> Lombardi funded a boarding school in Wisconsin in the late
> 60's early 70's. It was called JFK Prep and was situated
> in the remnants of an old German religious commune, I
> think it was St. Naizians or something close.
St. Nazianz. There were still a bunch of old retired Salavatorian Brothers living there when I spent my freshman year there in 1973 and a few of the younger Brothers taught there as well.
> The school had no grades, no classes, and half of the
> student body was inner city kids there on complete
> scholarship. The place was a riot. Lots of interesting
> people went there for the few years it existed. Then it
> went broke I think.
Close, but not quite. There were P/F grades and there were definitely classes held on regular schedules. But the really cool thing was the faculty each had their own classrooms attached to their office space and some of them were cool to hang out with and drink coffee and stuff. Quality bull sessions.
There were lots of cool people (students and faculty) there, each one odder than the next. And you are right, there were a bunch of inner city kids there -- it was the first time in my life I lived around either black people or people from the 'inner city' (the polite word for the ghetto at the time). My dorm floor was about 1/3 black compared to the suburb where I grew up which had a 1970 census population of 68,000 and ONE black family...
> I always wondered what Lombardi thought of the place.
I never new Lombardi had anything to do with it -- it seemed a most un-Lombardi sort of place.
> Important point. Their sports teams always won, and their
> cheerleaders were almost all guys dressed in drag and they
> only did silent cheers. But they won.
That would be the basketball team whose star was Mickey Crowe (father Marty was the coach). One year he was there he was the highest scoring high school player in the country. I think Mickey went on to Marquette when Al McGuire was still coaching there, but I'm no basketball fan and am not sure of that. I don't think he ever turned pro. He was a weird bird-looking kind of guy with almost dreadlocks for hair (he was a white guy from the sticks).
I lost my virginity in the woods there and dropped my first acid there (not the same day :-) Smoked a lot of pot which was not exactly approved of, but sort of accepted as being inevitable.
Fond memories....
-- no Onan
Truth is the most valuable thing we have - so let us economize it.
-- Mark Twain