Memory Snapshots Beyond the Treasure Chest

John R. Rogers

Physical So-Called Education

Ever see the movie, "Vision Quest," about some high school wrestler? A scene from that film was done in the old gymnasium of John R. Rogers. I recognized it well, and although it was sort of thrilling to see our old high school on the big screen, it was not a scene of particularly happy memories.

The gym had to have been suitable at the time the school was built, but it was really a scrunchy gym for us kids a mere 25 years later. The brick work was the only decent thing about it. It was on the dark side, and the air was stale from years of fierce athletic combat and the usual overcrowded PE classes.

There were very few seats in the gym for spectators, all of them on the north side. I don't remember ever watching a game of any type in that gym. I think the seats were only used for group photos for The Treasure Chest and an occasional pep talk from coaches, one in particular that I remember was the only pep talk I remember, from Coach Walters, when he urged us track rats, prior to a track meet with Lewis and Clark, to "Go out and beat those South Hill bums!" Stirring words never forgotten.

Two Memshots of the gym are clear in my mind. One is standing around, with nothing really to do but engage in conversation, one day when it was crowded, apparently for some organizing purpose which was very disorganized. I was listening to Jim Peterson and Don Renz talking about Elvis Presley. I only listened because I was not a part of the Elvis Boom.

I also remember the standard, known-throughout-the-nation scene of THE PE TEACHER THROWING OUT THE BALL! It actually happened. From high up on the southwest wall was a window with a wooden door. Coach and PE teacher, the famous Carl "Tuffy" Ellingsen, would open the window and throw out some basketballs, and that's the last we saw of him. We sorta organized some kind of basketball game. Actually, it was GAMES,since there were so many of us one game would have been impossible. Chaos. PE classes always seemed to be either in some degree of chaos or ready to burst into it at the slightest whistle.

That kind of educational mayhem, along with being forced to spend a class period on other occasions for physical education in the stinky, humid wrestling room, plus those class periods in September when the football was thrown out so we could play sandlot football games out on the field, were enough to make me vow that I would go out for a team, so that I could be excused from having to take PE. Being in a study hall for a period, instead of a PE class, even with the warden and henchmen disciplinarians, was far better. I think all I learned in my physical education was some new sailor-type vocabulary...some shockingly vulgar.

There was a wrestling team, so I'm sure wrestlers would have more and better memories of the gym. I do remember it was also where the science fair exhibits were held, but I wasn't the junior scientist type, so my one memory of my white rat display for my biology experiment is dim. And I remember a post-football game dance, the game having been one of those rare ones held at our own field, when quarterback standout Rex Schimke was dancing around with his little sister, which I thought was a nice thing for such an older big brother to do.

But I'll always wonder if the legendary scene and impression of everyone in the nation's high school PE classes consisting, of the teacher throwing out the ball, such a common image that the term itself, "Throwing out the ball," is an educational cliché, was originated in the Roger gym, by Carl "Tuffy" Ellingsen, opening that wooden door in the high window and ... well, you know.

- Wyatt Newman

Drama, Back Halls, TOTB*, Marksmanship, Science Fairs, and the Old Gym

Again Wyatt has triggered a flood of disjoint memories. My first encounter with the Rogers gymnasium was in the spring of 1956 while I was still attending Cooper Elementary. The weather was shirtsleeve weather, so school must have been ready to end for the year. Several eighth grade classes from the feeder schools attended a theater-in-the-round play that was held in the gym. I think it was part of an orientation designed to soften us up for high school. The play probably only lasted a half hour, but I enjoyed it. Set changes were carried out by the actors carrying stuff up and down the aisles. I remember a chunky frowning big kid carrying a chair past me followed by getting into a smiling persona as he sat the chair on the stage.

I remember the small set of bleachers on the North wall. We could enter the gym at the top of those bleachers from that back hallway. Other entrances were from the girls' locker room on the east wall and the boys' locker room on the west wall. The boys' locker room had  the sweatbox and the coaching staff offices above it.  The gym teacher launched each TOTB* educational period from a window in the upstairs southwest wall, as Wyatt said. That was the only time I saw the teacher.

Can you still picture the area? The south side of that east-west hallway connected the Pirates' Cove, the music room, a door to the outdoor shop area, the girls locker room, the gym, and the boys' locker room. The north side of the hallway led to the stage and the two connectors the the rest of the main building, but to me, that gym was the central anchor for that dark hallway. In our 2000 tour I was lost in the back hall area, but I recognized the field house. The gym as we knew it was gone.

Some boys had homeroom in that old gym. These must have included the "W" boys, because my friend, Jim Wellwood, described guys throwing swish free throws before homeroom. I went in there a few times to watch them before the bell rang.

For me, the TOTB ceremonies continued a series of grade school so-called classes that were misnamed "Physical Education." Peers that were born physically educated by virtue of DNA yelled instructions at us geeks that had two left feet.

Consider the possibility of teaching of other subjects using the TOTB method. I recall attending MSU one month and then finding myself the next month in the army in a class about how to kill somebody without making a sound. I learned hand-to-hand combat, the bayonet, and defense against chemical and biological warfare. I became a marksman with an M14. I had actual instruction from your government for those skills. I like to imagine an alternative approach of teaching those things though the TOTB  method. "Here. Catch this rifle, grenade, and gas mask. Go out and blow things away and then stop by the gas chamber for some chitchat. "

TOTB sums up my Rogers education in matters physical. Even in grade school I had realized that physical education was a misnomer, although I didn't know that word. I decided that some endeavors are what you make of them yourself. In that respect TOTB did educate me. I joined the tennis team. I was no good at it, but at least I had fun and no peers yelled at me.

In college, I finally received true physical education. My university called it HPR, since the PE term had been besmirched. There I received actual, interesting, education of a physical nature. It cost me more than TOTB and didn't exercise my self-reliance as much.

While we were at Rogers, they built the field house, tore out the Pirates' Cove and built some kind of daycare center with a one-way mirror like an interrogation room on Law and Order. I've always wondered if Rogers taught people about childcare using the TOTB method (throw out the ... brats?).

That original gym had another aspect for me. The 1960 Treasure Chest has a picture of a science fair held in the gym. I did okay at that sport but TOTB didn't figure into it.

- Ed Mauget

* TOTB: Throw Out The Balls