Twenty years ago was my last season involved with Ohio State volleyball and working as a D-1 coach (though I didn't know that would be the case...) For OSU, that was a great season--led by a solid group of seniors, OSU won 35, won the Big Ten, and reached the Final Four....I still have my Final Four ring.
Now, to be clear--I love Jim Stone. He is a great mentor, a good friend, and has been since I started out there back in '92. This isn't about him--I remained loyal to the OSU program until he retired. I still root for the men's volleyball team because I feel Pete Hanson and Tim Embaugh are good people running a classy program--but that's the extent of my loyalty to that school.
You see, twenty years ago this week, the academic side of Ohio State tossed me out. If you're reading this, you probably know me. I'm not an idiot. I'm a decent writer and frankly, I'm a pretty damned good teacher--whether it is English, History, or even Psychology. No offense to anyone, but I've never met a better U.S. history teacher. I need to go a little further with this--in terms of writing, I've done some novels, some articles, and even presentations. I've written historical games.
This is NOT to go "Oh, wow, Jim, you are so wonderful...." I merely want to show some credentials.
Because it was this week that Allan Millett, Joan Cashin, and James Bartholomew, my PhD committee, unanimously failed me on my doctoral exams. The funny thing is--Millett, my advisor, told me that was going to happen in advance. Twice actually.
The second time was in December of 93. He said "If you don't quit working with the volleyball team, you won't pass your exams no matter what you do."
Professors have no rights on my free time. If I turn in 'A' quality work (my GPA was 3.85, so yes, I was turning in 'A' work), then if I want to spend my time from 2-5 calculating hitting percentages, serve-receive numbers, and entering freeballs into drills--that's my business, right? I wasn't skipping class or anything else.
Nope. I was naïve. Life doesn't work that way. I knew it from the first question I was asked. My fields were Tokugawa Japan, US Military, and Modern US History, so the first question I was asked--discuss the difference in opinion between Churchill and Atlee related to British efforts against Japan. Hmmmm...Tokugawa Japan is gone by the 1800s and Churchill/Atlee aren't American. Great....I didn't study the right things.
After the smoke cleared, I was told I knew little about history and that my writing was so deficient that I offered no hope of passing an advanced degree (never mind that I already held an M.A. in Composition/Writing)
When it was done, I called Stone. He said he wanted to have a beer to celebrate....but I'd told him if I was more than 60 minutes late, the news would be bad. It was 90 minutes. He was stunned that they did it. I think at the time he felt guilty--somehow partially responsible. He wasn't. It was absolutely my choice and because of my time in his program, I'd make the same choice again for what I learned on that court. Probably good he met me--in those hours, I learned to empathize with those stories of grad students going on shooting binges. I thought about it--I can't lie.
Hard to believe that was 20 years ago.
But it ended well. I realized that day that I need to teach--in a classroom or a gym. I don't want to be a bully picking on grad students because I was picked on myself when I was a student. History is NOT about memorizing little nuggets of trivia. It's about critical thinking, it's about applying the past to the present, about knowledge of other cultures and times. History can bring others to life if taught well.
Yes, it ended well. I moved back 'home' (because it wasn't quite home yet) to my wife pregnant with our first child and here, I had the chance to teach for a few colleges, coach at Satan's School for Girls and Boys and now Lincoln Land. I've helped 100+ young people succeed in college or found them scholarships--I've seen them grow into doctors, accountants, moms, dads, state troopers, combat medics, writers, artists. None of that would have been possible without Millett's ego driving me away.
That choice helped make me a better person--because it made me know how it felt to be incredibly bullied--I learned the difference between instructing and teaching.
Without their decision--I don't get 4+ novels published, start Jolly Roger Games, coach volleyball at a high level (or get to work with USA High Performance). No Jolly Roger--no trip to see the Scorpions in concert in Germany, no meeting guys like Alan Moon, Richard Launius, Jason Matthews.
Yeah, this is all a rant, disjointed. But seriously...life is not easy. It WILL suck from time to time. But it is how we deal with the adversity that determines who we are, who we become. I survived it.
And still got to teach history AND coach volleyball.
(Now if I could just remember all the seniors off that '94 team....Laura, Jenny, Carrie, Gabi...Tricia(?)....sigh, the memory fades a little down the road.
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