Chapters from "TIME TRIALS"
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Transition to College
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College was not for the faint-hearted in the 1950s: dorm living sparse, classes rigorous (certainly at Beloit), high grades awarded sparingly, and social services limited. There was little “hand-holding,” and all but the gifted survived on grit and perseverance. My freshman year was a defining learning experience that I endured and was on the path to becoming a student, but certainly not a scholar.
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In a typical class of 20 students, at Beloit and similar colleges during the 1950s and early 1960s, three, maybe four would earn an “A”. Grade inflation in response to family demands and faculty weariness has distorted the integrity of student evaluation.
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The situation on campuses these days also is different in other ways. Students receive more amenities, particularly mental health services, and campuses have become entertainment centers with food courts and elaborate recreational venues. Much of this is a result of students who have been sheltered by overprotective parents. It adds considerably to the cost of a college education that has spiraled beyond the national inflation rate.
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Middle College Building
At a time when some people, including Presidential candidates, call for free-college education, I have doubts about such policies primarily because much learning is not genuinely educational. Our universities have relentlessly become “glorified vocational schools” in response to a perceived decline in global competitiveness and emphasis on technical job skills. A more serious need, however, is our declining civility and civic ability to nurture a republic. Our democracy is under attack from within and in intensive care.
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I would be inclined to subsidize learning for college students, if the liberal arts were taken more seriously in undergraduate schools, particularly if the entertainment agendas were reduced and the academic environment more rigorous. Such was standard when I was an undergraduate at a four-year college. Even then, a couple generations ago, our big universities were more dedicated to scholarship. With an increase in the number of high school graduates attending the university, its curriculum has become debased.
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We have been seduced by the idea that for one to succeed in our economy, college is a requirement, even if the individual is not inclined towards academic study. Our nation’s need for skilled trades people is at least as great as for the technically trained. With the decline in general education and sway of an entertainment culture, America, as described by social critics, has become a nation of nitwits.
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Wanting to get my studies on a firm course, I set aside athletics in the fall but joined the freshman basketball team that winter and track & field in the spring. At the time, freshmen were not permitted to play varsity sports. In becoming a SAE, I met mostly great, but all-white guys, and looked forward to living in the fraternity house as a sophomore.
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Freshmen Pledges gather around SAE Lion - 840 College Ave - 1958
Left to right: Dennis Hodge, Harv Flodin, Jeff Napier, Gary Sharp, Don Bonnum, Rich Ebens, Frank McClellan, Bob Houdek, RVS (kneeling)
SAE pledge class 1957-58
Top row: Byrkit, Booth, Hodges, Ebens, Albrecht, Houdek, Flodin, Herberts
Bottom row: Bonnum, Van Scotter, Swanson, Sharpe, Napier, Marchetti
Freshman, men and women, subsisted in separate dorms and ate meals in dining halls. As a freshman, I roomed with Frank McClellan in North Hall that by today’s standards was grim, rudimentary living. At the time, Beloit’s students were politically conservative. This would change dramatically in a few years.
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A few of my freshman cohorts struggled with the transition from high school to college, but I found playing basketball in the winter a relief from the grind of academic classes. I started in the backcourt on the freshman team, but Beloit has a storied history in basketball having played in the NIT (National Invitational Tournament) at the Madison Square Gardens in New York City earlier in the decade. Securing playing time on the varsity as a sophomore would be challenging even with self-confidence and a generous view of my ability on the hard court. Nevertheless, my game improved.
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Track and field in the spring was somewhat different as the college hosted the Beloit Relays, a premier event for Midwest colleges, complete with a queen and her court. There I teamed up with Harv Flodin, a fraternity brother, great sprinter, and lifelong friend. Our freshman coach Carl Nelson also was head varsity football coach, whom I suspect saw promise in me for next fall. I ran the dashes, long jumped, and a leg on sprint relay teams including the quarter mile in the 4x440-yard relay. The quarter mile was a new venture from high school, where the mile relay was not part of the established Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) track and field program yet.
Beloit College's Strong Stadium
I appreciated running the oval, even thinking that I might have ability at longer distances. Roger would find the same true as a freshman at Marquette the next year. Recruited for 100 and 220-yard dashes along with sprint relays and long jump, he also would run a leg on the 4x440-yard relay team.
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By the school year’s end, I was in the academic groove looking forward to a new year and anticipating varsity athletics as a sophomore. Final exams as a freshman, and throughout my four undergraduate years, were demanding and commanding.
