At a Breezy Time of Day by James V. Schall

Author:James V. Schall [Schall, James V.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781587310836
Publisher: St. Augustine's Press
Published: 2019-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

Thanks for the questions, I enjoyed them.

* * *

1 Interview by Carl Olson, with James V. Schall, S.J., in Ignatius Insight, January 2008.

Chapter 9

“Football was always the most dramatic sport. Basketball perhaps was the most artistic. Track the most individually oriented. The others sports depended on teams; but, like golf, track is more your own effort and responsibility.”

Interview by Perry Bell, Sports Editor, Knoxville Journal-Express (PB) with James V. Schall, S.J. (JVS) on being inducted into the Knoxville High School Sports Hall of Fame1

Question #1): (PB) I see that you were born in Pocahontas—what brought you and your family to Knoxville?

Answer #1): (JVS) My father, Lawrence Schall, was the son of a farmer/banker. My father was one of eight siblings in a German/Irish family. My mother, Grace Shimon, was the daughter of a farmer/banker. She was the third from last of fourteen children, in a Bohemian family. My father went briefly to Creighton University when the farm crisis of the 1920s hit. After they were married, our family lived in Carroll, Dubuque, Pocahontas, and Eagle Grove before coming to Knoxville in 1935. I had two brothers—Jack, now deceased, and Jerry, and one sister, Norma Jean. My mother died in 1937. My paternal grandmother took care of me, my two brothers and sister. She died in 1942.

The following year, my father married Mary Fantz, a lovely widow with two daughters, Mary Jo and Jeanne Louise, who were in my class in high school. We graduated from KHS in 1945. Mary was from Missouri, a dental hygienist at the Veterans Hospital. We moved to a large Bellamy home on the corner of Robinson and something, I forget. My father managed the Gamble Store in Knoxville, which was located on the square, next to Penny’s at the time.

Q. #2: (PB) Tell me a little about your school days, playing football, basketball, and track. Which was your favorite sport? And Why?

A. #2: (JVS) My father and my uncles on my mother’s side were evidently good basketball players. I remember Dad telling us that the average score was something like 7-6 in his day. This was because there was no ten-second rule, so the art of dribbling and keep-away was what the game was about. I remember the famous track meets between East and West Ward grammar schools when we were kids. This meet was a big deal. Junior high was what, grades five to eight? The principal Nell McGowan and the math teacher Mary Jones were memorable, but Miss Jones may have been in high school, anyhow she was good.

Football was always the most dramatic sport. Basketball perhaps was the most artistic, track the most individually oriented. The other sports depended on teams; but, like golf, track is more your own effort and responsibility. In the conference we were in, called South Central in my day, we were pretty well matched with surrounding towns—Indianola, Chariton, Albia, Pella, Winterset. When we played Oskaloosa, Dowling, or Newton, we knew we were in for a beating. We figured if we put up a good fight, it was a sort of moral victory.

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