Thomas P. Rosandich
College of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Teacher Education
College of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Teacher Education
I competed here at La Crosse in football under a number of fine coaches, including my good friend Bill Vickroy, who is in the audience today. Also, I ran track for another coach, Floyd Gautsch, who also became a very close and special friend throughout my entire career. I like to think I never lost a hurdle race on this field, but at my age one's memory conveniently dims.
I was born and raised in Sheboygan Falls, the son of Croatian immigrant parents--the only ones in town-which speaks volumes in my "running" career. In junior high school, I was probably running down the wrong path. The local priest nicknamed me "One Punch" - which is another story in itself.
About that time, a new football coach came to Falls by the name of Gordon Barr. He was a World War II veteran and a recent La Crosse graduate. He had a head like a bowling ball and shoulders like a buffalo. He, along with the superintendent of schools and indeed the parish priest, seemed to all have the same objective, i.e.; to grab me by the nape of the neck and get me pointed in the right direction. I guess they succeeded, at least in part.
Coach Barr was the first La Crosse man who influenced my life to the point that he convinced me to attend the La Crosse State Teachers' College, as it was then known, and pursue a degree in Physical Education. Incidentally, all my coaches and physical education teachers in high school were graduates of La Crosse, which was not unusual, because in those days each of the teachers' colleges had a special unwritten designation; Milwaukee for music, Whitewater for business education, Stout for industrial arts, and, of course, La Crosse for physical education.
By that time Coach Barr had returned to La Crosse and was the coach at Central High School. Most of my Sunday dinners were spent with the Barr family. In those days the cafeteria in Old Main provided meals seven days a week, except for Sunday dinner, at a staggering weekly cost of $8.00.
Besides my physical education teachers, I was also influenced by many teachers in my second major-history. Throughout my life I have written extensively on sport although the majority of my writing has been in the area of history and political science. As often as not, in the past I wrote under a pen name, because I did not want to disparage or embarrass any of the world leaders I worked with or for during my stint with the State Department as a Sport Goodwill Ambassador. Instantly note that sport reaches to the highest levels of most governments.
Back to my life at La Crosse, I thought I was going to learn "X's" and "O's" about football. I was shocked as a freshman to find myself taking ten hours of chemistry and five hours of biology and nothing on sport, except for what I learned on this playing field. There was a logic in that then, but I did not understand it. I do now-that science is the core, just as it is today in the programs developed at the United States Sports Academy. In retrospect, I appreciate the experience of having classes with La Crosse mentors like Hans Reuter and Dr. Walter Willich, both leaders during the great German sports movement called "The Turners'. There was a Turner Gymnastics Hall in virtually every city on the Lake Michigan coastline in those days.
In the 1950"s you could compete in four sports-football, gymnastics, diving, and track and field-and I did them all. Meanwhile, I always had part-time jobs somewhere, earning my keep-washing cars, packing groceries, slinging hash, serving drinks, or tending bar-you did what you had to do. There were no football or track scholarships then, and I do question them now.
It was the time of the Korean War. I can remember sitting in Marine boot camp at Parris Island and developing a list of 101 things that I wanted to do before I sailed off into the sunset. Because of the times and situation I did not think I would achieve many of them.
However, once again, one of my teachers at La Crosse, a history professor, had a great influence on me. Her name was Myrtle Trowbridge. She was a rather rotund woman who wore her hair up in a sweep, and she had the most interesting twinkling eyes of anyone I have every known. She was vehemently anti-Communist. She required men to wear a tie to class, but it could not be red, and a red shirt would guarantee failure in the course.
When she talked of her world travels, including crawling into the entrance of a Watusi tribal house in Africa or the inner stairs of a pyramid in Egypt, I would shut my eyes and think, "How could you get into those small spaces?" but I suspected that where there's a will there's a way! She inspired me to find that way to all of those far-off places with the strange-sounding names, and I have completed all but a few of the 101 items on my list. l think I will get to Antarctica sometime this year, and I intend to take the Trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok from Moscow.
I note that the University of Wisconsin System has a freeze on enrollment due to cutbacks on funding for faculty and staff. In the old days it was English 101 that reduced the freshman class by 50 percent. I am not sure what that number would be today, because I am convinced that reading and writing are becoming lost arts in America, including among college students. One of my La Crosse instructors in the 1950s draped me with that same mantle when she brought me in to discuss the paper that I had written on football-the nearest that I got to writing about the "X's" and "O's" in my freshman year. She asked me about the use of the word "mentor." I guess because I was Croatian, she didn't think it was in my vocabulary. I comfortably explained to her that a mentor was someone who tutored or coached, or so said this guy called "Webster." I never forgot that particular conversation. I had already had a series of good mentors, as referenced earlier in this presentation, and she became another. There is now a building on this campus named for Professor Florence Wing, like there are for many others mentioned earlier-if not, there should be.
