Two years ago in September 2024, smiling students at the Academy of the Holy Cross donned purple plastic hard hats at the groundbreaking for the new athletic and wellness center planned for the campus at the all-girls Catholic high school in Kensington, Maryland.
In August 2026, Holy Cross students beginning the new school year stepped into the gleaming new St. Angela Athletic and Wellness Center. Emily A. Kasof, now in her third year as the president and CEO of the Academy of the Holy Cross, said it was very moving to see the expressions on those young women’s faces as they walked through the facility which they had watched being built over the past two years.
The St. Angela Athletic and Wellness Center includes an expansive gymnasium with bleacher seating for more than 400 people, a fully equipped fitness and training center, and modern locker rooms and team facilities, along with an outdoor bocce court, yoga terrace and practice field with ample parking. The facility’s design includes a large scoreboard over a prominent display of the Tartans nickname for the academy’s teams, and accents of the lavender and white school colors.
“They (our students) felt they were in a state-of-the-art facility,” Kasof said. “Now we have this beautiful space that encapsulates our athletics and our ability to have every student reach her personal best.”
Kasof added, “They were standing a little bit taller (afterward). You could tell they feel so much pride being in their own space.”
Kelly Flaherty, in his fourth year as the director of athletics at the Academy of the Holy Cross, agreed, saying, “It’s a facility to be proud of.”
The St. Angela Athletic and Wellness Center – which will be blessed by Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy at its grand opening on Sept. 18 and have its official ribbon cutting followed by a student pep rally – marks another milestone in the history of the Academy of the Holy Cross, which was founded by the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1868.
Kasof noted that the Sisters of the Holy Cross made the lead $1 million gift for the facility and named it, “demonstrating their commitment to the students and their legacy.”
The president of the academy emphasized that the Sisters of the Holy Cross were pioneers, establishing educational and health care institutions across the United States. That legacy can also be seen in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland founded by the congregation in 1963, and Holy Cross Germantown Hospital that opened in upper Montgomery County in 2014. Both hospitals are now part of the Trinity Health system.
“They (the Holy Cross sisters) are pioneers… They are still pioneers, and we think of our girls as pioneers as well,” Kasof said.
According to a fact sheet provided by the Academy of the Holy Cross, the new facility is named for Mother Angela Gillespie, also known by her religious name, Mary of St. Angela. Mother Angela Gillespie was an American religious sister, mother superior, and founder of many works of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in the United States during the 19th century. She served as the first directress of Saint Mary’s Academy, which later became Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. The name “St. Angela” was previously associated with St. Angela Hall, where the Sisters of the Holy Cross lived and worked on campus of the Academy of the Holy Cross. That building is now the nearby Strathmore Mansion.
The St. Angela Athletic and Wellness Center, a 20,000 square-foot facility, was built by Keller Construction. The project manager is Matt Whalen with Whalen Construction, and the architects are Don Gregory and Bill Spack with CGS Architects.
“Ultimately for the girls, it’s a full-circle experience. They came to Holy Cross knowing this was in the works, and they’ve seen the progress every day,” said Flaherty.
The athletic director added that the Holy Cross students “are excited and they’re embracing the new space.”
Now students are taking a variety of physical education classes in the new center, including yoga classes. Holy Cross faculty and staff members can also exercise in the facility before and after school. As the use of the wellness center evolves, related speakers and community events and additions to the students’ curriculum may be offered there. Holy Cross will also welcome class reunions at the St. Angela Athletic and Wellness Center, and have some schoolwide events there.
The gymnasium at the new athletic center has space for two full-sized volleyball courts and will also be the home court for the Holy Cross basketball team. In addition to bleachers with twice the seating of the previous gym, the new center has a concessions area.
The training and fitness center, which will be used by all the Tartans teams, includes three squat racks and three dumbbell stations for weightlifting, along with three treadmills, a cardio bike, and an open layout for cardio and core work.
The back of the athletic center has access to an outdoor yoga patio and additional field space, and it is near Holy Cross’s turf field, where the Tartans’ soccer, field hockey, lacrosse and softball teams play, and where the high school’s track and field and cross country runners train and compete.
The St. Angela Athletic and Wellness Center also features new locker rooms for its home teams and visiting teams and a shower room. The trainer room includes an ice machine, a cold tub, muscle stimulator machines, and four taping tables where athletes can get treatments before, during and after practices and games.
“We try to use athletics as a vehicle for lifelong memories, building relationships and resilience,” said Flaherty, who noted that about 70 percent of Holy Cross students participate in a sport there. The athletic director added that the new athletic and wellness center “is just an organic space where our girls can be their best selves” and will be motivated to take advantage of the space during their time at the school.
On Sept. 8, the Tartans’ varsity volleyball team will have its first home game in the new athletic and wellness center, competing against Georgetown Visitation. Holy Cross competed in the finals for the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference varsity volleyball championships for 15 straight years before this past season, when the Tartans’ team with a 27-0 mark was upset in the semifinals. Over that span, Holy Cross won seven WCAC varsity volleyball championships.
“Success breeds success. We had some wonderful players early on,” said Dave Geiser, the varsity volleyball head coach and a science teacher there since 2011. Flaherty said the athletes in that program have a culture of success and “work year in and year out.”
Geiser said the volleyball team members love the new gym, and he added, “There’s some nostalgia for the shoebox we used to play in. I’m hoping some of the aura from the old gym crosses the drive.”
The varsity volleyball coach is also one of the teachers in the Project Lead the Way program at the Academy of the Holy Cross, a nationally recognized STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program offering hands-on learning in engineering, biomedical science and computer science. Holy Cross is the only all-girls school in Maryland to offer Project Lead the Way, which the school’s website notes is “empowering students to build confidence, think critically and lead in STEM fields.”
The Academy of the Holy Cross is known for its honors programs in its STEM and humanities classes. Through its Moreau Options Program, the school welcomes students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Catholic high school requires that its students complete at least 75 hours of service hours by graduation, and Holy Cross students are serving the elderly, youth and other people in need of support.
Traditionally, Holy Cross students and graduates have been known as “Ladies of the Academy,” and Flaherty said they are also “Leaders of the Academy.”
That morning as Kasof walked through the new St. Angela Athletic and Wellness Center, groups of Holy Cross students began arriving for their P.E. classes in the school’s new state-of-the-art facility. “It’s for them,” the academy’s president said, smiling.
