Memories… et Lessons?

Dwayne Hunn

Storing Ignatius memories started around the 5th grade.

Watching Ken LaVergne play basketball at lunch time on St. Charles’s asphalt schoolyard, where the backboards were plated against the brick back wall, this impressionable 10 year old decided LaVergne was really cool. Wherever he went to school, I figured was also really cool.

Years later, maybe thanks to daily Mass and Communions or maybe due to St. Charles’s Father Duffy’s influence, the ninth grade found me climbing Iggie‘s creaky stairs. Sure, the angry glare of Father Kleinheitz dominated the entry way. Sure, the Dean of Discipline kept us silently stair climbing between classes, but on the other side of the warden’s stair-climbers was Senior LaVergne.

Of course, LaVergne was quiet too. But KL’s smile was the antonym to Fr. K’s glare. In a typical stair climbing week, LaVergne must have added a thousand winks to that smile and when he saw me I was certain that one was especially for me. A wink was about all the energy he could afford for all those who thought he was more than just “really cool,” for he had to conserves something for Iggie basketball, baseball, and football.

A bunch of us got lucky from St. Charles—Kellner, Sprosty, etc. and my jocular buddies Horstman, Rozman, and Kornaker. We got our chance to go to a very special school.

In one of those very first classes, one of those Jebbie scholastics reminded us of one of St. I’s special attributes, “If you're not ready to do at least three hours of homework a night, go home today and tell your parents to pull you out of school now, so they can save the money they're going to waste on you -- who won't make it here."

Not wanting to waste my parents’ hard-earned money, I did not go out for freshman football on opening day. Suffering from youthful indecisiveness, I did put on some used cleats and go out about three weeks later to find myself standing around. Standing around has never been one of my fortes, so I quit and went back to spending those hours on homework.

Don't ask me whether I remember what happened on the Seven Hills of Rome, what a quadratic equation is, how to diagram a sentence, the religious tenants presented in class, the physics I learned from a wheel, chemistry taken from a vial, or…

If any of that remains in my head, it's hiding in some cavern and, hopefully, comes forward when I need it.

But ask me about something visual, physical, or people-centric --- the physical presence of a coach like Big John Braucher or Ab Strosnider, or an athletic challenge or fight, or going into to Mr. Baumer and Mr. Johnson's room for talks, or talking and partying for hours with Fordham’s Fr. Johnson years later in New York prior to departing for the slums of India, Blackwell's spitballs, the “Jungle’s” ill manners…

Those memories are still in the frontal lobe and on the tip of my tongue. Their lessons still serve as a strange paddle while rubber rafting through the currents of life.

Some of those Iggie memories and oaring lessons follow.

In August of my sophomore year, along with about 100 other guys, I rode the dilapidated yellow school bus to that Brookside Park parking lot, walked across the little bridge, and started running near the ball diamond to that far corner football field. We all hid our lemons among the bushes in that era, when drinking water during physical activity was not good for you, or meant you were a wuss, or sumptin even less likely to survive a Logic 101 dissection.

Nonetheless, after 90 or so minutes of sweating, we all looked forward to sucking it up with a lemon in the shade of a bush.

Mixed in with all the high school wannabe jocks was a platoon of coaches. We all knew John Wirtz and Ab Strosnider. But Ignatius had just hired a new junior varsity coach and no one seemed to know who he was. Parched of mouth and sweaty of body, I wasn't that interested in knowing who the coaches were. I was concentrating on moving the blocking sled, picking the ball up in the pit, blocking, tackling, sprinting, and figuring out the system. What did it matter who the JV coach was?

After a couple weeks of practice, all the still standing sophomores were pulled aside. Into our circle strides this 6’6” guy who says, "I'm John Braucher. I'm your coach. I've been watching…." It took some time for a guy who didn’t play any freshman ball to realize how meaningful that stealth coaching style would be.

Braucher’s Iggie lesson: Resumes don't matter. What you do on the field counts, where somebody might be watching…

***

The speech classroom in the basement near the locker room also served as a sometimes meeting room for sports teams. Braucher started quietly as he talked from the raised level in the front of the room with the pole podium reaching up to around his waist. His speech became more and more inspired (read angry and loud) as his 6’6” frame increasingly banged the podium on the raised floor to punctuate his point to a bunch of down-in-the-pit diminutive football players, who always hung on each of his bellowing words.

The next day a fellow student, who was on the fifth floor perusing molecules in chem class while we jocks were clutching desks in the basement, asked, "Hey, Dwayne, was Braucher talking to you guys yesterday?”