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As I walked from Morris-Ingersoll Hall after my last final exam of the year with a spring in my gait, I knew that I had written a compelling English essay. This was the first time experiencing the grace, if not elegance, of writing. We drilled on the mechanics of grammar in high school and dipped into classical literature but did virtually no composition. What writing I did in those four years was clunky, stilted, and pedestrian. But college required me to “put pen to paper,” and I thrived on the experience.
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Roger, throughout our youth, being a couple inches shorter, five pounds lighter, and 11½ months younger, was at least my equal in athletics. His senior year of high school, however, was nearly “off the charts.” He dominated the Elks’ football team in offensive production, was conference scoring leader, a tenacious defensive back, and named the Southern Lakes’ Most Valuable Player at season’s end. His 15 touchdowns in just eight games included spectacular kick returns and pass receptions.
Roger football running back 1957
That fall, he also was honorable mention on the All-State Football Team, as Bob had been 12 years earlier.
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Basketball was much the same, as the Elks won the SLC title and captured the regional tournament consolation prize over Beloit Memorial High. This was a balanced team with three juniors—Don Koepnick, Bill Lock, and Tom Wescott—along with seniors Platts and Van Scotter in the starting line-up. Junior Bob Wolf was the first reserve off the bench. Coach Suchy’s leadership was reaching fruition.
The big prize came in the spring, when the track team ran away with the SLC championship on the Whitewater State college track, swamped the sectional field at Whitefish Bay High, and won the 1958 State Class B title at Ripon. The Camp Randall cinder track, after the 1957 season, had been dug up to expand football seating capacity. Our 4x220-yard relay team that year had run the final event on its classic university track.
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As the state track finals in 1958 approached, I suggested to Coach Marv Fruth that he scrap the sprint relay event and have Roger run both the 100-yard and 220-yard dashes. The relay team wasn’t a winner, and he could set individual records. At that time, Wisconsin high school athletes could compete only in a combination of three track and field events, including relays in major meets. In that he was a top broad jumper in the state, this meant choosing between the relay and a second individual running event.
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My reasoning was sound, but proved to be wrong. That season during my spring break from college, Coach Fruth had Bill Riese and me run on a make-shift relay team against the Elks’ foursome that had cruised through the outdoor season. I say “outdoor” because this group finished third at the Madison West Invitational two months earlier to open the track season. This early meet that drew teams from across the state to the UW indoor track was billed as the indoor championship.
The previous year with Riese and me opening up and securing the lead after two laps, we sailed to a Class B meet record at the West Relays. Roger had a clear track to run from the field.
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Such was not the case in 1958, when Gary Ellsworth and Jon Platts replaced Bill and me. In the Madison West indoor event, the Elks were back of the field after their legs on the tight three-lane track. Ron Pearsall running the third leg held his own, but this left Roger with a herd of runners to pass. He could not get past all, shortening his stride on the back stretch to stay afoot with no outside lane to circumvent the field.
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In the tune-up relay race early that spring, when I was home from college, Bill and I ran the lead-off legs on an alternate team. He had not been training and ran in tennis shoes. Still, we passed the baton to our third runner with a comfortable lead. Watching Ron Pearsall bolt out then seeing Roger explode down the track, spectators got a view of what was possible. My point, however, was that as a group, the relay runners in 1958 were not in the same league as the year before.
The 1957 880-yard relay foursome was Elkhorn’s only undefeated one. In 1956, we placed second at the state meet, and the 1958 group ran third at the Madison West event.
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That final weekend in the State Meet at Ripon College proved my predictive power fallible. Yes, Roger won both the broad jump (22’ 9½”) and 100-yard (10.1 into a slight headwind and on a wet track), but the relay foursome ran to victory in a Class B record time of 1:32.7. Marv Fruth caught Roger in 20.3 seconds for his furlong, a superb time that can offset limitations of others. Consider that Jesse Owens held the high school 220-yard record with 20.7 seconds. Roger, of course, had the advantage of a running start inspired by a team effort.
1958 State Track Champions
Roger wins Whitefish Bay High Sectional Track Meet 100-yard dash
into a strong headwind.
Rather than “eat crow,” I was proud of the guys, but it almost wasn’t a triumphant ending. In the sectional qualifying meet at Whitefish Bay, a Milwaukee community on Lake Michigan, the Elks were razor close to being disqualified in the sprint relay. In their exchange, Ellsworth and Platts ill-timed the handoff. Jon was about to be out of the 20-yard passing zone, when Roger hollered for him to stop. It was an inept exchange, but no foul, and the foursome would go on to win the race and team sectional title. Roger had bailed them out.
