Section A · Page 10
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, August 17, 1998
Professor's humor links literature, baseball in class
By Graham K. Johnson
Konson staff writer
Beverly Carothers treasures her son's reaction to the first day of class with his father. Jim Carothers.
Jim, a professor of English, said he had been reluctant to allow his college-age son to take his literature of baseball course in 1982, but eventually, he relented.
"He walked in the door, and his exact words were: 'Dad is really funny.'" she said.
Michael Carothers said he knew his dad had a sense of humor, but he first saw its fullest expression in that memorable classroom lecture.
Jim's whimsical teaching style and commanding knowledge of English literature have garnered him respect from within the University of Kansas community. He started teaching at the University in 1970 and was voted Outstanding Professor by the class of 1987. He also was a nominee for the H.O.P.E. teaching award in 1976 and 1977.
The Nutty Professor
Ruggy French remembers Jim from a fiction-writing class in the spring of 1974. In those days, streaking was popular on campus. She remembers Jim Carothers saying, "If streaking is going to be mandatory for the faculty, then I'm going to have to take some of this weight off."
Jim said he recognized the importance of making people laugh when he was in the first-grade in south St. Louis. The reaction of a stern principal amazed him.
Beverly Carothers says that her husband's ability to laugh at himself is one of the things that makes him such an engaging person.
"He told me to wiggle my ears for him," Jim said. "So I did, and he leaned over and said, 'How did you do that?' That reaction surprised me. He was intrigued by it as I was. That stuck with me that it wasn't always the wrong thing to do to make people laugh."
Beverly Carothers agrees. She has been married to Jim since 1963 and has traded anecdotes with him every day. She said his humor had been inspirational to her in many situations. When her mother and his father died, it was Jim's humor that often brought relief from the stress,
she said.
Jim said he thought that humor was important because it helped people get through difficult times. It is not merely a social or classroom tool, but a basic part of his identity.
"It's one of my habits," he said. "It's one of the structures of my life."
Not all fun and games
Although humor is significant, being an English professor is what drives Jim Carothers. Chris Lazeroman, managing editor for Kansas
English professor Jim Carothers began a class on the literature of baseball in the 1970s. Professor Carothers said he realized the importance of humor in all aspects of life. Photo by Joseph Griffin/KANSAN
Alumni magazine, said that people often miss Jim's serious side, which Lazzarino became aware of in his classes in the mid-1980s.
"I don't think most people were kept awake on the hot summer nights of adolescence dreaming about becoming an English professor."
"He kept an air of lightness in the room, but there was always a serious foundation underneath eve did." Lazarinos
Faulkner's later work, arguing that this work is as good and important as Faulkner's early, more serious work.
underneath everything Carothers did. "Lazarrinosaid."
Faulkner has been the main theme of Jim's career, but an important subplot has been the literature of baseball.
That foundation has been his mission as a scholar and a teacher for 28 years, even if that was not his first career choice. He thought he would grow up to play right field for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, but that dream died in high school. It was after arriving at the University of Missouri in the early 1960s to train in sports journalism and become a baseball reporter that he discovered English literature.
In the 1970s, Jim proposed a class that would look at the best of the voluminous amount of literature about baseball. He was initially laughed at for suggesting that a popular culture game be formally studied in a university setting.
At the University, Jim took a class on Faulkner and Hemingway and realized he could spend the rest of his life reading and discussing great books. This was the basis for his doctorate in English from the University of Virginia.
"It came as a late discovery," he said. "I don't think most people were kept awake on the hot summer nights of adolescence dreaming about becoming an English professor."
Jim Carothers Professor of English
He has made William Faulkner's work the focus of his scholarly career. He has published a book about Faulkner's short stories and was a founding co-editor of the Faulkner Journal. He has focused on the more comic and optimistic side of
But Jim got the last laugh. The course eventually became one of the most popular English classes offered. Brady Prauser, a recent KU Law school graduate who took the class said: "It was as intense as anything I have had as an undergraduate or in law school."
Pete Casagrande, associate dean for the humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and English professor, said Jim was a pioneer in challenging the prejudice against studying popular culture.
"Jim was ahead of his time," Casagrande said. "Jim's instinct in studying a popular sport was right on the money."
Jim also has challenged the prevailing academic culture, which holds comedy and humor to be less legitimate than drama and tragedy.
He has studied comedy, and in addition to his work on Faulkner's humor, he recently delivered a paper in Norway about the writing of humor 1st Dave Barry.
Jim takes umbrage at the charge that comedy is trivial. Humor provides people with a means to the basic human need for escape, he said.
"I am certain that this analysis of humor has helped me understand myself better," he said.
Jim is not content with just being a scholar. In an age of increasing specialization, Jim considers himself a Renaissance man. He said one of the reasons he liked being at the University was that he had been allowed to participate in a variety of activities.
Renaissance man
As an Honors Faculty Fellow, he advises honors students. He volunteers in the help room of the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center and has been the director of undergraduate services in the English department.
Outside of University work, Jim reads, plays fantasy-league baseball and participates in amateur acting. He said his activities were part of his life's philosophy of always trying to mix fun with whatever he is doing.
Because of his interest in political issues involving education, Jim served as a member of former Gov. John Carlin's education cabinet from 1983 to 1985. He also served as an associate dean for humanities in the college from 1986 to 1997 and oversaw a major curriculum overhaul.
Jim said that he got stressed and that he could no longer pull the all-nighters like he used to.
Beverly Carothers said that is just
who Jim is. He always would go overboard because of his "feast" approach to life, she said.
Jim's daughter, Cathleen Hull, said her father always seemed to manage his busy life without any problems. She said that though her family was always busy, she remembers them taking time out to go to baseball games.
"Jim loves to escape to the green, pastoral world of baseball," Beverly Carothers said.
Baseballs: The family that plays together
Jim said all sports — but particularly baseball—provide an important escape from the world and a place for rejuvenation. Baseball, he said, has been a lifelong passion.
"Baseball probably means everything to my dad," Michael Carothers said. The game also has brought the Carothers family together. Michael said that because he and his father
always found time to play baseball, he never felt neglected by his otherwise busy father.
Beverly remembers how Jim introduced baseball to her mother, Dorothy, who was dying of cancer. She remembers the day her mother got out of bed to watch the World Series.
"I was crying and thinking.'God bless Jim for giving mom the love of baseball," Beverly said.
Lasting Impressions
Perhaps more than his research, Jim's legacy may be his influence on people and impressions he has made.
Raymond Nichols, chancellor in 1972-73, knew Jim as a friend and neighbor, too.
"As far as I am concerned, Jim Carothers is a complete man," Nichols said. "He's the kind of person I like to have at KU. An excellent teacher, productive scholar and even an administrator. He's just everything."
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