Dorm Disorder

Mike and Dan continue their powerful conversation with Ron DeChristoforo, a 1968 graduate of Girard College, diving deep into the harsh realities of discipline during his time there — from paddling and standing "grudging" facing the wall, to holding dictionaries with arms outstretched for what felt like hours. Ron shares why, at 70 years old, he finally sat down to write "This Way Out," a fictional story rooted in his own experience at Girard. He explains that the memories of what happened to his friends and classmates never left him, and that writing the book became his way of saying: I'm sorry that happened to you. This episode gets heavy at times, but it also captures something remarkable — the instant, unspoken bond shared by everyone who came through Girard's gates, each carrying their own hardship, yet connected by a shared experience that lets total strangers talk like old friends. A raw, honest look at trauma, brotherhood, and the long road to healing.

Before there was CNN, there was a bin of dirty underwear dumped on a school president's rug — and it worked. This week, Mike Noel and Dan Knittel sit down for part one with Ron DeChristoforo (Girard College, Class of '68) to talk about life inside the walls of a free boarding school for kids of single parents. Ron shares how a shop teacher crushed his drafting dreams with one perfect line ("Ron, you can't design a basketball"), the great four-pairs-of-underwear protest that ended in a very undignified stunt, and what it was like to be a teenager at Girard in 1968 — with NAACP protests outside the gates fighting to desegregate the school, and Vietnam tearing up the rest of the country. Ron also opens up about corporal punishment at Girard, which prompts Dan to relive his own run-in with a wooden chair leg courtesy of Mr. Rothfuss. Grab your last clean pair of underwear and settle in — this one's a doozy.

We're back with part two of our conversation with Alysia Mujica. She opens up about the culture shock of boarding school at Wyoming Seminary in 10th grade, then takes us into her classroom — she teaches ESL to K-3rd graders in Pennsauken, NJ, where kids are navigating parents facing deportation, gun violence, and other trauma before they even get to their spelling lists. Alysia shares the moment an 8-year-old student from Liberia tried to comfort her after her fiancé's sudden death by telling her, simply, "life is hard." We also get into her Instagram, where she teaches people how to travel the world on a budget. It's a heavy, honest, and ultimately hopeful conversation.

Mike's still floating on cloud nine from his 30-year reunion cruise (Virgin Voyages — no kids allowed, and he will not shut up about it), and Dan is filing a formal grievance against K-Pot for charging $31.99 a head and then just... dumping everyone's food on one communal plate like animals. Once the outrage subsides, we sit down with Alysia Mujica (Wyoming Seminary, class of 2007) to talk about her glow-up from public school to a gate-less prep campus where rich kids roamed free, snuck out for pizza and questionable dumpster-adjacent activities, and somehow all wore 4-inch heels to class like they were auditioning for "Mean Girls." Alysia was not rich. Alysia thrifted her way into looking rich. We talk scholarships, off-season Abercrombie, and the eternal question: why wasn't it us?

Part 2 with Dr. Steven Spencer, and Girard's classroom chaos is fully on display. Steven walks us through his 180 on running — from despising every mile to genuinely loving it — and gives us the rundown on his book, Purple Blood: The Divide Between Rural and Urban Healthcare, plus what he saw working in healthcare in North Carolina versus Philadelphia. Then things get chaotic: Steven tells the story of a substitute teacher who couldn't turn his back for two seconds without the entire class launching textbooks into the air — bad enough that the principal had to get called in. Dan matches it with the teacher who got teased so relentlessly about smelling like pee that he walked out of the classroom and just... never came back. Girard: educating minds, breaking substitutes, since forever.

New guest alert: Dr. Steven Spencer, class of '94, joins Mike and Dan to relive his earliest Girard days — starting in 2nd grade back in 1984. His first few weeks did not go smoothly: paper airplanes in the classroom, bothering kids trying to sleep at night, and a teacher who flat-out suggested Girard might not be the school for him. Then the first marking period hit, Steven pulled straight A's, and the rest is academic history. We also get his full-blown Janet Jackson obsession, including the concert he went to with his best friend. He tried to convince his best friend's mom to drop him off blocks from home because he didn't want them to see where he lived, only to have her walk him all the way to the door (and then ask to use the bathroom). Plus his brief, resentful career on the cross country team, run purely to lose weight and escape actual running whenever possible — and the night before his college entrance exams, when he decided to try St. Ides Malt Liquor for the very first time. Reader, he did not enjoy it, and he hates beer and malt liquor to this day.

Part 2 with Rosilyn Munoz '06 and Mike Conely '08, and it's a lot. Rosilyn takes us back to campus during 9/11 and the time Girard students staged a walk-off protest to keep another school off their turf. Mike Conely reveals Girard's secret career as a film set — including the day he could've run down the Founders Hall steps next to Shia LaBeouf in Transformers and didn't, plus the time Tyrese serenaded the entire student body with "Sweet Lady" during chapel while filming Annapolis. Mike Noel remembers being thoroughly unimpressed meeting Madeleine Stowe on campus during 12 Monkeys; Dan, meanwhile, ran into her years later in Florida and somehow she ended up holding his 1 year old son. Oh, and all three couples on this episode — Rosilyn & Mike Conely, Mike Noel & his wife, Dan & his wife — are Girard alums who never dated in school. They close things out with advice for the next generation of Girard sweethearts.

This week on Dorm Disorder, we prove that Girard College was less "boarding school" and more "supervised chaos with a curfew." Alumni Rosilyn Munoz and Mike Coley join host Dan and Mike to explain how they went from schoolmates to a Zoom-era pandemic romance — because nothing says "rekindled love" like reconnecting during lockdown. Mike confesses to a career of vending machine larceny and expert-level dorm infiltration. Rosilyn admits to getting suspended in eighth grade for what we're generously calling "extracurricular beverage research." Dan recounts the water balloon fight that ended with his roommate getting hit with a two-person balloon and a night on a mattress that never fully dried. Then things get real: dating at boarding school means your ex is always one hallway away, especially if they move on before you do — case in point, Dan's infamous breakup-by-letter, followed by a very public pancake-adjacent screaming match the next morning. Oh, and apparently a suspicious number of Girard grads — including both hosts of this podcast — ended up marrying people they met on campus. Coincidence? Dorm Disorder thinks not.

In Part 2, Mike and Dan dive into the brutal world of wrestling weight cuts — including the legendary tale of a Bristol High wrestler who pulled out his dentures just to make weight. Then Dan comes clean about a soccer game against a school for the deaf, where he faked a ref's whistle to wave off a goal before it could count. Mike closes things out with the story of a talent show shadow-dance act that got way too steamy behind the screen, until "Voldemort" lost it and killed the lights mid-show.

We're dusting off a lost Dorm Disorder episode from the vault. Dan and Mike sit down for a raw, unfiltered trip back to Girard College — the boarding school in North Philadelphia that shaped them more than they probably realized at the time. They break down their favorite buildings on campus, relive the glory days of Girard basketball in the legendary Terror Dome (shoutout Public Enemy), and talk wrestling. They also reflect on where they were when the OJ verdict dropped and what that moment felt like inside those walls.
Then things get personal — Dan shares the soccer camp story that still haunts him: a coach who slapped a third cheeseburger clean out of his hands, ran him until he threw up, handed him a glass of water, and sent him right back out to practice. No notes.
Dan and Mike also dig into something they hadn't really put into words before — how they carried themselves differently at Girard versus at home. Nicer. More respectful. Almost like two different people. And if any family ever set foot on campus? That was an incursion. Full Marvel multiverse energy.
This one sat on the shelf too long. It's out now.