High school was a maturing, enjoyable four years that I came to realize was not the case for some students. To my surprise and unpreparedness, I was voted freshman class president—and survived.

 

With lingering effects from rheumatic fever contacted 15 months earlier, participation in sports was delayed. Wanting to be part of the team effort, I served as manager that year for football and basketball. When spring had sprung, Dr. Edmund Sorenson permitted me to join the varsity baseball team. There was hope for more in the years ahead. 

 

Sophomore year brought some disappointment, when he forbade me to go out for football, But with winter came relief, and the doctor permitted me to play basketball at four-minute intervals. Given eight-minute quarters, I made the most of those 16-minutes on the court.

 

The junior and senior years included full-time participation in four sports–football, basketball, baseball, track and field. These were glorious years, in which I held down a full-time summer job (49-hours a week), earned all-conference honors, and ran in the State Track Meet on the Camp Randall track at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in which the Elks made a formidable showing with more to follow. 

 

Still, there was life beyond sports, as I joined clubs and had significant roles in both the junior and senior plays. I thrived on the stage and acting. You can read about those times in the pages of these chapters.

 

My upperclass years were highlighted by being selected as one of two boys to attend Badger Boys State at Ripon College the summer after my junior year. The senior year concluded in receiving a scholarship to attend Beloit College and being awarded the American Legion Medal for the top male athlete in the Class of 1957. 

 

These, indeed, were “Happy Days” though not the highlight of life that afflicts many high school sports standouts. 

 

Yes, “there is life after high school” to take from the best selling book by Ralph Keyes and Broadway musical staged by Robert Nigro.