"Yeah."

"Thought so," he said, "heard him real well in chem lab."

Coach Braucher's speech class lesson: If you got something to say and you want to be heard far away, say it with intensity. Or as another later mentor, People’s Lobby’s Edwin Koupal, would say, “Talk to groups with a mission in mind, with blood in your eye...”

***

John Braucher was a whale of a man -- well-stocked with height, strength, and fire. During the middle of our still undefeated season, he was upset with the way practice was going. He was particularly upset with the effort of nose guard "Tiny (6’2” 230 lb.) Matousek." After a couple coaching tips, Coach B still didn’t feel Tiny was putting his advice in play with enough intensity.

To drive his point home, Coach B grabbed Tiny by the hitch of his hip and shoulder pads and threw them, with Tiny in them, about 3 yards across the scrimmage field, while bellowing that Tiny should do a lap.

Everyone knew Tiny didn’t do a fast lap, even Coach. Today, however, Coach was forgetful and bellowed that Tiny better quickly shift to a higher gear. Tiny continued his waddle jog until… Coach repeated his demand and started running toward Tiny with one of his long legged kicks to the butt in mind… Tiny got faster fast.

That lesson had something to do with how inspiration, or fear, can raise your speedometer.

***

At halftime of one of our JV games, we went to the locker room. Evidently, we were not playing at the level Coach expected. The locker room was U-shaped, and we all sat down waiting for the coach’s words of wisdom, or rage, or...

We sat and sat and sat as the last of those 15 halftime minutes rolled by. About 10 minutes in, that metal door opened and coach ducked his head to walk in. He slowly walked down one side of the U shaped room and then the other. Periodically, he stopped, glared at someone, shook his head with a twinge of disgust, and moved on. By the time he returned to that metal door, every one of us was following his every move. He opened the door handle, turned, slowly looked across everyone in the room, and said five words, "When the going gets tough...”

He didn’t finish the quote.

He stepped out and closed the door. A minute later the ref kept knocking on the door yelling, “Coach, Coach… it's time to bring your team." We stood up, went out that door, ran by the referees standing outside the door, and finished the quote for Coach.

A lesson from that locker room, I guess, was that sometimes you don't have to say much if those you are speaking to have been taught how to finish up.

***

As we warmed up in our circle of calisthenics at another junior varsity game, one of our West Senate opponents decided to play an early head game. During our pre-game circle of warm-ups, they sent their whole team to run around us with chants such as, "We're going to kick you your butts… Ignatius sucks…” Pretty sure they added a few words that rhymed with that last verb.

I don't remember Coach B. saying anything about those Indians circling our wagons. I do remember whose butts got seriously kicked, and they were not ours.

One of the lessons from that field? Have leader who knows the right head trip to run, on whom, and when. Otherwise, don’t do head trips, just play a good game.

***

Shortly after I entered the post high school world, Coach Braucher took the head coaching job at (I think) St. John's high school in Toledo. It was probably mom that sent me the Cleveland Plain Dealer sports story in which Ignatius Head Coach John Wirtz said something like, "We put little St. John's on our schedule this year as a favor to give them some prominence..."

"Oh my gosh," said I. Coach John W. made a big mistake, because Coach John B. knows a hell of a lot more about motivating his team on his opponent's words and actions then does Coach John W.

Coach JB's little St. John's thumped Coach JW's big, talented St. Ignatius.

Lesson? Don't come with a big head when you're challenging somebody who also has a big head and knows how to use it. Use your bookie for those games.

***

The Jungle. We were pretty sure that our homeroom collection of students was based on some administrative mental acuity rating of students. The result? We had a lot of jocks studying from the same Latin and history books in the same room, which meant there was a lot of testosterone and mischief bouncing off those high walls. With that, we developed a reputation. Each of us had our own animal call or crank. As classes moved to different rooms, they'd stop at our door to hear the cacophony of phony animal sounds emanating from “The Jungle.” Most of the teachers handled us well. A few, to whom this post-HS grown-up still feels apologetic, had some trouble with our surplus of energy.

I wonder, did this stuff die with The Jungle?

· Chalking the sides of the runner-tied-together desks, and holding down our chuckles as a few suited teacher would say, "As careful as I am, I can’t understand why my suits come home chalked each day.”

· As the teacher walked down the aisles with a book in one hand and the other in his pocket, his suit would crease. Into those creases would go our sacrificial pennies. As he took his hands out of his pockets and responded to the clang of his change hitting the floor he’d lament, "I thought I emptied all my change this morning." We then practiced holding down guffaws.

