Connect 78 - Dartmouth Alumni

Connect 78
The Dartmouth Class of 1978 Newsletter
September 2008
Photos from
Our 30th
Reunion
Above: Clan Murray picnics at
the Bema (Dad Larry, mom
Mary, daughter and friends.)
Below: Rob Gifford presides
over politicos Jim Bassett,
Annie McLane Kuster and
Dan “Harpo” Reicher.
Drs. Athena Moundalexis,
Terri Ann Scriven and Celia
Chen say hello under the tent.
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Dr. Suzanne Patton Wallace
with her and husband Bruce’s
children Rachel Elizabeth
and Matthew John near their
Northeast Tennessee home.
Both are adopted from
Guatemala. (Not a reunion
shot; but cute for sure.)
Below: Dave Flores, Dee
Flint, Buck Kelly, Bob
Ceplikas, and Bill Petit
make the scene in 105
Dartmouth for the Class of
1978 Life Sciences Building
presentation.
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Paying close attention at a
panel (above), at dinner
(below), and (right) on the
canoe trip.
Dan Reicher spoke on behalf of
the Class of 1978 Life Sciences
Building. He also spoke on the
environmental and political panels.
Steve Adnopoz
From Bob Herbert’s column in
The New York Times of Aug. 5:
“… Dan Reicher, a former
assistant secretary at the
Department of Energy, told the
Schumer panel that increased
energy efficiency was ‘the real
low-hanging fruit in our economy.’
His words echoed those of Al
Gore, who described a commitment
to efficiency and conservation as
‘the best investment we can make.’
Mr. Reicher, now the director for
climate change and energy
initiatives at Google, said, ‘From
cars and homes to factories and
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offices, we know how to costeffectively deliver vast quantities
of energy savings today.’
He cited estimates suggesting
that an additional global investment
in ‘efficiency opportunities’ of
$170 billion annually over the next
13 years ‘would be sufficient to cut
projected global demand by at least
half.’ ”
Moderator & Trout Unlimited
lawyer Mindy Kassen, Bio-Diesel
entrepreneur Charlie Allison and
Google Director for Climate
Change and Energy Initiatives
Harpo Reicher listen as Biology
Professor Celia Chen opens the
Environmental Panel.
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Green Card
Scott Riedler: Like a good boy I
decided to check my PSA (blood
test for prostate cancer) 6 months
ahead of schedule, my 50th
birthday, and it was positive.
After 3 biopsy sessions, my
prostate, and the entire cancer,
were removed. Unfortunately I had
persistent pain from some internal
staples. To keep up my bicycling
habit I had to get a special bike seat
without a middle part. This seat
made for an unstable ride, so over I
went, fracturing my collarbone. So
shattered it had to be plated.
More fun at the reunion picnic and
at the tent.
Now I'm 6 months into a yearlong rehab program for a frozen
shoulder. The staples were
removed, so my pain is better.
All in all, 11 invasive procedures
made for a pretty traumatic year.
I'm back on my bike (with the old
seat!), and planning a week-long
ride with my 3 brothers along the
coast of No. Calif. this summer.
Then in September it's back east
to get my youngest daughter
Stephanie started at Dartmouth and
my eldest Kiersten moved in for
her senior year at Harvard.
[email protected]
Joey Bishop and Bob Gray
in the audience.
Alma Mater Ringtone.
Hear the Baker Tower bells chime
a bit of the Dartmouth alma mater
with calls to your cell phone.
Download the free ringtone file
offered by the Office of Alumni
Relations through Myxer. Free
tower photo wallpaper is available,
too! (Note: Depending on your cell
plan, your carrier may apply a onetime charge for the file transfer.)
Visit www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/ringtone.
Jeff Petrich (above) and
Cliff Below (below) ponder.
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narcissistic athletes, this lesson
comes hardest, yet lasts the longest.
It is the ethic that will be evoked
every second for two weeks at the
Beijing Olympics. What does it
take? How do some high schools
create a rich stage to learn these
“passing lessons” through healthy
sports programs?
Steven Solomon, noted family
therapist in San Diego, calls it
“Congruence: the values of
teamwork, empathy, hard work,
pursuit of excellence and courage
are exemplified so consistently that
they can easily find role models to
admire from past champion teams,
current coaches and players.”
For 18 seasons, I found myself
kicking on the sun-soaked field at
Jack Murphy Stadium for the
visiting Kansas City Chiefs in
gridiron battles that tested the
mettle of my character and
sometimes my good friend,
Charger kicker Rolf Benirschke.
Sermsee Kerner is mother to two
young athletes at St. Augustine
School in San Diego — Kent,
tennis captain, and Kurt, who is
going out for the freshman football
team, “I want my kids to learn to be
team players on the field but also in
their communities, to work together
in groups and learn that it takes
more than one to be successful.”
