Tom Cella is the loud, boisterous teacher that everyone has heard of or just plain heard. Cella has taught at St. Dominic High School for 14 years; however, he didn’t always want to be a teacher. He stuck with it though and has had a teaching career of over 40 years at schools such as Francis Howell North, Francis Howell and here.

Even before teaching, Cella had always excelled in math and science and began the path towards becoming an engineer. He soon realized that it wasn’t what he wanted to do and somehow, as he put it, “fell into” teaching.

“I see great value in when you know something and you share it with somebody else, and they become successful with that knowledge,” said Cella.

This applies to both the classroom and the football field. He believes that coaching is like an extension of the classroom. Cella has coached football for 40 years and baseball for about seven.

Cella’s favorite thing about teaching is when a student’s eyes get big and they finally understand. His students say that he has fun and creative ways to get them to learn. Cella is a visual person so he draws a lot of examples on the board and gets his students to draw too in order to help them learn math. He wants them to use as many of their senses as possible to help them learn. His least favorite thing about teaching is getting up early. Most of his students would agree!

In his free time, Cella likes boating and playing golf. He is not very good at golf, but is working on it. There are people in the world who pick up golf easily, but he is not one of them. It doesn’t bother him because he understands what needs to be done; it’s the same way for students who don’t understand math. They both just need to work harder.

Cella is an all around loved teacher by his students, teams and fellow staff and we’re lucky to have such a hardworking teacher at St. Dominic.