· Finding yourself rising in disgust and anger during the intermission between classes as a finger flicked spit ball landed on the side of your cheek, only to see that it came from four aisles away from a smiling, tough 6’3” Denny Blackwell, who could dunk from his stocking feet and whose dad was chief of police.

Question: That all is Neanderthal Iggie History, right? It ended back then, right?

***

Mr. Leonard. Now here was a teacher who never had trouble with The Jungle. Mr. Leonard was maybe 5’6”. His glass eye, reputedly knocked out in a professional boxing ring, never tracked in sync with his good eye. He seemed to relish order, class contests, and conflicts. Often in his black Jebby outfit with sash slung low, he’d step up on one student's desk and put his other foot on the one across the aisle. With his Latin book in one hand, he’d conduct Latin class or his divided room games/contests, looking down at you from his lofty Napoleonic battleground perch. No one chalked the aisles, creased wrinkles with pennies, or whimpered cat or jungle calls. We all just tried to respond to his Roman orders.

Mr. Leonard could also be funny but, as he often reminded us, you'd better laugh on cue or not at all -- lest you waste his precious teaching time. One day he told one of his funnies, as he was roaming down the aisles. We laughed. About 30 seconds after the last laugh and Mr. Leonard had moved on in his lesson plan, Tom Ruffing, a tough fullback on the football team, expressed his guffawed appreciation for Mr. L’s joke. In footballese, Tom hit the hole long after it had closed.

As Mr. Leonard roamed down Tom’s row, he picked up that huge world history book from the desk behind Tom's head, wound it back across his body, and smacked it to the back of Tom’s head as hard as any scrimmage thump Tom had ever had. Tom bolted up from his seat and turned with clasped fists. Looking up at Ruffing, with a book in either hand, Mr. Leonard seemed to be eagerly awaiting Tom's next move.

Tom was as smart as each of us would have been. He read what all of us read in Mr. Lenoard’s good, hard eye. Instead of moving physically, Tom asked, "What did you do that for?"

"Ruffing, if you can't laugh on cue, don't laugh at all."

In footballese, life, and business, that lesson might be something like, “If you get knocked down for not hitting the hole on time, just get up and try to execute on time next time.”

Hey, Ruff, what say… or remember, you?

***

It was during our freshman year that Mr. Leonard began teaching us how we should behave and how he would react if we didn't. Our freshman class had a mixture of kids. None of us, as our yearbook pictures clearly reveal, were manly and tough. However, it didn't take many weeks at Ignatius for students to start feeling they were expected to turn out as something special -- be it in arts, science, music, business, or manliness.

In our class, one of our fellow students came from a long line of brothers. As the last in line, he had been toughened up by all his proceeding brothers. He was a tough and funny kid. In this story, let's call him Ed.

Sitting across from him in the front row, was his polar opposite. This kid had no one to toughen him up. He was just a nice kid who liked to play in the band and had years to go, like most of us, before he became toughen masculine. Here, let's make his name in Matt.

Outside of class, some might want to pick on Matt. If Ignatius guys were around that was a no-no for they would come to his protection. Inside of class, some felt it was their duty to toughen up Ignatian Matt.

One day, as we waited for Mr. Leonard to come between classes, Ed was using his tart personality to toughen up Matt. He was doing this while he was leaning against the wall adjacent to the pencil sharpener that sat on the ledge of our 15’ high windows, where Matt was sharpening his pencil.

For some reason, the masculine bell rang in Matt's head. With a sharpened pencil in hand, Matt stabbed Ed’s forearm, leaving the lead tip embedded. Tough Ed didn’t wince, but he did say, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

With that, the bell rang for Ed and he started planting punches into Matt’s soft body. He must've thrown seven to ten punches. Each one seemed to lift Matt off the ground. Each drove him back across the room toward the door. His last punch drove Matt, butt first, into the waste basket adjacent to the door.

No one was standing near these two when the punches started raining up and down. The pummeling happened within minutes. Ed immediately sat down. Everyone was dead quiet, except for one.

We all knew who was going to come through that door any second. Matt was in that trash can so stunned and beaten that his body was just starting to heave and cry. With the rest of us, you could hear a pin drop.

In walked our teacher. Canned Matt was now sobbing. Seemingly oblivious to the waste bucket, Mr. Leonard put his books down on the big desk in the front of the room. He looked out those big windows. He walked around with his hands in his low-slung sash, as Matt was struggling to take deeper breaths and crying louder.

