“I texted him and complimented his playing. I told him he did a good job.”
John made an explosion noise and exclaimed, “Wow, a compliment! But don’t make your move too quickly, or they will run like deer. You have to use all your feminine wiles and kind of sneak up on them.”
After class ended and it was just John and me in the room, I asked him about his offensive lineman story, which I had heard so many times. “What is the point of it?” I asked.
“I just like to give those guys some credit,” he said. “It is one of the most difficult positions to play, and if they don’t do their job, the backs and receivers have no chance. I was a tailback on my high school team, and I guess it made sense to me that if our offensive line didn’t execute, I would be the victim. So I’ve always focused on having a good offensive line.”
He then walked back to the computer and said, “I found this website that has the answer to everything.” He pulled up a website called Peter Answers. “We can ask it anything.”
He typed, “Who is the best professor on campus?”
The website responded with the phrase, “Boz is the best.”
I admitted that was pretty neat and asked if he just preloaded it with a few answers.
“No. I’m serious. It knows everything,” he replied.
I told him, if the website was so smart, ask it what I was wearing.
John typed in the question, and, to my amazement, up came the reply, “Black shirt with blue jeans.”
Completely baffled, I stammered, “How …how did you do that?”
“It’s smart, I told you,” he said with a laugh. “Well, actually, I suppose there is a trick to it. I just wanted to practice it before I used it in class next time.” For the next fifteen minutes, John and I took turns perfecting the technique of using the website.
A main reason the trick works is that despite being in his eighties, John can still type quickly. I asked him how he had learned to type so well.
“After I got done coaching our football team my senior year of high school,” he replied, “I went on to basketball, and we beat the junior college basketball team pretty badly. After our basketball season ended, the junior college coach asked me to play with his team. I liked basketball, so I agreed. But he told me I had to be registered at the college in order to play. So I signed up for Typing 1, a night class.
“The next year, I was done with school and was working at my dad’s body shop. The coach asked me to play another season. I told him I couldn’t, as practice interfered with my work. So he held practices at five in the afternoon so I could make it. And I registered for Typing 2.
“I’d coached my high school football team again, and a guy said I’d make a good coach, but I’d need to go to college first. So I took Typing 3 and other courses. I think I am the only guy in history to letter four years in basketball at a junior college.”
The following afternoon, I kicked off my International Finance course with some Peter Answers. And wouldn’t you know it, even the least engaged students perked up and seemed more open to learning during the rest of the lesson.
CHAPTER 4
“If I catch anybody not talking during this shooting-the-breeze period, I will flunk you,” John said to begin class. He then pointed to a guy in the second row and warned, “And you are pretty close to flunking.”
Then, “That reminds me of a story. I asked my Italian uncle to tell me the key to a happy marriage, and here is what he told me.” In his best Italian accent, John continued, “After our-a wedding, we was-a riding along in the horse-a and buggy, and the horse-a stumbled. I said, ‘That’s-a once-a mister horse-a.’ We go a little further and he stumbled again, and I said, ‘That’s-a two times a mister horse-a.’ After a while, the horse-a stumbled again, and I got down and said, ‘That’s-a three times mister horse-a.’ And I shot him in the head. Now my new wife comes-a down-a out of the buggy and is screamin’, ‘You crazy man, how could you kill this beautiful horse?’ I let her go on for about ten minutes and then said, ‘Ah ah, that’s-a once.’”
As the class erupted in laughter, John said, “Now, my uncle didn’t really say that,” and he pointed to the guy in the second row, “but that’s-a once for you.”
He abruptly changed the subject. “Most of you don’t know the TV show Cheers. There was a mailman on the show named Cliff. He would meet a good-looking gal, and he couldn’t talk. But Sam the bartender sure could talk, as he had confidence. But the most important thing he had was ignorance: he didn’t know how stupid he was. He had confidence and ignorance. That’s the key to my life, too.
“As a matter of fact, about fifty years ago, we won our first national championship. Fifteen guys on the other team went on to play pro ball. One of them, Otis Taylor, went on to star for the Kansas City Chiefs team that beat the Minnesota Vikings in the Super Bowl. They were all on scholarships; we had none. They had a platoon system, and we had a stupid coach who played seven guys both ways. You know how we beat them?”
After pausing for a moment, he continued. “We were stupid and didn’t know how good they were. We had the two most powerful things on our side: ignorance and confidence. That is the secret to life.”
As I listened to John’s words, I thought of how students are constantly asking their professors for more real-life application of the lessons being taught—and it doesn’t get much more real-life than winning a national championship.
John shifted gears. “I remember a guy asking me one time after we won our fourth national championship if I thought I’d be doing all this. I told him there was no way I imagined it. I just took it one day at a time. All I was thinking about is if I could get a mercy date from that good-looking gal who would become my wife.” John pointed at handsome Luke and sternly said, “You will have to depend on one of those.” The class burst out in laughter at Luke’s expense, knowing it certainly was not true.
“But little did I know after that first date that I would be married all these years. How many years?” John paused. “I don’t know how many years.” The whole class, especially the guys, seemed to enjoy his admission of forgetfulness.
“I never imagined that someday this good-looking gal would be a grandma and still look good to me. These things happen gradually.” He paused.
“Okay, let’s watch some film, some running plays. They are more complicated.”
After John showed a play, a long touchdown run, he pointed at a woman in the front row and said, “What did the left guard do on that play?”
After she mumbled her reply, John said, “You are soft spoken. That is good when you are cuddling but not now.”
After showing another long running play, he pointed at the same woman and said, “What do you call that?”
She had learned, and confidently replied, “Great coaching.”
“That’s right. I had the right guys in the game and called the right play.”
After a while, he proclaimed, “Enough of this nonsense,” and shut off the film. John drew seven faces on the board, ranging from a very happy face all the way down to a very sad face. He asked a few students where they were on the happiness scale, and most replied that they were second or third from the top. John asked, “How can we get you to the top? Here is how I get myself happy. I say, ‘It’s a great day. I’m happy to be alive. I’m in class with all these great students. I’ll probably get paid this month.’
“And when you are sick, you have an army in your immune system that will protect you from anything. Tell that immune system army to kill the sickness.