Imagination lost

Gene Steinmeyer

It was my first year of teaching, way back in 1973. I was expected to help supervise the Dawson-Verdon High School Prom. That school no longer exists. I had worked so many odd jobs to survive college expenses, I didn’t even have a suit I could wear to the prom.

A shopping trip to Lincoln, about an hour drive, led to the purchase of my first job-related suit, complete with shirt, tie and a new pair of shoes. It meant I would have to find a summer job to keep from going into debt.

I couldn’t tell you a single thing about my own high school prom or any other prom I was forced to supervise. However, something happened at that Dawson-Verdon prom I remember to this day. I had never heard of it before and I haven’t heard of it since, but there was a speaker at that prom.

I’m sure not a single high school kid — all dressed in their tuxes and long dresses the high school girls had to sneak past their protective fathers — will remember that short speech. I have no idea who the man was or where he found his research. It certainly wasn’t over the Internet, which was invented 12 years later.

That man said that at 3 years old, the prom-goers had reached their maximum level of imagination. During the next 15 years, as they worked their way through school toward high school graduation, almost every student would lose 99 percent of his/her imagination. That night, I decided he was right about me and I would try to reclaim some of that lost imagination.

I tried to work imagination into my education workday. I had an outdoor classroom for my science class. It won an award with a conservation group. We planted an arboretum that was registered with the state. My classes built imaginary cities from scratch. I tried a new spelling program that helped me more than my students.

I don’t know if I succeeded, but every time I was bored with teaching, I tried something else. As I worked my way through the coaching ranks, I tried to use my imagination to add some excitement.

Basketball is a game of imitating the successful. The trouble with that philosophy is most of the time the successful had better talent than my teams. I would try to take those same ideas, but mold it with my personnel. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Because I was coaching girls’ basketball, the crowds usually consisted of parents and administrators with stern looks on their faces. I decided to use my imagination to try to boost attendance. In truth, I had some talented basketball players on my first teams as a head coach at Wilber-Clatonia High School.

Even though my team was tall and not really fast, we preached run, run, run. It was a disguise to hide the fact after all that running, we needed to get it to our two talented post players. As we won games, the crowds started to grow. They talked about how much faster my team appeared to be. If only they knew.

I brought back an old idea of “Sandwich Night” with the help of a local bartender. We introduced our starting lineup by spotlight, even before colleges thought about doing the wild introductions. The crowds continued to grow. I wish I could take credit, but the team kept winning and winning, the best type of promotion.

If I thought the crowds were bad when I started at Wilber-Clatonia, I should have been prepared for the empty seats at Doane College. I would have to drag out the imagination motivation to get anyone in the seats at Doane College.

After a couple of years of failed promotions, I got some help from an unlikely source: The campus’ Young Republicans. Back then, the Young Democrats were the hippies and the Young Republicans were later to be named yippies.

I was approached by their president, a college senior with a receding hairline and a great imagination. He told me a group of Young Republicans met every Thursday at 11:30 p.m., right after the Tonight Show, to watch the David Letterman talk show that followed. Every Thursday night, Letterman proclaimed Toast on a Stick Night. The Young Republicans would toast day-old bread and munch on it like a lollypop into the early morning hours.

That Young Republican asked if he could have Toast on a Stick Night at one of my games. I didn’t hesitate a second before I gave my permission. The Young Republicans bought the bread and toasted it at the college kitchen. I furnished the sticks. I even marked a stick so the person getting that stick would win a prize.

At halftime, we invited the football team to participate in a Toast Dunking Contest. It was hard sweeping up all the crumbs.

We went on to have promotions like Paradise Night with a college fraternity and Harley Night, which was Senior Night. A local Harley group drove the seniors on the court for their introductions. We even had indoor fireworks, which didn’t work great.

The team we played on Toast on a Stick Night was Wayne State College from Nebraska. Their coach was Lenny Klaver. He loved the promotion and countered with Hawaii Night when we came to visit Wayne. A wild-eyed Hawaiian god would spend the night putting curses on my team and me.

Both Lenny, who also was the baseball coach, and I had a lot of fun with promotions. More importantly, it put butts in the seats. I just heard from Lenny this week. He did well with his imagination. Dr. Klaver will soon become the new president of North Central Missouri College in Trenton. Not bad for 1 percent imagination.