Walking to the middle row, Mr. Leonard took his Napoleonic battlefield viewing position atop our desk seats. He looked down at the floor, swayed a bit from side to side. He had the rapt attention of all of us -- but one. Slowly he raised his head from staring at the floor, turned his head from one side of the room to the other, and deliberatively said in a low voice, "I … don't... know... who... did this... And... I … don't... want... to know… But, if it ever happens again… I'm going to take each … and every one of you… out in the hall ….one at a time … and kick the _ _ _ _ out of each of you."

He looked around the room at each of us. He let the words linger in the tall ceiling air. Then he picked up his Latin book and started teaching. Now, however, Matt's body had gone into full throttle, as he tried harder to breathe. After a few moments of Latin verbiage, Mr. Leonard said, "Matt, you're interrupting my teaching... Cut the crying.”

Matt kept loudly sobbing. Mr. Leonard repeated, “Matt it is too noisy for me to teach effectively.” After a minute or two, a disgusted Leonard reiterated with intensity, "Matt, if you don't quit crying, I’ll really give you something to cry about."

With that, you could hear Matt suck in his breath and try to stifle his cries and sobs. He sucked in breaths. His disruptive cries and sobs turned to heavy moans and intermittent cries. Leonard taught for a few more minutes and then said, “Matt, get out of that wastebasket.”

That little body was stuffed into that large wastebasket, but as Matt tilted it and it fell to the floor, Matt became a sobbing, inert slug. After a few more minutes of the language of the Roman Empire, our Napoleon issued another order, "Matt, get off the floor. Get into your desk. We've got work to do and you’re interrupting it."

Still sobbing and heaving for breaths, Matt slithered along the floor with his head in his hands. ln slow spurts he wiggled, leaving tear stains as his slug tracks, to his desk. After several painful minutes, he grabbed the desk top and seat and pulled himself up enough to collapse into his folded arms, from whence the whimpers continued in a bearable, to Mr. Leonard, decibel level.

One Latin class lesson was… The words of the Roman Legion must go on. Even on the battlefield, the wounded must keep up. And some others non-Latin lessons you, or Mr. Leonard, may want to explain to all of us later…

***

Roaming the halls of IGNATIUS with a wholly different holy demeanor from that of Father Kleinheitz, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Braucher, were Jesuit scholastics Mr. Johnson and Mr. Baumer.

Mr. Johnson, with his closely cropped reddish hair, sparkling blue eyes and well-chiseled face would make women and girls stare. It happened in high school and would happen years later when he visited our Peace Corps group as we prepared to debark from New York in route to working in the slums of Mumbai. This special man had supposedly been a Marine, had hoboed on trains, and was somewhat of a country boy. He was a roustabout who had already seen plenty of the world and now he was Jesuiting? Now he wanted to be a missionary in Latin America?

Bi- spectacled Mr. Baumer was tall, gawky, and personified the bookish, theological theoretician who could carry on long complicated religious discussions. Both of these young men lived the belief that a Jesuit education was more than what took place in a classroom. Both had an open door policy before, after, or during class. It was like, "Any time you want to talk about anything, just come by..."

Of course, scholastics didn't have offices. They had college dorm like bedrooms. And often Rozman, Horstman, and I would walk down the hall of the Jesuit residency, accumulating strange glares from some of the Jesuit priests, and enter into Mr. Johnson or Baumer's room. Sometimes they weren't there, and we'd wait for them to return. Never did Mr. Baumer or Johnson say we had infringed on their privacy. They were there for us and even though most of our talk must've been mundane and high schoolish, they were there for us whenever we wanted.

Even on weekends, they were there for us. One weekend they opened the gym, so Rozman, Horstman, and I couldn't do some "round ball chasing" as Ab (Coach Strosnider) would call it. Although they were more practiced at the one-on-one issues of life then with one-on-one on the court, Mr. Baumer and Johnson joined us on this memorable B-ball day.

As some may remember, my multi-talented and faceted buddy Rozman set the demerit record at IGNATIUS just prior to transferring, or being dismissed, to Parma High. Roz would often do some pretty weird things. On this Saturday morning, while we were dressing in the locker room, Roz took Horstman's new Converse All-Stars, which back then were among our most prized possessions, and tried, with a great deal of wet success, to flush them down a toilet that needed flushing. (Reminding me now that Roz tried to do the same to the purse of my girlfriend, Diane Budan, the following summer at a wedding party.) Horseman didn't take kindly to this, but neither Mr. Baumer, Johnson, nor I knew of Horstman's response to the dastardly Converse deed until Roz came through those double doors and into the gym, where the four of us were shooting at the near basket.

