An amazing link with the past

Thursday I made an unexpected contact with someone from the distant past - 68 years ago, to be exact. It came as a kind of coda to March Madness (coda in the original sense of "conclusion," not "Children of Deaf Adults" a la the recent movie). I had been reflecting on the Tarheels experience of losing the national championship game by just 3 points in the closing seconds, and had watched the post-game interviews with players and Coach Davis, and had remembered that in 2016 they had lost a championship game to Villanova in the final second when "Nova" scored a buzzer-beating basket, and all that led me to pull off the shelf a book I've had for some time but had not looked at recently, Thad Williamson's More than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many. Yes, someone has actually written a book about being a TarHeels fan! Here is a excerpt from a description of the book: "More Than a Game provides a unique look at both North Carolina basketball and the phenomenon of sports fanhood in the United States. For serious North Carolina basketball fans, following the team is more than just another recreational activity -- it's an irreplaceable part of who they are. Every winter, Carolina fans habitually schedule their lives around the Tar Heels during the season. Many fans say that following the team is one of the most valuable and enduring attachments in their lives. But is this a good thing? What are the implications of so many people being so in love with Carolina basketball? Are there better and worse ways to be a fan? And why, exactly, does North Carolina basketball have such a hold on its loyal followers?" Williamson wrote this book back around the 2000s when Dean Smith retired, and Bill Guthridge, his assistant, became head coach. There is a lot in the book about Bill Guthridge. He was the epitome of the "gentleman coach" - unflappable, not one to stand and yell at his players from the sidelines (as many, even most, coaches do. Bill Guthridge usually sat during the game). In fact, some TarHeels fans at that time blamed his style of coaching for the TarHeels' losses - if he was more passionate, they said, they would win more games. Williamson discusses all this at length and critiques it (he is more critical of the fans than he is of Coach Guthridge). All that brought to mind a connection I had - through Shirley - with Coach Guthridge. Back in 1954, when Shirley graduated from Wellesley College, she becme a "Danny Grad," which was short for "Danforth Graduate." This was a program of the Danforth Foundation of Saint Louis, MO, an offshoot of the Ralston-Purina Company, famous maker of cereals (e.g., Ricechecks). The Danny Grad program involved only women - college-graduate women - who were sent to colleges all over the country as a kind of chaplain, or "religious worker, as they were sometimes called. This program was a favorite of the founder of Ralston-Purina, WIlliam H. Danforth. The 1954 class of Danny Grads - 25-30 or so women - all went to Camp Minniwanca, Michigan, for a summer month of orientation before going to their assigned schools. Well-known religious figures, like Ruth Seabury (a very prominent missionary in the Congregational-Christian denomination at that time), led the women in classes and discussions. There were some college presidents there also, and among them was Rees H. Hughes, the president of Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburg, Kansas. Hughes took a liking to Shirley, and when assignments were made, he asked for her to come to KSTC. And that is where she went. For Shirley, it felt like being sent to Outer Mongolia. It was, for her, a kind of intellectual wasteland. So when Thanksgiving came, she came to Chicago for a religious conference being held at Chicago Theological Seminary, where I was a first-year student. She was looking for intellectual stimulation, but she got more than she had bargained for. We met there and fell in love, and the rest, as they say, is history! After she went back to Kansas, we wrote virtually every day until the summer of 1955, when we were married. So what does this have to do with Bill Guthridge? Well, one of the other Danny Grads at Camp Minniwanca that summer was Joan Guthridge, from Parsons, Kansas. Bill Guthridge was her younger brother. When she learned that Shirley was going to Pittsburg, KS, which is just down the road from Parsons, she gave Shirley her parents' address in Parsons, and encouraged her to use their home as a sort of retreat where she could go to get a break from the stress and strain of being a college chaplain. And Shirley did that. She would sometimes spend the weekend with the Guthridge's. She never mentions Bill Guthridge in her letters, but he was a Junior in High Schoool that year and she almost certainly must have met him when she was in his home. Bill Guthridge became the head coach at UNC just after Shirley died, so she never had the chance to make this connection. She would have been so thrilled!! Bill Guthridge himself died several years ago (2015), but I wondered if Joan was still living. Years ago, when I was sending Katie the letters Shirley had written her parents from Wellesley, and then to both them and me from KSTC (I have them all!), I had looked up Joan Guthridge and learned she was married, and her name was Rodkey. So on Thursday, I Googled "Joan Guthridge Rodkey" and "BANG" - there was her phone number in Overland Park, KS, outside Kansas City! So I called the number "out of the blue." Her daughter answered, and a moment later, I was talking to Joan herself! She was surprised, to say the least, and also pleased. She loved hearing from someone from that part of her life, which had been so important for her. And we put together that not only had she known Shirley, she and I had in all likelihood met the summer of 1951 at Association Camp, Estes Park, CO! My good hiking friends there were from Parsons, KS - Jerry James and Dick Scott. They were her friends too, and she had visited them that summer with her parents, and she had been there when the staff put on a kind of musical which I helped write, based on Sigmund Romberg's Desert Song, and she sang in it! Small world! I learned a couple of other facts too - she was sent as a Danny Grad to Florida State University (I had not known that), and - get this - while she was a student at Univ. of Kansas, she had dated Dean Smith for a while (Dean Smith was the very famous TarHeels Coach for years; Bill Guthridge was his assistant and replaced him when he retired). Joan and I had a long talk, and she is going to put me in touch with a couple of other Danny Grads who are still living (few are). So that was pretty amazing!

A group of Danny Grads at Camp Minniwanca. Shirley is in the front row in a Wellesley sweatshirt, and next to her on her left, right in the middle of the photo, in a dark jacket, is Joan Guthridge. I sent the photo to Joan and asked if she was in it, so that's how I know. The checkerboard shirts are, of course, inspired by the Ralston-Purina logo. *****************************

Bill Guthridge, Assistant TarHeels Basketball Coach under Dean Smith for 18 years and then Head Coach for 3 years.

Dr. Rees H. Hughes, President of KSTC. It's astonishing to consider all that would not have happened if Hughes had not asked for Shirley to come to KSTC!