Following high school, I enrolled at Hanover College, largely because Gene Combs and Ivan Albright wanted me to play football there and two older sisters (Nancy and Kathy) had also attended Hanover. While I did enjoy playing on the football and the baseball teams, not much else about Hanover appealed to me. Consequently, I transferred to Indiana University to study physical education. I spent two years on the Indianapolis campus and the final year and one-half in Bloomington completing my B.S. degree. I ended my undergraduate career much like I ended high school, spending inordinate amounts of time with J Hilligoss and Jim Hobbs, who happened to be my roommates in Bloomington!

Having graduated in January of 1967, the prospects seemed greater that I would be drafted than I would land a teaching job. Luckily, I found a job in Ann Arbor High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I taught physical education and coached football and track. I remember Norm Cassel helping me move to Ann Arbor on a cold and dreary winter day. For whatever reason, Uncle Sam never came calling.

I really loved the city of Ann Arbor and I thoroughly enjoyed my job. While coaching was exciting and our teams enjoyed considerable success, I found that just teaching was very fulfilling and rewarding and I knew that is how I wanted to spend my career.

Just about the time I was ready to settle down in Michigan and buy that first house, I got a call from my colleagues at Indiana University in Indianapolis about a new campus called IUPUI, a merger of the regional campuses of Indiana University and Purdue University in Indianapolis. They offered me a chance to join the faculty in the School of Physical Education and to begin a program of intercollegiate athletics for the campus. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, so in 1969, I returned to Indiana and joined the faculty of IUPUI.

In my tenure at IUPUI, I have been the Director of Intramural and Recreational Sports, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Associate Dean of the School of Physical Education, and since 1977, Dean of the school which is now the School of Physical Education and Tourism Management. While working for Indiana University I have completed a masters degree in Physical Education and a doctorate in Higher Education Administration.

As satisfying as my professional life is, in pales in comparison to my personal life which has been blessed with a loving family and good friends. I was married briefly in the late 70’s, but the marriage didn’t take and I found myself single again until 1989. I am now married to a wonderful woman named Lori, and we have two great kids in Nicholas (12) and Ryan (10). The boys are so active in sports, 4-H, and church activities that Lori and I spend most of our time chauffeuring them from place to place.

When we find the time, we all love traveling, but Lori and I have particularly enjoyed two recent trips to Europe and an Alaskan cruise this past summer.

A year ago, we built a home south of Plainfield and enrolled the boys in Plainfield Schools. We believe Plainfield is still a remarkable town and a wonderful place to raise a family. So far we have not been disappointed. I am sure that as the boys get older, I will be re-living my life at Plainfield vicariously through them. And whom do I see at school and PTA events, Jim Humphrey, who also has children in the same school.