My dad's autobiography has taken us from his childhood to high school and World War II. Now, we’ve reached the section where he attended college on the GI Bill. Once again, sports played a major role in his life—no surprise, as he later became a coach.
Sports have always been a strong thread in our family. My son, Travis, was also a sports guy. Whenever the family gathered for meals, he and my dad would sit next to each other, deep in conversation about sports. While Travis didn’t follow in my dad’s footsteps as a coach, he earned a degree in Sports Administration and now works in the industry with the Houston Dynamo soccer team.
I also graduated from Western Michigan University, but my decision to attend had nothing to do with my dad being an alumnus. To be honest, I chose Western because it allowed me to step away from my responsibilities at home and gain independence.
Today, my husband and I live in Kalamazoo, and I’ve enjoyed learning more about my dad's time here. I chuckled when I read his description of Milham Golf Course as being "in the middle of nowhere, out in the country." That’s certainly no longer the case, which is a testament to how much Kalamazoo has grown over the years.
Western Michigan University—known as Western State Normal School when my dad attended—has changed a lot since I graduated. However, many of the places he mentioned are still here, including Oakland Gym, Vandercook Hall, Walwood Hall, and Waldo Stadium. Today, this area is known as East Campus. West Campus, where I took most of my classes, has since become the larger part of WMU. The fieldhouse, named after Coach Buck Reed, is now known as Reed Fieldhouse.
I hope you enjoy reminiscing with my dad and I about our time at Western Michigan University. Go Broncos!
THE
COLLEGE YEARS 1946-1950
That summer before entering Western Michigan
on the GI Bill I enjoyed a couple of months of complete freedom. Gord McIlvride and I played a lot of golf
together and surprise of surprise we jointly took dance lessons at Arthur
Murray studios in Detroit. After each
dance session we would go over to Don McIlvride’s house and practice our dance
steps with Don’s mother “Birdie.” I
think she enjoyed it as much or more than we did. Neither Gord nor I had a girlfriend and thus
if it hadn’t been for “Birdie” that summer we never would have been able to
practice the dance steps we were trying to learn.
In the fall of 1946, I set out for
Kalamazoo and 4 years of Higher Education.
I had made up my mind I wanted to get a major in Physical Education and
become a Coach. My folks would take me
to enroll and occasionally pick me up when semester breaks, etc. came along but
for the most part I would get a ride with other students who lived nearby or
hitch hike back and forth. In those days,
a good number of college students especially used this method to get to and
from college. Today it is unthinkable to
hitch a ride and unsafe to pick up a hitch hiker. In those days we followed highway 12 to
Kalamazoo as Interstate 94 was not yet built.
One of the highlights when Mom and Dad drove to get me was to stop at
Schuler’s Restaurant in Marshall to enjoy a sumptuous meal. It was and still is considered one of the top
restaurants in Michigan.
My freshman year was pretty much without
highlights. I remember doing very well
scholastically especially pulling a B plus-A minus in Rhetoric (freshman
English) which was a complete surprise to me as English was not a strong point
for me in high school. To recount my
college years in any organized sequence is almost impossible for me to recall
having occurred over 50 years ago so with the reader’s indulgence I will
present memories of my college years in no order as I best remember them.
Athletics
My first year I thought I’d give baseball
a try as a call for candidates was issued and over 100 students turned out in a
dingy, musty, dirt floor room in the basement of the old gym on Oakland Drive,
on a cold January day. The first day we
played catch back and forth and that was pretty much it. The second day we got to field 3 ground balls
and fire them back to the catcher standing next to the instructor hitting the
grounders. That was it and they invited
5 or 6 guys for further tryouts and the rest of us were free to give it another
shot when they started outdoors. I could
see the handwriting on the wall and that ended my baseball career. Western had a fantastic baseball team in
those years and regularly played top teams in the Midwest including Michigan,
Michigan State, and Notre Dame. One of
their outstanding players was 2nd baseman Wayne Terrwilliger who
later played some ball for the Minnesota Twins and became a Manager and coach
serving several Major League teams in a career that spanned over 50 years.
I tried out for the golf team as a
freshman but was unsuccessful in this also.
I played intramural golf for a couple of years on the old Gateway College
9-hole course until it was abandoned to make room for the new campus being
built to the West of the present one. I
played a lot at Milham Golf Course which was out in the middle of nowhere in
the country. One year I missed the
championship flight of the City tournament by 2 strokes and was ousted 2 and 1
in the first flight semi-finals after winning my first two matches.
