Spring Break
Op-ed: Don't listen to the disbelief; dream big
Mike Levesque
Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Commentary
"Dreams are for dreamers. Just keep your head in the game."
This was my regular dose of sound life advice from a local realist.
Too bad I know better. Hopefully, after considering my story, you will as well.
I had transferred to UConn in 1981 after completing a two-year community college program. Because I needed certain specific credits I found myself enrolled in Computer Science 101. As this was a freshman class and I was a junior, I immediately had a problem. Things just got worse once I learned that the computers of choice were ancient IBM card readers and the upperclassmen's idea of a good time was to visit the computer center to heckle the novice programmers each time they coded an infinite loop into a routine. How nice!
Surprisingly, one of my best friends that year was made in that class. His was a freshman named Andy. He was bright, witty, enthusiastic, and a fellow sports nut. Andy's calling card was the "dice cup" from which he would cast six dice on the table and declare the total before anyone had time to read the numbers showing on each die. My best memory of Andy was when he came to see me at Sprague Hall - waking me from a sound sleep at 2 a.m. - because he could not get his final project to run. Of course, it goes without saying that what could be called the "Assignment of the Year" was due the following day. After determining that the computers probably saw a major difference between the input of "Carl Yastrzemski" and " Carl Yastrzemski," the problem was solved. A call from the Andy shortly after I had fallen back to sleep confirmed it.
Andy, for all the similarities that he shared with the average UConn student, had one glaring difference from almost all of us. From the time I met him, and maybe even long before that, Andy had a dream. A very specific, very detailed dream that he reminded me of often.
Andy wanted to be the team statistician for the UConn basketball team.
Recently, I again saw my old friend Andy on ESPN during the telecast of the men's UConn-Syracuse game. He was sitting on press row, compiling statistics for the men's team.
This was my regular dose of sound life advice from a local realist.
Too bad I know better. Hopefully, after considering my story, you will as well.
I had transferred to UConn in 1981 after completing a two-year community college program. Because I needed certain specific credits I found myself enrolled in Computer Science 101. As this was a freshman class and I was a junior, I immediately had a problem. Things just got worse once I learned that the computers of choice were ancient IBM card readers and the upperclassmen's idea of a good time was to visit the computer center to heckle the novice programmers each time they coded an infinite loop into a routine. How nice!
Surprisingly, one of my best friends that year was made in that class. His was a freshman named Andy. He was bright, witty, enthusiastic, and a fellow sports nut. Andy's calling card was the "dice cup" from which he would cast six dice on the table and declare the total before anyone had time to read the numbers showing on each die. My best memory of Andy was when he came to see me at Sprague Hall - waking me from a sound sleep at 2 a.m. - because he could not get his final project to run. Of course, it goes without saying that what could be called the "Assignment of the Year" was due the following day. After determining that the computers probably saw a major difference between the input of "Carl Yastrzemski" and " Carl Yastrzemski," the problem was solved. A call from the Andy shortly after I had fallen back to sleep confirmed it.
Andy, for all the similarities that he shared with the average UConn student, had one glaring difference from almost all of us. From the time I met him, and maybe even long before that, Andy had a dream. A very specific, very detailed dream that he reminded me of often.
Andy wanted to be the team statistician for the UConn basketball team.
Recently, I again saw my old friend Andy on ESPN during the telecast of the men's UConn-Syracuse game. He was sitting on press row, compiling statistics for the men's team.
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