OLYMPIANS IN THE MAKING

The First Athletic Competition at Granger School.  

The schoolhouse of Granger School at the corner of Routes 59 and 34 in Naperville had two rooms, with three grades being taught in each room.  They didn't have gym classes or even a gymnasium.  Nor did students have the opportunity to know what it felt like to strive to be an athlete like those competing in the Olympics today.  In 1961, Mr. Robert Morris changed that.

There was a new addition to the school.  Now sixth and seventh graders had two rooms at the end of the hallway all to themselves.  The new principal, Frederic Holbeck, taught English and Social Studies.  Math, Science, and Gym were taught by Mr. Morris.  He was a friendly, but very serious, straight-laced teacher.  We found that out on the first day of gym class.

Dressed smartly in a tight-fitting shirt, gym shorts, and a whistle suspended on a rope around his neck, Mr. Morris introduced our class to a grueling fifteen-minute regiment of calisthenics. He didn't allow us to slouch or to complain.  Exercising was serious business to Mr. Morris.  By the end of the week, my friends Sandy, Susan, June, and me, like the rest of our class, could hardly walk.

Halfway through the school year, we were pretty adjusted to our new routine when Mr. Morris threw us a curve ball.  He was organizing an end-of-the-year athletic competition with two other local country schools, Wheatland and Eola.  To get us prepared, we were introduced to all sorts of new athletic sports like jumping hurdles and long distance races.  Before it was warm enough to practice outside, we did the 50-yard dash between the gym and the end of the hallway.  Before starting, hall monitors were posted in front of the other classrooms.  Our classmate, George Moss, who predicted he'd be president one day, would brace one foot behind the other and then take off so fast that his face turned beet red.

My favorite sport was running.  After school I would run down Naperville-Plainfield Road which hardly had any traffic in those days.  Then came the day of our big event.  To make it even more official, Mr. Morris had a gun to shoot into the air (with blanks for bullets that is).

I won several won ribbons.  So did a lot of my classmates at Granger School.  But without the other kids from Wheatland and Eola having the benefit of gym class, or a Mr. Morris, they never knew what hit them.  We creamed 'em.

I'm not aware of any of us kids from Granger School winning any notable athletic competitions later.  Nor did George Moss become president.  But I never forgot how good it felt to work for, and then win, those blue ribbons.

Kathy Keroson is the author of the newly-released, two-book memoir series, "My Hometown - Naperville."