Even parents understand that their
own “teamwork” is enthusiasm for
the team as a whole, not just their
son or daughter. While St. Augustine might call it a brotherhood, it
is a gender-neutral social capital of
camaraderie of manners, of
sportsmanship.
To help define that quality of
performance when it matters most,
I hosted “Headgames” on Sirius
Satellite Radio” (Headgamesradio.com)
for two years on the subject of
sports and performance. We talked
to hundreds of star athletes,
coaches and performance experts
about character and youth sports.
No one is cut from the freshman
team: it’s all about fostering
leadership qualities from the first
year on. St. Augustine and
Cathedral Catholic High School in
San Diego have robust sports
traditions where supporters often
outnumber the home team fans at
away games. How?
Are youth sports the outdoor
classroom or the outdoor reformatory, where often as many bad
habits as good are taught by socalled role models: parents and
coaches?
“It takes a commitment to team
teaching”, says John Eliot Ph.D.,
sports performance expert and
author of “Overachievement: The
New Model for Exceptional
Performance.” Teachers, parents,
coaches, principals and alumni
reinforce a message of character
and relationship building for a
lifetime.
From The Local News
Outdoor classroom
can also be educational
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Editor’s Note: This is the first
column by former NFL kicker Nick
Lowery. The column will comment
on youth sports in San Diego
County and run on Wednesdays.
Why, in essence, do some athletes
such as San Diego’s own high
school star Marcus Allen, or
LaDainian Tomlinson see the field
better, or pass the ball so well like
soccer’s David Beckham or
basketball’s Steve Nash?
I hope this column will provoke
your thoughts about how we teach
“passing the ball” in life.
I needed the lesson. I still
remember my ninth-grade soccer
coach at Potomac School, Mr.
Kloman, yelling “PASS the ball,
Lowery!” For America’s often
Eliot says it takes “a tradition that
invokes a sense of community, a
commitment to do the extra work
like individual meetings with
parents, open houses to find
volunteers for programs that
support school sports, the bake
sales and fundraisers that become
their own tradition and reason for
alumni to come back year after
year.”
Principals know that the sports
stage is the best chalkboard for
helping round out the student, for
teaching concentration under
pressure, and finally, for helping us
all learn through that greatest test
of all: failure. For in the ebb and
flow of school, it is the students
that learn from failure that turn out
to be the winners in the Olympic
game of life.
Nick Lowery writes about the
psychology of youth sports.
----The Art of Yelling,
by Nick Lowery
I’d like to say that every coach I
ever had made me better. Every
one of them helped me learn
teamwork, character and
toughness, and the things that we
admire.
But that isn’t true. Until Dartmouth
College, I was just as interested in
playing pro baseball as NFL
football. I’d had great coaches, like
Gary Gardiner and Dick Johnson at
St Albans, who drilled into me that
every failure was one more character line in the Mount Rushmore
face we sculpt during a lifetime.
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Eventually, I overcame being cut
11 times by 8 teams – including the
Chargers in 1979 trying out for the
very sick Rolf Benirschke –
because my coaches (and parents)
helped me look at failure this way.
Like many people, I dealt with
coaches that saw coaching as
‘building up’ players by tearing
them down. By belittling them,
embarrassing them, chastising
them, making jokes of them, and
yelling at them. I quit baseball after
that year, and never looked back.
And I thank God for it, because
NFL football ended up being the
better choice for me.
There are great stories of what
sports can do right here at the Boys
& Girls Club of Carlsbad. CPO
Kelly Morrison Pop told the story
of Greg Nelson, who went from a
broken home at age 10 to
competence, then confidence at
basketball, to Youth of the Year;
from plant waterer to Executive
Director, to National Boys and
Girls Club Hall of Fame. But that’s
with coaches that make young
athletes feel encouraged and cared
about. Only then can the yelling
make any sense, because the athlete
can tell the difference.
John O’Neill, Men’s Basketball
coach at Palomar College, said
there are two types of yelling –
•
•
for encouragement and
motivation
for correction
“How well you know the kid
helps,” says O’Neill. “How well
they trust you will determine how
they take it”. Of course, age is a
key: before 12 years is exclusively
about learning to love sport and the
sacrifice it takes. Parents who miss
this distinction create a lifetime of
confused young people if they get
their own expectations in the way
of this first lesson. Kids from a
disciplined program don’t need to
be spoon fed every message later.
O’Neill says he was a
disciplinarian in high school; his
players knew what they would be
held accountable for. “And we
often say, if we don’t say anything,
then we’ve stopped caring”.
Fred Engh, Founder of the National
Alliance for Youth Sports, in his
seminal book, Why Johnny Hates
Sports, says there are three types of
kids. They need a
•
•
•
Pat on the Back
A Kick in the Butt
Nothing
Learning which kid needs what
incentive is the key.