When I founded the United States Sports Academy, the "mentorship" (which some institutions call an "internship") became a key part of the program. In fact, the mentorship is the heart and soul of our degrees at both the master's and the doctoral levels. Using the concept of "learning from the "great ones" has probably been pivotal to the growth of the Academy, which is considered the largest graduate program in sport in this country or indeed the world, with nearly 1,000 students studying with the Academy, either on campus or through our distance learning program. This past year the U.S. Department of Education selected the Academy as one of ten universities permitted to deliver their programs 100 per cent through distance learning.
Because of the coaches and professors who became life-long friends, I have turned to La Crosse as an academic resource repeatedly in my career, even when I was stuck in some jungle of the world. I remember one of the first times when I called on Coach Floyd Gautsch, via a special Embassy patch from the Kingdom of Laos (Indochina), looking for curriculum materials to establish a school of sport, which he promptly sent to me, including a great deal from other La Crosse professors. This sport school, developed in unison with the concepts of the French Lyceum, has survived even the war in Vietnam, as attested by a recent visit there.
That process, by the way, has never stopped. I have continued to use what I learned at La Crosse, particularly in the area of sport science and the development of programs everywhere and anywhere I have been. The first sports academy was developed in the Republic of Indonesia, some 40 years ago, and the United States Sports Academy is now celebrating its 30th year. The Academy has programs in more than 60 countries around the world, and that list grows as I stand here today. It should be noted that there is an element of La Crosse in each of the programs we deliver.
When I graduated from high school, I had, two unique opportunities: I could pursue a career in sport, as I did here at La Crosse; or I could pursue a career in art, which in fact was put on the back burner, as I looked to my other love, that being history. I recall Professor Trowbridge saying, "Mr. Rosandich (she never called us by our first name), you need to make a decision; you can't keep riding two horses, sport and history." I believe she ignored the troika-the Russian team of three horses: sport, history and art. Actually, I have been riding all three of them. The Academy has a division called the American Sport Art Museum and Archives, a meshing of art and sport and history, which in essence is Olympism, a reoccurring theme in both the Academy's curriculum and the Museum's competitions. I have been privileged to serve on the International Olympic Committee Cultural and Olympic Education Commission and the Academy has hosted sport art competitions and shows on their behalf.
Art is a very important part of our life at the Academy. We have what is perceived to be the largest collection of sport art in the world, and sport art will be a major role in our Graduation Celebration in July this year. Each year the Academy honors a Sport Artist of the Year. This year, a fabulous "national treasure" of Greece, Mina Papatheodorou Valyraki, will be honored, and a massive hanging of her art will be featured as the backdrop for the graduation ceremony. Former Academy Sport Artists of the year from Croatia, France, Spain, and the U.S. will also be attending.
Sport art has proliferated from the time of the cave man all through the centuries and may be the basis of all art as we know it today. It was pivotal in the Greek Olympics, where the laurel wreath, taken from "Daphne" of Greek mythology, was presented to writers, poets, musicians, and orators, before it was given to athletes.
I am grateful that I had good coaches and good art teachers early in my career. I did, in fact, have equally fine art teachers in high school, such as Evelyn Anderson. I had hoped to present a sport art show as a part of this graduation, but as the line goes, "timing in life is everything" and we could not put it together. Maybe next time, 50 years from now. I am obviously an optimist. Meanwhile, we have created a new Master of Sport Art degree at the Academy.
Going back to my wish list of 101 activities as a young Marine at Parris Island-it has indeed been a great ride. It has taken me to approximately 120 countries, much inspired by Professor Trowbridge, and of course, the development of the Academy, which again reflects on my coaches, physical education professors, and, yes, even an English teacher, in the establishment of what is the largest sport education program in this nation. And it all started here at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
I trust that the Graduating Class of 2002, who have probably suffered through this presentation, are in fact better-prepared than I was in the early 1950s. However, I do note that there have been many changes in our profession in the last few decades-not all good-where there is only one state in the Union, that being Illinois, that requires physical education from K to 12. That has to change, and you, the Graduating Class of 2002, need to make that change. Obesity in this country has replaced heart disease as the potential number one killer in our country. You must work to reverse this. There are, in fact, serious problems at all levels of sport in this country when indeed 80 percent of NCAA football and basketball players drop out before completing their degree. This is unacceptable. We must all work to reverse this. Some of the people sitting out there in recreation will have picked up the ball in providing outlets for youth in the area of recreation and sport when we in physical education have failed.
I am sure my friend Gordon Barr, and indeed the head of this university, will join me in encouraging you teachers, who are being certified in what is the most noble of all professions (even though this may not be reflected in your salaries), to do what I obviously did, which is to "think outside of the box" to help this nation and the world. I actually believe with my whole heart and soul that there's nothing to stop you from doing whatever you want to do, if you have the will, and most importantly, if you focus on the task at hand. I know you are prepared to make a difference.
I am honored to be here as part of your graduation celebration. I am also profoundly honored that a scholarship for the outstanding graduate from the College of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Teacher Education has been named for me. This is a memorable tribute. Who would have believed it? Not even I, the optimist.
Thank you and good luck!
© 2002 University of Wisconsin La Crosse and University
of Wisconsin Board of Regents
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