TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2005
4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Photo courtesy of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politic Dole joined the Army Reserve Corps on Dec. 14, 1942. He was 19 when he began his training at Ft. Leavenworth.
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Dole
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He had a knack for track and could run the indoor quarter mile in 54 seconds, only two seconds slower than the fastest indoor time that year at the University.
He couldn't quite make the varsity football or basketball teams, though.
"He wasn't a great player," said Max Falkenstein, who has covered Jayhawk basketball since the 1950s and befriended Dole when he was a Congressman. "He was a hard worker. He might compare to a Christian Moody kind of guy, but Bob probably wasn't as good."
"I mean those varsity boys are really tough." Dole wrote home to his parents before his first day of college. "I spent half my time picking myself up. I have a black eye too as a result of the scrimmage."
In football Dole made the freshman squad, which put him up against the varsity guys.
Although he never became one of those varsity boys, Dole didn't have to play in their games to celebrate the victories.
After the University defeated Kansas State 20-16 in football that year, "around 3,000 students paraded to the chancellor's house asking him to dis
"When he refused, the students refused to go to their classes and spent all day Monday celebrating the K-State victory."
miss Monday classes," Dole wrote home in November 1941.
Jayhawk Jokester
While being recruited by Kappa Sigma fraternity, he was given a tour of the house. Left alone in some of the members' room, Dole began "short-sheeting" all the beds. He would strip the sheets and remake the bed so that whoever crawled in that night would only be able to get in up to their knees.
Once Dole joined the fraternity he got even bolder.
He remembers the wooden paddles that fraternity members carried around while he was a pledge.
"Come on. Give me your best shot," Dole wrote.
One day Dole turned to one of the fraternity members and told him that he had heard enough about the paddles. He wanted to find out how bad it was going to be, Dole wrote in his book.
He received a solid swing from the obliging member.
"My rear end stung like it was on fire," he wrote. "But I wasn't going to give him the pleasure of knowing it hurt."
After that, Dole said, he
But that didn't stop his charades.
rarely got paddled again.
Once, he recruited a group of friends to haul a fraternity member's Harley Davidson up three flights of stairs to a third-floor bedroom. When the guy found out, Dole and his buddies refused to help move it back down.
"I probably did a bit of everything." Dole said. "We were a little gang of pledges."
Pedagogical priorities
"I've been sitting here for an hour trying to write a theme for Rhetoric but I just can't get started."
— Bob Dole, in a letter to his parents on May 5, 1942.
Dole was the first person in his family to go to college. During the Dust Bowl and the Depression, he decided he wanted to be a doctor. Doctors didn't have to worry about dust and wind and money.
But academics were never Dole's strong suit in college. Not because he didn't care, but because he was so busy with jobs and sports and farewell parties for war-bound buddies.
"I was a below-average student," Dole said. "Academics weren't a high priority. I just didn't apply myself."
For his first semester he
enrolled in five courses; Five hours of introduction to economics, five hours of elementary german, two hours of rhetoric, and varsity athletics and intermediate social dancing.
social earnings He earned a C in German and a B in Rhetoric. He received his lowest grade, a D, in Economics, a subject he would later specialize in as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
By winter break the following year, Dole's academics hadn't improved.
"Our vacation doesn't start until next Wednesday, but 3 days of missing classes wouldn't hurt my grades any because [they're] not too good anyway. I have 3 hours of B, 5 hours of C and 5 hours of D. I'm going to talk to the Dean tomorrow and ask him if it would be all right to go home 3 days early," Dole wrote in December 1942.
Near the end of his sophomore year, Dole met with the dean again.
Laurence Woodruff, dean of students, called Dole to his office for a conference.
"He called me in and said, 'Bob, you're not doing too well academically,'" Dole recalled. "He thought it was a good idea that I enlist."
Time well spent Eight decades of accomplishments
(And although he struggled
Dole soon did.
1941: Fall, Dole enrolls at the University of Kansas.
Dole (right) runs track at Memorial Stadium during his time at the University.
1952: Dole graduates from Washburn University in Topeka with an undergraduate degree and a law degree.
1923: July 22, Dole is born in Russell,
Kan. He is the second of four chil-
dren in his family.
1968: Dole is elected as U.S. Senator for Kansas, a position he holds for five consecutive terms.
1943: Dole finishes his sophomore year at the University and leavas for Army training at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
1948: Dole is discharged from the Army with the rank of captain after three years of recuperation from being shot and wounded in the back in April 1945 while fighting in Italy.
1960: Dole is elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives from
Kansas' 6th District, where he is re-elected three times.