“It’s the young Leagues that create
a Winning is the Only thing culture
that screw up kids”, says Engh. We
forget the age distinctions of pre-12
to post 12. We forget that Johnny is
a growing person. “The funny
thing is that every parent usually
really loves their kids; they just
show it in a strange way.” There is
loss of emotional control, and there
is often alcohol involved. Too
often, parental behavior towards
kids (like yelling) is about their
oversized need to see their children
as a ‘success” on the scoreboard
and not within themselves. “We
create emotion from the
scoreboards,” said Engh, “its no
different at the Little League
Level.”
Every Olympic Gold Medalist this
week will mention a coach who
helped them transcend their limits.
Their influence is as real as the
hard edge of the tools that carve
stone. I remember with deep
gratitude those coaches who got it
right when I was young, like Gary
Gardiner and Dick Johnson, just as
richly as Marv Levy and Marty
Schottenheimer.
The problem is ~ I’ll never forget
the ones who didn’t.
$5.5 Million Donation
Funds History
Professorship & Life
Sciences auditorium
Two gifts totaling $5.5 million
from Kathy and Rick Kimball will
advance teaching and learning at
Dartmouth. One gift will create an
endowed chair in history, the other
an auditorium in the new Class of
1978 Life Sciences Center.
The John Kimball Jr. 1943
Professorship Fund will honor
Rick's father, who majored in
history at Dartmouth and received a
degree from Tuck in 1944. Mr.
Kimball was a Marine Corps
fighter pilot in both World War II
and Korea. He achieved early
prominence and recognition as
assistant counsel to the Army at the
famous televised Army-McCarthy
Hearings, which effectively ended
the career of Senator Joseph
McCarthy.
He was a long-time partner at the
Boston law firm of Hale and Dorr
and served the town of Topsfield,
Mass., as its town moderator for
more than thirty years.
The Arvo J. Oopik, M.D. '78
Auditorium will be a 200-seat
tiered smart classroom, named for
Rick's classmate. Dr. Oopik was a
cardiologist with the Indian Health
Service, and the lead cardiologist
for a major study of heart disease
in Indian communities. In 1994, he
and two colleagues died tragically
in a plane crash on their way to a
North Dakota reservation.
"We are so grateful to Kathy and Rick Kimball for these wonderful gifts. Their generosity honors the past as it looks to the
future," said Dartmouth President James Wright. "These gifts celebrate the lives and careers of two great Dartmouth
graduates, while at the same time ensuring that the education that helped nurture their good works in the world outside
Hanover will be just as strong and relevant for another generation of students."
A gift from Kathy and Rick Kimball will support a professorship at Dartmouth
and an auditorium in the new Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, pictured here
in a rendering from architects Bohlin Cywinsky Jackson.
Rick Kimball is a founding general partner of Technology Crossover Ventures in Palo Alto, Calif. He earned an MBA from
the University of Chicago in 1983, as did Kathy Kimball, who formerly worked in the treasurer's office at the University of
California. Kathy and Rick serve on the President's Leadership Council at Dartmouth. They are generous donors to the
Dartmouth College Fund and to financial aid, having endowed the John Kimball Jr. 1943 Scholarship Fund and the Mark L.
Walker '78 Memorial Scholarship Fund.
"This gift helps us succeed at two of the most important aspects of our mission," said Dean of the Faculty and (recently
elected Honorary Member of the Class of 1978) Carol Folt. “Endowed professorships honor accomplishments of our
distinguished faculty, and the new auditorium provides a wonderful place for faculty and students to come together for
innovative teaching and learning."
The John Kimball Jr. 1943 Professorship will be held by a faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences, with a
preference for the teaching of American or European history. Other endowed chairs that have been publicly announced
during the campaign include the Evans Family Distinguished Professorship, the Dartmouth Professorship of Biological
Sciences, the Richard and Jane Pearl Professorship in Environmental Studies, the Sherman Fairchild Professorships in
Emerging Fields, the Neukom Professorship in Computional Science, the Clements Professorship in Politics and Democracy,
and the Hansen Professorship for Teaching and Scholarship.
The Arvo J. Oopik, M.D. '78 Auditorium will be a major feature of the new Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, which
will be a national model of sustainable design with spaces devoted to undergraduate- and graduate-level teaching and
research. Other notable features include a 6,000-square-foot greenhouse, a two-story atrium for "science in sight" gallery
displays, a "sorghum and grasses green roof" to help keep the building cool, and a storm water management system that will
reuse one million gallons of rain water annually. Pending approval from the Hanover Planning Board, the foundation work
will begin in November. Occupancy is planned for March 2010. The gift is part of the Campaign for the Dartmouth
Experience, the most ambitious fund-raising initiative in Dartmouth's history. With a $1.3 billion goal, the campaign is
seeking investment in four initiatives: 1) advance leading-edge teaching and scholarship; 2) enhance residential and campus
life; 3) honor its commitment to making a Dartmouth education accessible; and 4) raise unrestricted dollars.