholic and Cardinal Dougherty "got snuck" last week by the archdiocese.

The surprising manner in which the decision was made is unfair to the current students at North, especially the junior class members, who now must begin making alternative arrangements for their final year of school.

But anyone who has ever seen a good street fight knows that a sucker punch never ends anything. It's usually just the beginning.

While the archdiocese claims that its decision is final, the students and alumni of North Catholic will begin planning how to fight back on Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m., when they'll gather on the front steps of the school for a rally.

While I won't be able to make it to the rally, I expect that hundreds of people who share my grief will. And I bet if I listen just hard enough, I'll be able to hear chants of "Onward, Onward..." all the way up in New York City.

Ryan Smith grew up in Port Richmond and worked at the Star as a reporter and editor from 2003 to 2008. He currently works in public relations in the New York City.