New Addition

Just received some correspondence from Bob Adams, class of 1968.  Haven't seen him since then.  Did he go to college in the Twin Cities area?  For some reason, Hamline sticks in my mind.  My association with him during our school days was minimal, but I always thought he was one of the most talented and well-rounded students of our day.   Athletics, vocal music, instrumental music, academics, and drama were some of the showcases for his prowess.  He probably would have done admirably in debate and declam, too, but he was too busy with his other activities.  Someone once told me that he was unable to take an important class his last semester because he could not fit it into his extremely busy schedule.

In addition to being a key player on the '68 championship basketball team, he set a school record in the 120 yard high hurdles.  That record has since been broken, but the changes in track and field since that time have probably been a factor.  Bob ran on cinders, whereas today the tracks are synthetic, making for a slightly faster surface.  It's somewhat like the comparison between sand and grass, although not as great.  Also, there are more coaches to work in the individual events.  Back then, there might only be a couple of coaches who would share the workload.  Some of the athletes were practically coaching themselves, and therefore received guidance only infrequently.  Nowadays, there are specific coaches for sprinters, hurdlers, distance runners, throwers, vertical jumps (high jump and pole vault), and horizontal jumps (long jump and triple jump).  That is six coaches in total, whereas in the '60's, there might be three at the most.  Sometimes the coaches were like chickens with their heads cut off, running around trying to monitor the athletes.  In junior high, we only had three coaches for all of the three grades.  They were Franny Dolan, Harley Kabrud, and Paul Johnson.  One of Mr. Johnson;s responsibilities was the pole vault.  One year, he had one of the freshman boys do most of the coaching.  This boy would keep a record of what the other boys did in practice.  Mr. Johnson and this boy would then get together to decide who would get to go to the meets.  At that time, we could only take two or three competitors to a meet because there were so many other schools there.  Nowadays, most meets are with only one school, so entries are unlimited, so no one gets left out, unless there is good reason for not allowing them to participate.  

Because our basketball team was rather powerful that year, and Bob could jump out of the gym, we wanted him to dunk during a game, even though it was forbidden by the rules.  For a few years, dunks were not allowed.  That was when Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was in college.  Evidently, the rules-makers thought that taking away the dunk would be advantageous to the college game.  The high schools followed suit.  Bob, however, was intent on following the rules, so the fans never witnessed the excitement and energy that a dunk could bring to a game.

Thanks for finding us, Bob, and please stay in touch.