Austin Catholic High School has celebrated grand openings twice — 63 years apart!

In the fall of 1952, the Augustinian Fathers welcomed students to their campus in the Mack-Warren area on Detroit’s bustling east side. The Motor City then had an all-time high population of 1.8 million.

More than 3,000 boys studied there before the school was shut down in 1977.

Nearly four decades passed until Austin’s second opening in 2011 some 40 miles away on 26 Mile Road east of North Avenue in rural Ray Township (population, near 4,000) in north-central Macomb County.

While some alumni are disappointed to this day about the closing of the original Austin, others turned their dismay into a positive force.

Bill Harrington, owner of Genesus Marketing and Communications, is a 1963 graduate of the “old” Austin. “We realized how critical Catholic education is during these days of the secularization of America. We noted, too, the lack of Catholic education opportunities in Macomb County.”

Groundbreaking was staged in 2007 to build a co-ed high school for 500 students on a 100-acre property on 23 Mile Road east of Card Road. However, the plan was put on hold in face of the severe recession gripping the country.

The committee instead leased a vacant elementary school building from the New Haven school district as a temporary site for the “new” Austin.

“The Augustinian spirit lives on,” said Lisa Upton, Austin’s director of development. The values of truth, unity and love, the three principles of the original school, form the core of the new Austin’s mission.

Enrollment has steadily climbed upward, from a handful in the first year to a projected 75 students this fall.

Mike Radwick says it’s worth the 20-mile drive from their home in Fraser for his sons, Alex, a junior, and sophomore Nick, to attend Austin.

He values the “one-on-one attention” the boys receive, along with the Catholic environment, “especially in the high school years when too many things draw the kids’ attention away from academics and the faith.”

Alex, an honor-roll student and volunteer at the Macomb Hope Center’s food pantry, is adding soccer this fall to basketball and track on his sports agenda.

“Being on a team brings everyone closer together like a family,” he says, adding: “Sports helps make the school better known.”

Austin will be playing a Catholic League schedule in boys soccer and girls varsity basketball for the first time this year, said athletic director Mike Miller. The girls track squad did itself proud in this year’s CHSL final, scoring 13 points, including 12 by junior Antoinette Campo for third-place finishes in discus and shot put.

“We’ll take our bruises. You have to start somewhere,” Miller said.

The Crusaders soccer team will probably be the tallest in the state with a pair of Nigerians on the field. Jerry Ben stands 6-feet-10, and Innocent Nwoko is 6-feet-11. They came to Austin as sophomores in 2013. Both carry 3.6 grade point averages.

Under a state-approved co-op program, the duo, although much more comfortable with a soccer ball than a basketball, have improved their roundball skills enough to play for New Haven High School.

Six other Austin students are on the New Haven football, girls basketball and baseball teams.

Harrington is one of five “old” Austin alumni on the new Austin board, and on a committee seeking to “make a connection between the old and the new” Austins.

Upton is poring over a database of 3,234 former students of the “old” Austin with the ambitious goal of getting a representative of every class on the alumni committee.

To underline that connection, the new Austin held commencement exercises last May for its first graduating class (seven students in total, and all heading to college) at St. Clare Montefalco Church in Grosse Pointe Park, where the “old “ Austin had its first graduation ceremony in 1956.

“It’s all about developing relationships,” says Harrington, relationships everyone hopes will lead to the resumption of construction on Austin’s new location on 23 Mile Road.

Can you imagine what a grand opening that will be — a third one for Austin!

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Don Horkey may be reached at [email protected].