Football season has begun, and I couldn’t be happier. There’s nothing like sitting in the stadium on a crisp fall afternoon watching my Nebraska Cornhuskers play (even though we lost our first game).
My love of all things Husker led me to take a sports literature class as a student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Many in the class thought this was an easy way to fulfill a general studies English requirement. They didn’t know that the instructor – Dr. Vernon Plambeck – was one of the toughest professors in the department. I had Dr. Plambeck for a previous class so was prepared for more than reading about sports. I was not prepared, however, for the impact he would have on my desire to write professionally.
There were three key points Dr. Plambeck taught me that, although they came out of an academic setting, are still relevant today.
It’s not just the facts
The first assignment Dr. Plambeck gave me involved the Nebraska football media guide. I wrote about the history of the Nebraska football team. But when Dr. Plambeck handed my paper back to make revisions for the final draft, he explained I hadn’t told the full story because I didn’t include why the team’s history was important to so many people.
For the final paper, I wrote about listening to games on the radio, memories of the first game I attended, and how I would memorize players’ names and even their hometowns. When Dr. Plambeck returned my final paper, he said that my personal connections to the Huskers demonstrated that the Nebraska football program was more than statistics; it was people – the players, the coaches, the fans – that made it special.
Application to today: Whether fiction or non-fiction, readers want to connect to people. The actions of a character mean nothing without knowing his motivations for action and how that action impacts others.
Not Everyone Will Like What You Write
On several papers Dr. Plambeck gave me a 99% grade. I jokingly argued with him about why he didn’t give me 100%. His response was that no matter what kind of writing you did, whether academic or creative, there was always something you could do better. He also said writing could never truly be 100% because there would always be at least one person who didn’t like what was written. This sounded a bit harsh at the time, but the more papers I wrote, and now with writing fiction, I understand what he meant.
Application for today: The key is to not worry about that other 1%. If 99 out of 100 people like your work, you’re doing something right. Tell the story you want to tell in the best way you can and don’t worry about what that 1% thinks.
Don’t be afraid of a challenge
For the final paper in sports literature, Dr. Plambeck assigned each student something different. As I saw other students receiving novels about football or basketball, I thought I would be assigned something similar. Then Dr. Plambeck dropped a large book on my desk. He assigned me Death In the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway. If you’re not familiar with Hemingway’s work, it is challenging to say the least. The fact that the book was a non-fiction account of the spectacles of bullfighting in Spain provided even more of a challenge.
Needless to say, I struggled with the assignment. During finals week when I went to Dr. Plambeck’s office to pick up my paper, I was thankful to see a solid grade. I asked him why he gave me a more complicated assignment than it seemed others received. His explanation was simply “because I knew you could handle it.” He wanted to challenge me to combine the skills previously explained.
Application for today: In order to get better, you have to take on new challenges. A writer must be willing to learn new techniques and continue to develop her skills. She must be willing to take a risk once in a while rather than always writing about the same topics or types of characters.
Good teachers make a difference. I took Dr. Plambeck’s sport literature class because I loved the idea of reading and writing about sports. But what I got out of it was the beginning of my interest in pursuing writing beyond a college classroom.
Which teachers most inspired you to pursue future goals? What lessons did they provide that you remember today?
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