I think everyone should go away to school for a least a year. It's good for you to be on your own a little and face new challenges. ETBC was a somewhat protected atmosphere since it was a small Baptist school that took the word "Baptist" seriously in its rules and campus life. For example, they rescinded the scholarship on the freshman starting guard I had met because he shacked up with a girl from the school one weekend.
Chapel met on Tuesdays and Thursday and attendance was mandatory. Seats were assigned and the roll checked. An unexcused absence was 5 demerits, 25 demerits got you expelled from school. You could also get demerits for a dirty room, being too loud in the dorm, or using the fire escape as regular stairs.
I was assigned the last room on the second floor of the northeast corner of Fegan Hall, the primary dorm residence for men. The room was about 10 x 14 with two built-in single beds taking up the entire east wall. The room also had two small 3x3 closets, some built-in drawers with a counter top and mirror on the west wall and a small bathroom with shower that was shared with an adjoining room. It also had two small wooden tables and chairs to use as a desk. Just outside my room was the fire escape exit. The regular stairs were in the middle of the building, a long way away.
Initially, I had no roommate which I thought was good. The room was so small I could use the extra room and there was no bookcase on the north wall as there was in the other rooms. It had a window instead, since it was the outside wall of the building. That provided better ventilation since it also was not air conditioned. I chose the bed that had the cross ventilation.
My suite mates were both freshman scholarship basketball players. Donny was a 6'3" guard from Pasadena, TX and a 6'7" Gomer Pyle clone from Grapeland, TX. Donny was the only other 4A school player besides me. Grapeland was a class 1A school. The Grapeland guy was tall, skinny, and awkward. He also played a guitar and sang Johnny Cash songs. He was pretty good at that, if you liked country music. I wasn't a country music fan at that time.
After a few days I was convinced that I wasn't going to have a roommate until I came in after class and found some clothes thrown on the extra bed along with a Bible and some theology books. "Oh no, " I thought. "I'm going to get stuck with a preacher." Essentially, you went to ETBC to be a preacher or teacher. They didn't offer much of anything else.
James Hoffpauir was a preacher allright, but he was also a former class 3A All-State basketball player at Sillsbee, TX. He had played one year on scholarship at Lamar University until he had a conversion experience, felt called to preach, and transferred to ETBC. He did not play basketball at ETBC. He was about 5'9", had long thinning floppy hair on the top of his head, and a country drawl that would quit. We became great friends.
He was a preacher but didn't wear it on his sleeves. He wasn't pompous or sanctimonious or "holier than thou". He was just a good guy. He was a junior who had been engaged to be married and scheduled to live in the married housing area, but he broke the engagement and didn't get married. He gave me, and I still have, the Bible his fiancee had given him. We played a lot of basketball together. He also taught me how to bowl. (He had come within 4 pins of qualifying for the PBA tour.) He also taught me some life lessons that I still remember and practice today. I had the honor of being his Best Man when he got married a year later to Cathy Bartels. Sometimes, when James was at the girl's dorm visiting with Cathy, Ricky Hargrave and I would go over there and ask Cathy, "can James come out and play?"
Registration for classes was done on a seniority basis, except they let the basketball players inside the building early and the coaches let us into the registration room well ahead of our assigned space. They also visited with us and told us which classes and teachers to take and which teachers to avoid. One of the required classes was "Appreciation of the Arts" and was taught by two different teachers. They said to avois one guy at all costs but his class time matched what I needed to I took him.
Under him, Appreciation of the Arts was not a gimme easy arts survey course. He had 5 different masters of music degrees and had completed the work to get his doctorate in all of them. However, he didn't want to be called "Doctor" so he never took the final oral exam. He also always wore two watches. It seems he was behind enemy lines in Korea and his squad was supposed to get to a pickup point by a certain time. He was the squad leader and his watch broker. Evidently, no one else had a watch. They were late getting to the pickup point and got there in time to watch the rescue helicopters fly away and had to spend another night behind enemy lines. So, you can tell he was a little bit eccentric. He said he wasn't qualified to teach anything about painting and sculpting. He knew music and was going to teach music. He taught a course equivalent to a Music History course required for music majors. We had to be able to listen to snippets of songs and identify the song and composer. If we spelled the composer's name wrong we got no credit for the answer. We also had to recognize when new instruments were introduced to the orchestra. I brownie points one day in class by recognizing what was not authentic in a record of a 17th century piece. I recognized they were using an electric organ instead of a pipe organ. Miss Ellis always gave me extra points for taking this course so that I could relate to Kay Ellen more. I never told her it was a required course.
I also took an idiot's math course. It transferred to UTA as College Algebra but it was really a simple, almost remedial high school math course. A couple of weeks into the class I realized that I didn't really need the book and I could save some money if I took the book back. Unfortunately, it had been 2 weeks and 1 day since I bought the book and I could only get a full refund in I had taken it back within 2 weeks. I kept the book but usually took the Dallas Morning News to class, when I went. I'd also go 20-30 minutes late for the hour and twenty minute class. When Mr. Jimerson would take roll at the start of class and I wasn't there he often say, "Well, Mr Goodyear will probably show up in a litle bit" and wouldn't mark me absent. When I got to 8 absences he erased them all and started over. Nine absences was supposed to be an automatic F. I made a 92 in the class.
Basketball practice was just like the preseason practices at EHHS. We ran a couple of miles before we got to go in and start shooting and working on basketball drills. The coach asked me if I had run track in high school. I told him no but did say I had been timed at 4:38 for the mile.
One Saturday morning early in the semester I got up at my usual 7:00am time, went up to the cafeteria, ate pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage with orange juice and milk, and went back to my dorm room and went back to sleep. At about 9am the team manager was knocking on my door. "Coach wants you down at the track field." He didn't say what for. I put on some jeans , t-shirt, and regular shoes. I also wore gym shorts under my jeans, just in case. When I got to the field the coach says, "You're in lane 4 running the mile." ETBC was having a dual track meet with LeTourneau College from Longview. "I don't have any track shoes" I said, but the manager reached in to the equipment bag and pulled some out that were my size. So, I got in lane 4 with no warm up to run the mile. I finished 2nd. "Can I go home now?" I asked. "No," the coach replied, you're going to run the 880 (1/2 mile) in a few minutes." 15 minutes later I ran the 880 and finished 1st with a time of 1:58. By then, I wanted to run in the mile relay. It was going to decide who would win the meet, but the coach wouldn't let me. He had some fat kid on a track scholarship who was supposed to be a sprinter. He would run in the slot I wanted. We lost as that kid got totally whipped on his leg. I still think we would have won if I had been allowed to run.
Well, enough about that. My next post will be about basketball season.
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