Wabash College - Class of 1991

It’s Homecoming Week, and the Wabash Swimming and Diving Team is holding its 1st Annual Alumni Swim Meet before the big game. Teammate Steve Turk will be among those donning the goggles. He writes:

I’ve been waiting for this to event to happen for 17 years!

OK, that may be an exaggeration – at least until last year when I started swimming again (35-39 age group!).  Now, I’m looking forward to seeing old teammates and coaches and meet the new team.  Plus, for like any of us older swimmers, we get a chance to swim in the beautiful Class of 1950 Natatorium.   I don’t miss the old Pool one bit.

There’s a week left until the big day; put in some yards, practice some starts and turns and come join me in Cville for some fun.

After all these years, STurk is still pretty damn fast. There’s a video of him swimming the 100 IM in a Masters Meet, and when I asked him what his time was, he replied, “That was a 56.0. Bad turns and Breaststroke. Out in 25.0 though. If I’m able to swim consistently this winter (and no shoulder pain) I feel a 54.5 coming on.”

So, I checked the Wabash Swimming records. His older brother, Joe, still holds the 100IM record with a 56.71 in 1989! Crazy!

The corner of Walnut & College is definitely a bit quieter without the Moids. Here’s what the Kappa Sigs (and the Phi Delts) have to look forward to.

I just came across this from sophomore swimmer Chad Woods ‘11. He’s brought the Wabash Fight Song into the new millennium by translating it into Internet slang. Text this…

Frum teh hillz of Mayne 2 teh we$$ide plane, Err wurr teh cottun iz blowin, noob.
Frum teh gloomee $hayde uv teh northurn p!ne
2 teh l!te uv teh suthurn seez. lol;
7here’s a nayme held deer & uh culler we cheer w/e wii f!ned it glowin roflmao & teh teers will rize 2 R longin eyez Az it flowtz on teh evn!ng breeeze BOOM: HEADSHOT!

btw, R preyerrs R allwayz th!ne, R voisez & <3 cumbine,
2 sing yo prayze win futcherr daize shall bring yo ASL? b4 us, win collij daize R past, az long az lyfe lastz foshiz R gratest joi wull b 2 showt da chorus…brb..

Deer old Wabash, yo L33T suns will fo $ho luv U & ovurr yo classick hallz, teh scarlut flag fo sho prowdly flash, OMG WOOT WABASH FTW!!1!
IMO, Long N R <3s, w3’ll l bare teh sweetst mmrs. uv yall Long weel syng yo H4X0R praizes, OLD WABASH!!1!

Yeah, I know. I’ll tell him to stop goofing off and start studying!

So, last week I get an e-mail from Mathe van Heeswijk. He was on the West Coast on business and was making his way back home to the Netherlands and stopping in to Indiana for a day. He hadn’t been to campus since 1996, and problem was, he was flying in at 12:30 on Friday night!

Mathe only went to Wabash for one year. He transferred to Nyenrode Business Universiteit in Breukelen, back in Holland. I hadn’t seen him since Dave Ricke and I traveled through Europe after our graduation, and I was up on campus for the Class Agents Forum, so I told him I’d meet him on campus at 2 a.m. (yawn!) I waited up at the new Phi Delt house, which he hadn’t seen. I took him through the house and over to the Senior Bench, which was being faithfully guarded by green-potted freshmen.
 
As my pledge brother, I was always fascinated with how this blond Dutch guy experienced Phi Delt pledgeship at this all-male college in the United States. He’s a great case of why the Development Office considers our alumni anyone who attends the school for two semesters. He still gives to Wabash regularly. Mathe has been one of those guys in our class who regularly gives updates on new jobs and his three kids. Though we’ve been separated by distance, I’ve been able to keep up with him over the intervening 17 years.

Saturday morning, I rolled out of bed and trudged over to breakfast and sessions at the Forum. Mathe had coffee with a senior from Poland who was interested in networking. (Mathe is currently working for Disney in Europe.)

Seeing a long lost friend was worth being groggy for the Forum and the game.

And yes, just like Mathe and I and the rest of our pledge class did in the fall of ‘87, the Phi Delt freshmen would like to report that the bench is red for kickoff of the first home game.

The game depicted in this photo was a Wabash shutout of Hanover 27-0 in 1923. The player without the helmet is the legendary Pete Thorn.

As the Little Giants embark on a new football season this weekend, Beth Swift, the Wabash archivist, sends us this tidbit on a new display at Lilly Library:

Each fall. we welcome the new students to campus with a display about several of our traditions. This year, in view of the new football coach or Wabash, we thought we might have something different for our small library exhibit. This year’s first display is on the first 50 years of Wabash College football history.

A hard-fighting bunch, these early students were not just taking the ball, many were also looking to stop the opponent by whatever means might be most effective. As you can see from this picture, some wore helmets which were of leather with lambswool padding. We have, on loan from the athletic department,  one of these helmets. If you see the display, you will see why even with this helmet man commonly suffered head injuries.

In a notebook with the title Athletic History near the display, you can read of the first season of play. We also have many other artifacts of early football history. This display will be up through the football season, so if you get a chance while you are visiting campus, drop into the Lilly Library and see what made us the “Little Giants” we are today.

I have to chuckle.

Tom Runge ‘71 on his Alumni Office blog seems bemused as he catalogs the series of bench paintings that pledge classes have been undertaking lately. It seems the Thomson Memorial (a.k.a. the Senior Bench) has been changing quicker than a chameleon of late.

First it was the Phi Psis…

Barely a day later the Sigma Chis added a coat…

And a couple of days later, the Lambda Chis painted the bench in tribute to Patrick Woehnker…

Today Tom found a rain-besmirched paint job by the Kappa Sigs…

I love how some traditions mutate over time. I’ll have to confer with the Wabash Archives because I was only aware of one tradition: the Phi Delts tried to paint the bench red (not their fraternity colors) and the FIJIs tried to paint the bench white (not their fraternity colors) before kickoff of the first home football game.

The Senior Bench has quickly become this year’s freshman rhynie pot.

I’ll guarantee you that whatever hue or message adorns the bench, the Bench will be Scarlet at 1p.m. on September 20 when the Wabash Little Giants face off against the University of Chicago Maroons!

Hey! I haven’t heard squat from you guys in quite a while. What’s happening? What’s new? What do you want to hear about from Wabash? Which classmates have you not heard from in (more than) a minute?

Let me know what’s up. You can e-mail me or send updates to the Alumni Office.