A letter from Tony Frank

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Leones
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A letter from Tony Frank

#1 Post by Leones »

Tony Frank is the President of Colorado State University and self identified Cubs fan. He sent a nice letter to the University this morning I thought you may enjoy:

"Colleagues: I’ll begin with a disclosure: this message has nothing to
do with current events at Colorado State University. If you choose
to delete it, you will likely go on to live rich, full lives without
any detrimental effect. It is my hope that my sending it falls under
the university’s “Incidental Use” policy and that those of you who
choose to read it will find an item or two to smile about or ponder.

Over the years that it’s been my privilege to work with all of you
here at CSU, many of you have come to know that I’m a lifelong Cubs
fan. I’m not sure how this became so widely known as I don’t recall
putting something about that in, say, every campus email I’ve ever
written... Still, however it became known, many of you have been
asking what I would write to the campus if the Cubs won. So it is
with no small smile on my face that I type these words:

The Chicago Cubs have won the World Series.

To Cleveland fans: Great game and team. Proximo anno.

Baseball, like most sport, at its best offers many of us a
fascinating mixture of a reprieve from daily life and pressure,
entertainment, and wonderful lessons about competition,
sportsmanship, teamwork, perseverance, pride, and a host of other
aspects of our human condition. For those of us who grew up baseball
fans, it reminds us of times and loved ones now in our past. Like
most things that involve people, it isn’t perfect, and its best can
be contrasted with a side that reflects the full slate of human
weakness. But, and I admit that I am totally biased here, the 108
years since the Cubs last won a World Series is one of the most
interesting stories in sport. And it’s in that amount of time that I
think there is something interesting for us to consider.

108 years.

1908.

39,420 days. Really.

Barton Aylesworth was the President of what then was called the
Colorado Agricultural College, where students could choose from nine
different majors. Enrollment was such that the entire sophomore class
was able to meet at one professor’s house for dinner. The Collegian
was celebrating its 18th birthday, and there was talk of organizing a
student government.

Yet baseball didn’t change much over those years. Sure, equipment was
improved, there were minor adjustments to the playing field, a few
rules got tweaked, athletes improved and the effect of money on sport
is as evident here as anywhere. But the basic premise of 9 players
on a wedge-shaped field playing a team sport based on reaction where
each individual takes a sequential turn (there is, to my mind, no
other team sport where at a crucial moment you can’t draw up a play
for your very best player) is essentially the same now as it was when
my father attended games at this new place called Wrigley Field as a
young boy, coming into Chicago with his father to the Union
Stockyards to sell livestock. A massive upright piano that stands in
our home was purchased for my grandmother by my grandfather on one of
these trips, and I like to imagine my father and grandfather coming
back from a game, seeing that piano in a shop window, and making a
purchase (that in those days involved shipping by rail and delivery
by wagon on dirt roads) with some of those livestock proceeds. That
piano eventually led to my mother being a piano accompanist and my
brothers both being music educators.

It's tempting to argue that during that same time our world has
changed by orders of magnitude more than baseball. Communication:
The radio gave way to television and the internet, and we used to
communicate in more than 140 characters (see this email as an
example); access to instantaneous information has transformed our
lives. Transportation: The automobile and airplane became ascendant
and a human being stood on the moon. We developed vaccines,
antibiotics, cracked the genetic code, split the atom and Einstein
drew conclusions we’re still working on.

But.

Hunger, poverty, disease, ignorance, racism, sexism, war. All of
these have remained. We’ve made progress. Medicine, agriculture,
education have all made great strides. The Women’s Movement and the
Civil Rights Movement have both made wonderful, hard-earned
progress. When Wrigley Field opened, women could not vote. When
Dexter Fowler led off this World Series, he was the first black
Chicago Cub to play in a World Series because baseball hadn’t been
integrated in 1945. But few of us would argue we don’t have a lot
more work to do on many of these same issues that faced our ancestors
in 1908.

What will the next 108 years bring? Of course that’s unknown to us –
and difficult to imagine. But I imagine some things will remain
constant. I believe Colorado State University, in some form, will
continue to offer life-changing education to anyone with the talent
and motivation to earn a degree from a great research university and,
armed with that degree, our graduates will go on to lead lives that
make a difference. I think our faculty will be making progress on
issues we may not yet know exist. And it’s my hope that we all use
the time that we have to continue to chip away at the problems that
have stubbornly affected generation after generation.

I’d like to come back here to see CSU then. I imagine there will be
baseball. I hope Wrigley Field will still be standing. I hope we’ve
used those years wisely and with purpose and that whomever has the
honor of communicating from the President’s office (however that
communication occurs) will be writing about the amazing progress that
is being made. And I hope that the Cubs winning a World Series is so
routine that it won’t occur to them to write about that!

Those next 108 years begin today. Let’s make day 1 of that time
period a good one.

Be well,

- tony

Dr. Tony Frank
President

P.S. No, classes are not canceled. There is no snow day without
actual snow.

P. P. S. Only about 106 days until pitchers and catchers report for
spring training."
Patrick Hildreth
- La leña roja tarde pero llega

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Duane
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Re: A letter from Tony Frank

#2 Post by Duane »

Thanks you Patrick .... and many thanks to Frank for keeping this in perspective.
Duane

all but one season .... PEBA

Even though we fell short against Duluth in 2026 ... and SS in 2027 and 2029 8-o
IL still RULES!!!!!
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Borealis
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Re: A letter from Tony Frank

#3 Post by Borealis »

That was an awesome find, Thanks for sharing Patrick!!!
Michael Topham, President Golden Entertainment & President-CEO of the Aurora Borealis
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2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 PEBA Champions
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