During the winter season I participated in
intramural bowling one year, but my biggest enjoyment came in attending the basketball
games in the old Oakland Gym. Buck Reed,
one of my favorite teachers and coaches of all time, was the basketball coach
and the Broncos played some of the top college teams in the country every year and
appeared every year in a game at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Teams
that appeared regularly on the schedule were Cincinnati, Bowling Green, Loyola
of Chicago, Bradley, and Michigan. Some
of the top individuals I saw included Pete Elliott and Mack Supranovich, of
Michigan, one of the first 7-foot big man of his day from Bowling Green, and
Arnie Ferrin, an All American from Utah, who appeared in Kalamazoo the year
after they won the National Championship.
The one game that stands out to me in my 4
years in Kalamazoo was an early January game when Michigan, with one of their
best teams in years, visited Western.
Harold Gensichen was a 5-10 guard from Indiana in his senior year for
Western who scored 30 points against the Wolverines in a 2-point win for the
Broncos. Gensichen went on to play
professional ball for a couple of years but contracted a fatal disease and died
early in life. He is a member of the
Western Hall of Fame and I think was the greatest player inch for inch I have
ever personally seen. I attended many
practices to bone up on my coaching skills, but also to marvel at Gensichen’s
fantastic skills.
Buck Reed was not only a great coach but a
tremendous teacher. He had a master’s degree in English from Columbia
University in New York and served a term as President of the College Basketball
Coaches Association. I especially
enjoyed when he was invited to our education classes and expounded on his
theory that students should be treated with “An Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove.”
This was in an era when progressive education was the vogue in which everything
was student centered and in essence the student could do no wrong. Good old “Buck” drove the education experts
crazy with his iron fist theory and had the know how to back his argument up in
convincing fashion.
The last couple of years I bowled with a
town team on Friday nights in Galesburg. Bill Kampen, who worked in an office
in Kalamazoo, and I met somewhere along the way and he introduced me to the
other guys on the bowling team. Bill and
I also formed the battery on a predominately Greek softball team in the
summer. I pitched; Bill caught. Bill and I also attended several of the
Sutherland Paper Company’s Amateur baseball team games that represented
Kalamazoo in the National Tournament held in Battle Creek in those days. Sutherland won the tourney one year and
always was in contention. They had some
college stars as well as former minor league players on their team. After the softball games several of the players
would gather at the Victory Grill in downtown Kalamazoo to drink beer, down
some food, and play table shuffleboard which was the rage in those days. The owner of the Victory Grill was a roly,
poly Greek named George who was a spitting image of Lou Costello of Costello
and Abbott fame. Other good friends we met because of our softball caper were
Gus and Midge Chumas. Gus was owner of
his own business, Chumas Electric, and the couple had a son Paul then a 14–15-year-old
first baseman. Paul whom I hadn’t seen
in 45-50 years is a member of our present (2007) church, St Michael’s in
Portage.
Another spring activity that was school
related was working at some of the track meets Western hosted as part of our
Track Theory course I was taking. The
one competitor I remember most was Hayes Jones of Eastern Michigan who later
became an Olympic Hurdles Champion.
Also, I never missed a home football game. Western struggled in football during my four
years there. They had perhaps their best
team one year when they traveled to Illinois, the 2nd or 3rd
game of the season, and were annihilated 69-13 and lost their best player Chuck
Schoolmaster, a 255# linebacker, for the season with a broken leg and the team
went downhill the rest of the season. I never could figure why Western insisted
on playing out of their class then as now, but “Money Talks” and smaller
schools can make enough money in one trip to a major school than they might
make in 2-3 home games. One of the stars
on the football team in those days was Allen Bush who later became Director of
the Michigan High School Athletic Association which overlooks the athletic
program for the 700 plus high schools and junior high schools in Michigan. Another classmate of mine was Verne Norris
who replaced Al Bush when he retired.
Housing and Social Life
The first two years I roomed in a home,
off campus, across the tracks near Kalamazoo College. My roommate was a tall stricken from Cadillac
MI named Arden Tiley. Although he was
almost an exact opposite of me especially where sports were concerned, we got
along very well usually always eating together, going to movies, and the
like. Speaking of eating, our favorite place
was Schensul’s Cafeteria. For lunch we could get a good meal for 35cents
believe it or not. In the evening we
would frequently go to the Rex Café located next to the State Theater. This was another Greek Restaurant that served
excellent meals at a very economical cost.
On weekends we would scour the local paper for Church dinners of which
there were many. We especially liked
Lutheran Church dinners which featured the best of German food. The third year I roomed in temporary barracks
west of town on the new campus being built. I remember one week we were quarantined
because an outbreak of a communicable disease, which I’m not sure was Scarlett
Fever, Chicken Pox, something like that.
My senior year I moved into Vandercook Hall, the principal boy’s dorm on
campus, where several of my friends resided.
