Sundaram Thirukkurungudi, better known by his nickname, Mr. T, is well known for his appearances in Lightridge pop culture. There is a Mr. T fan account on Instagram and Mr. T-shirts sold as part of a fundraiser last year. He has become quite the icon at both Lightridge and the Academies of Science, where he previously taught.
Born in Tamil Nadu, India and he’s the only Assistant Principal at Lightridge born outside of the United States. To this day he still owns an apartment in India and has to pay taxes there. When Mr. T came to the US he expected everyone to only speak English, but was surprised about how diverse it was. He said the most difficult thing about moving to the US was adjusting to the accent.
“I had an Indian accent plus a British accent and neither worked,” he recalled.
Another factor that made the transition difficult was trying to get a job. Because of his education and work history he was a high demand employee and many schools wanted to hire him, but he wasn’t yet approved to work in the United States. After he finally got his provisional license he began working at Academies of Loudoun and after 13 years, he joined the Lightridge faculty.
Outside of working in the education Mr. T has held many odd jobs including copying photos, cleaning clothes, building stages for a theater, working in a motorcycle shop, and dealing cards for a club.
Mr. T always had an interest in philosophy, but decided it wasn’t realistic for him to get a well paying career in the field so he decided to focus on physics, chemistry, and math. At first he struggled with those subjects because he had difficulty reading letters and numbers. Later he was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. Instead of being limited by the disorders, he adapted. He would solve a problem three to four different ways until all the answers converged up to the correct answer. Though he didn’t always get the best grades, this method gave him an advantage in exams.
Thirukkurungudi has always loved learning. Though he already has four college degrees, he shared,“If you just gave me money and said go to college, I would go for my whole life.”
He has also been very involved with sports. Mr. T both competed in and coached boxing. He also coached lacrosse, cross country, soccer, and even led a Mid-Atlantic youth cricket team to nationals.
His experience in sports and administration got him a job as the senior housemaster at a large private school in Dubai. He eventually decided to part ways with the school since he “didn’t fit in well in a police state.”
For Mr. T, having a family was never an issue with his career. He has always helped his wife cook and take care of the house. He even took off three years from work to raise his daughter when his wife got a software job in the US.
