As is my custom, I’ve taken in college football playoff and bowl games with some real cliff-hangers this season. I love college football. Heightened interest comes if either I or one of our children is an alumnus of the school – even accidentally – which brings me to the North Dakota State/University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) game. The announcer described UIW as an “upstart football program.” I took a memory trip to the time when I had become an accidental alumnus.
Al had been stationed at Fort Sam Houston for five years or so when I decided I needed to add kindergarten/elementary certification to my undergrad Ole Miss high school English and science degree. Incarnate Word College, as it was then, a short distance from the post with a sterling education degree reputation seemed like the logical choice. With my list of required courses for the certification, I had a plan until Al threw in a clinker. He insisted that I take the classes at a master’s level and get a graduate degree while I was at it. It was before online classes, and I knew this Army. We were already on borrowed time at this post. “I’ll be lucky if we stay long enough for me to finish the certification requirements,” I argued. “We’ll never live here long enough for me to finish a degree.”
His reply was terse. “You don’t know that.” He seemed to think the Army’s slogan of “being all you can be” also applied to military wives. So, in a surprising move, this longtime Baptist enrolled in the Catholic institution where each religious group had a history of doubting the other.
One of my first (and favorite) instructors was Sister Theophane who knew her education. Dressed in her customary habit, she clung to some traditions, starting each class with either a hymn or prayer. Still, she sought to be ecumenical to her non-Catholic students and encouraged them to bring enough copies of a hymn from their tradition if they would like. This put her in a position of not being able to lead a hymn she didn’t know. The first time another student brought a hymn unknown to her, I “sang a few bars” to give her the idea. She called on me to lead that day and began a tradition of asking me if someone brought in a song she didn’t know. Between us, we could sing almost anything. One day, she brought in a perfect chorus for the theme of our Baptist Vacation Bible School and graciously granted permission and made me a copy to use with the third graders I was teaching. Knowing the doubts of some of my Baptist friends, only my son, who played the piano for his peers, knew where I got the song.
As things played out, my prediction came true. Halfway through my program, Al got orders to Germany. I consulted with my advisor. Since it would be several months before we could join Al, he challenged me to complete the six hours needed in the education portion, and he would work with me take the psychology portion from the universities with programs in Kaiserslautern and send my comprehensive to be administered by the high school counselor when I finished.
So with my Master’s in Early Childhood Education accidentally from UIW, I cheered their “upstart football program” on with pride in their December 16 cliff-hanger against North Dakota.