As the year comes to a close, it’s time to say goodbye to a special teacher who has impacted not only Cathedral Catholic High School, but the University of San Diego High School as well. Mr. Daniel Wilson, Algebra 2 and Geometry teacher, will be retiring after 47 years with the Dons family.

An alum of the Uni class of 1964, Mr. Wilson decided that he wanted to be a teacher his junior year of high school. Though priests at Uni showed him life at the seminary, he decided against becoming a priest.

After Uni, Mr. Wilson attended the University of San Diego and graduated in 1968.

Before his teaching career kicked off, Mr. Wilson had a variety of odd jobs. When he was a kid, he worked at gas stations as well as a Jack In The Box. Later on, he worked as an electrician, which taught him a lot about algebra and word problems. He also installed spas and worked at a print shop.

Before teaching full-time at Uni, Mr. Wilson taught summer school at La Jolla Country Day. He taught Math, Christian Marriage, Computer Programming (just when home computers first came out), and AP Computer Science. After teaching a few computer science courses, he decided that he wanted to solely teach math.

 A young man of only 21, Mr. Wilson began his teaching career at Uni in September 1967.

While at Uni, Mr. Wilson served as the El Cid moderator in addition to teaching math. Because El Cid was not a class back then, it required a lot of after-school hours that Mr. Wilson spent with his students, writing articles and laying out the paper. Mr. Wilson still communicates with some of his El Cid students, many of which went on to become journalists. One student even wrote an article for the San Diego Union Tribune that gave a shout-out to Mr. Wilson. 

One of Mr. Wilson’s most memorable events during his time as El Cid moderator was winning the San Diego County Journalism Competition. El Cid entered each year and was unsuccessful in the beginning, but won in later years. Mr. Wilson said he “loved working with the kids.”

Mr. Wilson was also in charge of a fundraising event at Uni, the Chocolate Drive, for three years. During this time he was lovingly nicknames “Willy Wilson.”

Though he will no longer be on campus each day, Mr. Wilson says that he wants to attend football and basketball games, and is still planning on having a social life with his friends at Cathedral. “We have really good people here,” he said.

In his retirement, Mr. Wilson wants to rent a motor home and spend an entire year going around U.S. “There are places I wanna go and things I wanna see.” He said. He has also always wanted to climb the Statue of Liberty.

As he departs from the CCHS family, Mr. Wilson leaves a touching farewell: “This school has so much to offer, and I am not one of those old people that thinks the world is a terrible thing. I see a great future here.”