"Horseman, you son of a bitch!” said Roz, busting in on two white socks and a jockstrap -- which he held in his right-hand, as he rushed Horseman and started throwing punches.

It was one of those scenes that even well-educated Jesuit scholastics don't know what to do with. I don't remember the fight lasting very long. I also don't remember how the three of us hitch-hiked home later that day. If we hitched home together, as we often did, the conversation must have been sparse, or gave us practice in diplomatese. And Roz must have walked bow-leggedly all the way home.

To understand this story, you need to know a little about "Capsoline." I think I learned about it as a sophomore, when the Junior Varsity’s first team, which included Horstman and Rozman, was pulled up to be used as practice fodder for the varsity who was going to play on Thanksgiving Day at Cleveland Stadium in the Charity Game for the City Championship. During that cold part of the season and particularly on Turkey Day, some of us learned that a little, itty-bitty bit of capsoline when rubbed on your fingers would keep your hands warm during cold days. If Horstman learned it at that time, he applied it at this time.

In appreciation of Rozman having applied all that wet yellow stuff to his Converse All-Stars, Jack applied heavy gobs of capsoline to the innards of Roz's jockstrap. Supposedly, when the chili peppered ingredients of capsoline touch your sensitive parts, the worst thing you could do is touch or move it about.

In many basketball games, Roz could develop a hot hand. To this game, he brought more than a hot hand.

A couple lessons here: Don’t pee on anyone’s Converse All Stars --- or rain on their parade. Prior to suiting up for a game, decide just how hot you want to be.

But the real lessons here came from Mr. Baumer and Johnson. The brainy Mr. Baumer became a missionary in Latin America. Later, he left the Jesuits to become a social worker in, if I remember correctly, Michigan. The roustabout Mr. Johnston became an academician at Fordham University. His Ph.D. dissertation was titled something like, “Television and Major Media—What It’s Doing To Confuse the Character Development of Our Youth.” On our last night in New York, Fr. Johnson treated fellow Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) buddy Bill Meyer and myself to the greatest steak dinner we had ever had. After three plus hours of the most stimulating of conversations, we tried to convince Father Johnson to come with us to our Peace Corps going away party. We didn’t want him to go home, but he didn’t want to stifle any fun that might be going on there.

We made a deal. He would take off his collar and we would not mention that he was a priest.

It was a great party. The crowd around our buddy Johnson never dwindled below 5-10. Guys and gals flocked around him all night. After sharing almost a dozen hours of conversation over two dinners with Father Johnson, Bill and I knew what drew the crowd. Bill and I enjoyed sitting in a corner with cans of beer watching the collarless roustabout do his magic.

My last image of Father Johnson was watching him walk away toward the subway down an empty, except for a sage brush bouncing along, New York street at about 3:00 AM. The next day we boarded a plane for India.

Father Johnson died of some sort of cancer while we were overseas.

The hope? That the Jesuits are still attracting the likes of Johnson, Baumer, Leonard, etc.

***

Roz may have exited Ignatius, but he came back for another Ignatius memory, in which Mr. Braucher played another part. As seniors, we lost big in our first game to Parma High in which, due to a back injury, I hardly got to play. Then our young QB in the waning minute of the Latin game kept the ball for a self-called dive up the middle after Coach Wirtz had called a 26 power right, which opened an unused hole large enough for Tiny, let alone Brezina, to saunter through and in which I couldn’t find anyone to collide with. We lost by one point.

After a couple more still hurting games, a pep rally was called. Coach Braucher was to be the keynote speaker. Every kid who's ever played for Braucher, as well as students on the fifth floor of the chemistry lab, knew that he was the right man to pump up the team in a school that was not accustomed to losing. For some unbeknownst to me reason, I was asked to also be a speaker. Well, I reckoned I could do a little intro and then have Coach come up and kick things up a winning notch.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that sometimes Coach Braucher is a man of few words. Sometimes, as his players at St. John’s learned, he was a man of no words. On the day of the pep rally, Coach B. was a man of no words. He was also a no-show. Causing somebody to come up to me and say, "Dwayne, you’re the keynoter…”

Hey, I don't remember any speech classes at St. Ignatius, barely spoke in Mr. Leonard's class, and now someone's got me on a stage in front of the old gym speaking to a schoolyard filled with the whole student body about how we’re going to start winning? Who set this up?

