Thursday, May 27, 2021 (Day 147)
Meditation Music for the week: Whisper to Me: Liquid Mind (8:04) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtZ76W6gDls
Question: What did you want to be when you were younger?
Answer: Football player, specifically Billy “White Shoes” Johnson. Same name, plus he had the coolest dance, “The Funky Chicken” when he scored a touchdown (check out highlights here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0EVm7fi0iQ). I tried out for football when I was a freshmen in high school – and ended up dropping out due to severe dehydration issues. Never tried out again. The only thing I knew I liked through college was sports; although I didn’t play any organized sports (other than intramurals), all I wanted to do was watch and talk sports. At one point, I actually roomed with three other guys that loved sports, so all we would do is either watch, talk, and play sports. When I first started college, I majored in Physical Education because that was THE ONLY major to pursue if you liked sports – and that was to be either a PE Teacher or a Coach – and I didn’t want to do either. Luckily, the University of Delaware created the Recreation and Parks Administration major in my second year of college, so I switched into that – and ended up doing an internship as a personal trainer. I was one of those hard-ass trainers; work hard, train hard. Wasn’t a fan of TV’s in the fitness center; if you were there to work out, you worked out. If you wanted to socialize, go hang out in the lounge. Anyway, I ended up with my Masters in Physical Education, with a concentration in Sports Sociology, and then started a PhD program in Sociology, with a concentration in Sports Sociology. But a funny thing happened after my first year in a doctoral program – I got tired of school. After my first year in the program, walked around campus trying to decide my “what now, what’s next?” Ended up volunteering as an academic advisor for undeclared students, got hired to do that work in the summer, then was hired at the end of the summer, 1989 to be an academic advisor – and have been working in higher education ever since. I have never left a college campus every since I started in the Fall Semester, 1981. How about that for lifelong learning? I still love sports, but I also know that part of my love for sports was to help others achieve more than they ever thought possible, which is something I still do today.
The Dream Dean 