Growing Up: Farm Life & Basketball in the 1940s & '50s - Paperback

by Harold L. Schoen (Author)

An inspiring story of growing up in a midwestern farm family of 15.

Heart-warming memories of a secure, but not easy, childhood with many fun times moderated by hard farm work and economic and educational challenges.

And, at childhood's end, the life-changing experience of attending college on a basketball scholarship.

Born in 1941 on a farm that had no electricity and was operated with workhorses, Hal Schoen helped his parents and others in their neighborhood group to thresh wheat and oats and to butcher hogs among many other farm chores.

The farm was not just a site for work, but also a giant playground for us kids ... we had exclusive access to a large barnyard, fruit orchard, the barn and other farm buildings, and 135 acres of fields that included a small woods and creek. (p. 47)

Neither parent had graduated from high school, yet the Schoen children did very well in school. College, though, was beyond their parents' experience and financial means.

Fortunately, Hal's college bills were paid by a basketball scholarship granted by legendary University of Dayton coach Tom Blackburn on condition that he make the team each year.

After some tough personal challenges and lucky breaks, he became a starting forward then team captain of the Flyers before earning his bachelor's degree.

When the team returned after winning the 1962 National Invitation Tournament], ...Mom, Dad, and a carload of siblings were in the crowd at the Dayton airport. After ten days in New York City competing in Madison Square Garden, I was struck the moment I saw them by the vast difference between the world I had just left and that of my childhood. (p. 178)

Don't miss this richly entertaining memoir of family, farm, and sports in mid-twentieth century America.

Author Biography

Harold L. (Hal) Schoen was born on a small hardscrabble family farm in west central Ohio in 1941, the oldest boy of 13 children. His mother's family still spoke German to each other when they visited even though they had lived in west central Ohio for over one hundred years. He was the first in his family to attend college when he was awarded a basketball scholarship by the University of Dayton. He struggled to make the team but eventually became a starting forward as a junior. That year, 1962, the Flyers won the NIT championship.

Hal was a high school mathematics teacher and baseball and basketball coach for four years. Upon completing the necessary graduate education, he began a 34-year career as a jointly appointed Professor of Mathematics and Education. He is author of high school and beginning college mathematics textbooks and has written many professional papers. Growing Up is his first book for a general audience.

A University of Iowa Professor Emeritus since he retired in 2005, he is a dedicated husband, father and grandfather. Since 1999, he and his wife Theresa have spent two or three of the coldest winter months in a condominium on the west coast of Florida. Taking advantage of the warm weather, the two of them love walking and resting on the beach.