Don McIlvride my old high school friend, Ora Weeks, Carl Ruff, Jim
Egner, and Roger Semrau to name a few.
I dated a couple of gals from the girl’s
dorm, Walwood Hall, down the street from Vandercook, but nothing serious as I
kept busy with the above activities when I didn’t have to study. As far as studies, I had a great deal of
trouble with science classes such as Kinesiology, Biology, Anatomy, etc. which
were necessary for a Physical Education Degree. I breezed through the Social
Science classes and the Physical Education classes with A’s and B’s. My average in the science course was C or
worse. I ended up with a PE Major, a
Social Science Minor, a Biology minor, and a BA degree. The only science classes I taught were Jr. Hi
health classes. No way was I qualified
to teach any other sciences.
My junior year when I was bowling with
Bill Kampen and the town team, they scheduled a match with a woman’s team that
some of the guys were acquaintances with.
I don’t remember the outcome of the match, but I struck up a friendship
with one of the women, Stella Manski, a good ole polish gal, who was not only a
good bowler, but a good golfer who later after I graduated became a legend in
Kalamazoo Women’s golf and was several times City Women’s champion not to
mention an attractive lady. I dated her
quite steadily through the remaining year and a half I was in Kalamazoo. I still didn’t drive, and she had a Plymouth
convertible and would pick me up at Vandercook and take off. Our dates were mostly on Saturday nights and
a favorite place of ours was the Gull Lake Casino where we would eat and then
dance to a live orchestra. This was
really the first time I was able to put my dance lessons to use. I never did learn to do the jitterbug dances
but was decent on a fox trot and waltz.
Stella taught me to do the polka and it remained a favorite dance of
mine through the years. After graduating
I returned to see her once, but we never got together again and although she is
still living and resides west of Portage on a lake, I’ve never run into her in
the 16 years I’ve retired and moved to the area. We parted on amicable terms (I think?) and it
was more of a friendly relationship and never a romantic one at least on my
part.
One event which took place each winter and
I almost forgot about was an Annual Milk Fund basketball game involving the
Harlem Globetrotters and a local All Star college team from Western, K College,
Hope, Calvin, Michigan State, and a few other area colleges. When Harold Gensichen played the All Stars
defeated the Globe Trotters. Gensichen
poured in 30 points and the Globetrotters were forced to play a serious game which
limited their antics considerably.
Graduation
Well, the Day of Graduation arrived one
June Saturday in 1950, which I almost missed. The ceremonies were held in Waldo Stadium next to Vandercook Hall and I
guess I celebrated too much the night before and the Band marching into the
stadium woke me up. I don’t recall that
I even bothered to shave as I scurried around to dress and take my place in the
graduate’s line. I made it and received
my diploma and as I recall stopped at Schuler’s in Marshall on the way home for
a post graduate feast.
Summertime 1950
The summer following graduation I decided
to go to summer school and work on my graduate hours as I needed ten hours in
the first five years to retain my teaching degree. Also, I didn’t have a job and figured I’d
have a better chance at a job by staying in school and checking the placement
bulletins in the placement office. As it
turned out I was taking a course with Bob Dunnavan, Superintendent at Brethren,
MI, a tiny town located between Manistee and Cadillac and 45 miles south of
Traverse City. I found out he was looking for a social studies teacher and
assistant coach in Basketball and Varsity Baseball coach and gladly accepted
the job when offered to me at a salary of $2700. So, on a Sunday in late August I set out for
Kalamazoo to meet another first-year teacher, Sherwood Suter, who was an Art
Teacher. Still not owning a car, I was
dependent on my brother, Hank, to get me to Kalamazoo and Sherwood to get me to
Brethren.
First Job
When we arrived in Brethren it had a
couple grocery stores, a gas station, a post office, a couple of bait shops, a
high school, and an elementary school.
We met our third roommate, a first-year science teacher, Bill Makosky,
from Walled Lake area of Michigan, and rented a house next to the post office
owned by long time Brethren Junior High Teacher Gladys Flaherty. On Wednesday morning around 8 AM I was
shaving in preparation for the first day of teacher meetings when Supt.
Dunnavan knocked on the door and informed me he had some bad news. My Dad died last night, and I was to meet my
mother in Marquette. What a shock. I had no idea he was anywhere near death,
although he had been forced to leave his job and was ailing at home the past
couple of months. When I said goodbye to him the previous Sunday it was like
any other time that I left home to tromp off somewhere. Mrs. Dunnavan drove me to the bus station in
Manistee where I hopped a Greyhound for Marquette. This was not the way you want to start a
teaching career, but life goes on.
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