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Still, I wonder what might have been had our 1957 relay team competed on a firm, dry track. The 1956 team with Bill Ward, a football lineman, ran a second and a half slower than the 1958 group—1:32.7 to 1:34.3. Riese, Pearsall, Roger, and me in 1957 likely would have taken another second or more off the 1958 time, particularly given a year of maturity. A 1:31.0 would have been an all-time state record regardless of class. Such is dreaming!
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The summer of ’58 involved hard work and casual play around the lakes. I looked forward to returning to college in the fall. In early August, I received a crisp letter from varsity Coach Carl Nelson inviting me out for football in a few weeks.
I took on demanding work with Magill and Wilkes Construction Co. to earn more money for college. As a byproduct, this enhanced my physical condition for sports.
Our work involved a major project constructing the Wickes Lumber Yard located west of town midway to Delavan. The company was headquartered in Saginaw, Michigan, and this was its first venture into Wisconsin. Wickes had a deep history in making boilers, a division that gave way to the more profitable lumber business.
It was a one-stop supply place for builders that soon would dwarf local lumber yards. By the early 1970s, Wickes encountered management issues and was sold to a British firm. The business was a forerunner to Home Depot and Lowes megastores. Our economic landscape was changing.
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Working construction was rigorous being out in the summer sun for eight or more hours with seasoned, strong men in their twenties. For whatever reasons—academics, money, timidity—they were not “college material.” While I sensed a respect for my work ethic, I felt some resentment because I was in college playing sports that these guys, good athletes among them, were on the lifelong track, as Coach Suchy warned, of arduous work.
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Elkhorn had its share of talented high school athletes, who either didn’t go to college, shied away from the challenge of college athletics, or tried but didn’t succeed. Those who succeeded where students first at Division III colleges, as they came to be known: Bob Sorenson ’47 (Lawrence), Bob Morrissey ’47 (St. Norbert), Frank Eames ’47 (Beloit), Jerry Hart ’51 (Lawrence), Wayne Welch ’51 (UW-Lacrosse), Jerry Nettesheim ’54 (St. Norbert), Jon Platts ’58 (UW-Whitewater), Don Koepnick ’59 (UW-River Falls), and Bill Lock ’59 (UW-Stevens Point).
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A few played at the Division I level including Robert Piper ’42, Gerald Welch ’53, and Richard Grimm ’55 in football at UW-Madison. Piper went directly from high school to Madison and was in the backfield with Elroy Hirsch and Pat Harder, both All-Americans who went on to distinguished professional careers in the National Football League. Welch and Grimm enrolled as freshman then spent two years in the Army and Marines, respectively, beefing up and getting stronger, before returning to the Badgers. Welch was on the offensive line and Grimm a two-way tackle. At 248 pounds, Jerry was the Badgers’ heaviest guy. Dick at ‘6’2 went from a svelte 175 in high school to 200 pounds “soaking wet”.
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One notable basketball player from the era, George “Toby” Clauer ’51, teammate of Jerry Hart, was recruited at the University of Wisconsin but stayed just one semester. Toby basked in the glory of his high school days, as a standout in football as well as basketball, but not in the classroom. He left the Badger team in midseason returning to Elkhorn, where he remained working as a plant manager at Getzen’s brass instrument company on S. Geneva Street. Toby died in 2009. Some claim that Elkhorn High is a “basketball school,” but no players have succeeded at a big-time sports level.
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A decade later, Tom Findreng ’67 was recruited to play at the University of Maryland. It didn’t work out. In time, he returned home to UW-Parkside, a Division II school located north of Kenosha.
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Roger excelled both as a student and athlete at the D1 level for Marquette University in track. He also had been recruited by Wisconsin and the University of New Mexico. As Coach Suchy remarked that given his physical stature had he been somewhat bigger, major universities would have sought out his football talents. The game was not yet wide open in an era that valued bulk over speed. This was particularly so at Wisconsin under head coach Milt Bruhn, himself a left guard at Minnesota on Big Ten champion teams in the mid-1930s.
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What separated Roger from many other athletes was his ability to handle college course work. When Marquette reported athletes’ grades at the end of his freshman year, Roger had a 3.9 G.P.A., highest of all.
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Wes Erskine, Wickes’ plant manager, offered me employment for the following summer. I was pleased to have a good job lined up. This is work that I would have for the next three years.