Loyola Blakefield is home of the DONS and is located directly north of Baltimore City in Towson, MD. The Jesuit, Catholic preparatory school was established by the Jesuits in 1852 with Loyola College. The school moved from its original location on Calvert Street to its present site known as Blakefield. The land was a gift of the
Blake family, hence the name. In 1981 a
middle school was introduced. After President McAndrews left Blakefield in 1999,
Father Jack Dennis oversaw a massive capital campaign that was able to raise the $19 million for a new student commons/athletic center called Knott Hall. The state-of-the-art facility has only added to the beauty of the campus through constant maintenance.
Loyola is a solid academic institution with well-rounded departments in academics, athletics, community service, arts/music, and religion. At Blakefield, graduates are taught to be "men for others" and the 154 year-old school has continuously stressed its importance to its students. The annual Turkey Bowl
Game played each Thanksgiving at M&T Bank Stadium (Ravens) is one of the oldest Catholic
football rivalries in the country and draws upwards of 13,000 certain years.
Loyola students are known within the city of
Baltimore as typically well-mannered, polite, and generally pleasant. It's "sister schools" are Maryvale and Notre Dame Prep, and Loyola's biggest rival schools are Calvert Hall and Gilman based on size. Among the pride of Blakefield is its unparalleled swimming team, its strong sense of school spirit at sporting events, its highly regarded forensics team, and its nationally ranked
lacrosse team.
Outside of
Baltimore, Loyola is typically seen as another Jesuit school on par with St. Joseph's Prep in Philadelphia, Fairfield Prep in Connecticut, Gonzaga in Washington, and St. Ignatius in
Chicago. Georgetown Prep in Bethesda and Regis
High School in Manhattan are usually seen as a step above Loyola because of their exceptionally high admissions standards.
Loyola students typically go onto colleges such as Loyola College, Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, Delaware, US Naval Academy, Gettysburg, Elon, and Boston College.