And what ex-Iggie showed up to stand alongside Kevin McCaffrey in the front row and pimp me (remember that well used word back then, which Facebook has revived in a different way?) Yeph, Rozman was there.

Even Rozman, however, had a reservoir of pity and sympathy. Although I wore baggy pants, it was obvious to not just the front row but probably the whole student that both legs of this rookie keynoter were shaking so badly that he might fall over at any moment. So after several minutes of demonstrating collapsing leg syndrome, Rozman shut up. Somehow I got through the speech, although to this day I have no recollection of what was said. We went on to start a winning streak, which the next two years would continue.

Lessons? Even Demerit Kings have sympathy? The first time is the scariest? Coach Braucher knew how to push one's limits and make one grow? Always wear baggy pants (and maybe diapers) when you have to make a speech?

***

I remember singing, or chanting, "We’re Ignatius men forever..."

Now I reckon that means that often, even more than classmate connections, some of the lessons, books read, thoughts had, and disciplines given go with you forever. Sometimes some of those most basic and clinging tenants learned help immediately and long-term.

Sure, Jesuit study habits helped in college, but some simple Coach Strosnider lessons helped immensely when dealing with real world realities that extended beyond comfortably flipping the pages of a book and exercising one's noggin therein.

In my first few days at St. Joseph's College, I became visually acquainted with football captain Danny Mudd (6 foot 220 pounds), Otto Lehman (6'4” 260 pounds), and Big Ed Ryan (6'2" 240+ pounds). Mudd was student body president, smiled a lot, and exuded charisma. Lehman wore a lot of T-shirts that showed his beefy, thigh-like arms and wore a glare atop his wide shoulders. Ryan, a veteran, added permanent unshaven Nixonian jowls to a perpetual scowl as people parted paths and Red Seas opened as he lumbered to class.

As our freshman football team got to know each other during that first week of college, we were told that in two days a game would be held at the small school small stadium between the varsity and the freshman team. Not much had changed since the days of Rome. Even in small Indiana coliseums, the crowds need meat.

So with three days of practice in shorts, one in pads, and having about four plays under our belts, the student body came out to watch the frosh take on these giants for whom the student body streams parted. To get as much horsepower into our line is possible, I was moved from trapping guard (my preference) to center. In St. Joseph's football system, the center came out first from the huddle. As I came out onto the ball on the opening play, to my far right was Otto Lehman, next at linebacker was Denny Mudd, and lined up over me was Big Ed Ryan.

As I came out over the ball before the rest of the team, the 26ish year old Ryan pushed his face over the ball, got close enough to kiss my helmet, and through that dark bearded scowl uttered, "Little man, I'm goin to kick the shit of you!”

All I could remember was Ab’s repetitively mumbled mantra, “Stay low! Keep your feet moving! Keep your head up! Use your forearms! … Stay low! Keep your feet moving! Keep your head up! Use your forearms!”

Thank you, Ab. If Don Strosnider, Ab’s son, reads this, please use your direct line to your pop to thank him for those simple coaching lessons that kept some thug from kicking any _ _ _ _ out of me.

Oh, yeah. The freshman team scored four touchdowns that day. The varsity coach called two back, and they scored two. It was a very good day, and one that caused Ryan and a few others to take some very cheap shots over the next year or two. Taking cheap shots, I never learned to do at Ignatius. But the world has more than a few Chicago type thugs who don't practice the fundamentals and play to the high standards that Ignatius does.

Lesson: the most basic lessons from well-intentioned mentors often end up blessing one’s life a lot, so don’t lose them. Why, I still stock Wheat Germ because of what Coach Ab Strosnider said. And “Stay low! Keep your feet moving! Keep your head up! Use your forearms!” works in other real life situations as well... And as my mom would say, “People should respect old people more, they know a lot.”

So, for those Iggies able to read this far, remember your good mentors’ words and lessons, keep eating your wheat germ, hang in there, and look forward to the distant day people will show you some respect.

If interested in hearing some post-Ignatius stories, this writer will be discussing his second book, Every Town Needs a Castle, at Visible Voice Books, 1023 Kenilworth, Cleveland, Ohio 44113, info@visiblevoicebooks.com, http://www.visiblevoicebooks.com/, (216) 961-0084, 216) 374-2367, on June 7th. Call Shelly Garcon for precise time and come a little early for looping slide show of the world’s biggest junkyard castle.