Holy Ghost Prep was founded by Father John Tuohill Murphy, C.S.Sp. In 1897 as Holy Ghost Apostolic College, a preparatory school and junior-college seminary for young men studying to become members of the religious order of the Holy Ghost Fathers and Brothers. In the 1950s, the school started to move its college-level program to Duquesne University and opened its doors to non-seminarians in 1959 for the first time. In 1967, the seminary program was discontinued, and a year later Holy Ghost Preparatory School was formed as a non-profit institution. In the 1990s, the school began a long-range planning process, which resulted in significant structural enhancements to the campus, and today its enrollment consists entirely of non-resident college-bound students. Since the arrival of Gregory J. Geruson, a 1979 alum, as the school's first lay president in 2015, the school has experienced numerous changes. The school's "Vision 2020" Strategic Plan has resulted in the building of a new STEM Tower. Step One of the STEM Tower, the Brennan Innovation Center, opened in August 2017. The rest of the STEM Tower was completed in time for the start of the 2018-19 school year. In early 2018, the school also opened the Holt Center, which includes a performing arts center, a multi-purpose gymnasium, music instruction rooms, and special training areas for baseball, track and field, golf, lacrosse, and rowing. The Holt Center serves Holy Ghost students but also will be available to community groups. Although the school has added many improvements, enrollment has declined under Geruson's leadership, which led to significant budget cuts in 2019.
HGP has many interscholastic and intramural sports teams. Major sports include basketball, baseball, ultimate frisbee, bowling, soccer, swimming, lacrosse, hockey, tennis, cross country, rowing golf, and track and field. Athletic facilities on campus include seven fields for various sports, a fieldhouse holding an auditorium and gymnasium, an all-weather track, as well as a new facility, named "The Holt Center", containing a performing arts theater, music studios, gym, batting cages, as well as a room for the rowing team. Holy Ghost Prep is a member of the Bicentennial Athletic League. The Firebirds have a tradition of excellence in all sports. There have been seven Pennsylvania state champions in school history: the 1972 and 1974 basketball teams, the 1992 soccer team, and, most recently, the 2011 tennis team. In 2013 and 2014, the soccer team won the PIAA state championship. In 2015, the hockey team won its first state championship. J.R. McIlwain won the 400m in 1992 PIAA state track championships and followed that with the 800m title in 1993. Holy Ghost Preparatory School also added a rowing team in the Fall of 2015. In November 2019, it was announced that Holy Ghost Prep would leave the Bicentennial Athletic League after the 2019-2020 academic year, and compete as an independent program while maintaining its membership with the PIAA and District One.
Notable alumni
Kevin Collins, actor and voice-over artist who appeared in TV shows, such as Law & Order, Guiding Light, and All My Children, Steven Spielberg's film Munich and starred in Jamil Dehlavi's Infinite Justice.
