By now I hope everyone is settled at their Thanksgiving destination, and on the fast track to gastronomic wonders that you, family, and friends are crafting this year. I wrote last year about why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday — and it seems like each year that rolls by I have more and more to be thankful for (ah, the benefits of getting older!).
This year I ask that everyone take a moment to reflect on the things you’re truly thankful for, I mean TRULY thankful for. Yah motorized scooters being approved in San Francisco or the abundance of options we have for binge watching a never ending stream of scripted video programming doesn’t really count. Sorry.
I’m moved to “thank” three people who were there for me during my formative years — three individuals who left a mark in some way that stays with me today. See if you can do the same. Identify (1) an academic teacher, (2) a sports coach/drama instructor/music teacher, and (3) an advisor/mentor who each played a key role in your life. Craft a story or description this Thanksgiving of that person’s influence in your life and include that in your observation of Thanksgiving this year. Thanks for letting me share my three with you — and please share your three with me!
Academic teacher — Professor Ernie Stromsdorfer
As a college freshman at Washington State University, I was, like most 18-year-olds, pretty uncertain of what I was embarking on away from home. In particular, I recall being in awe of the academic presence that surrounded me on a large college campus. That Fall I somehow found myself in an introductory microeconomics course taught by a professor named Ernie Stromsdorfer.
As a capstone to the course we had to research and write a term paper on a topic that demonstrated our understanding of “micro-econ”. After meeting with Professor Stromsdorfer, he suggested a paper about how the “reserve clause” artificially depressed the player salaries of Major League Baseball players, and how it took a single player (Curt Flood) to challenge the reserve clause and ultimately open the floodgates to free agency and the rapid increase in player salaries that begin in the late 1970s across all sports.
What I remember about Professor Stromsdorfer is how much time he spent with me on the topic and the application to economics, how he genuinely cared that I really learn bones of the topic, and most importantly, how he made me feel like I could do well in college. He did so much to erase a lot of anxiety and self-doubt I had by simply taking the time — time that as a research professor he didn’t need to take. Of course, I still have that paper somewhere in my garage, all typed up on a real typewriter, with hand drawn supply-demand charts and all.
Sports coach — Steve Woods
This is the one that should be about my dad, but that’s a given. Besides, there are too my stories to share about dad’s influence on me as a coach. In addition to my dad I think a lot about Steve Woods. He was our high school wrestling coach and the JV baseball coach. Now since I played basketball, I was as far away from the wrestling mats as one could get. But Mr. Woods — like my dad — taught Social Studies, and he happened to be my homeroom advisor.
I remember being inspired by the fact that Mr. Woods was a NCAA Division-I collegiate wrestler at Oregon State University, where he won a Pac-8 championship his senior year. Legend had it that he also wrestled in a tough match versus the legendary Dan Gable. However, while upon further research that match versus Gable may have been an “urban” legend I cooked up in my own mind, it only added to the respect I had for Coach Woods.
It was actually in his role as JV baseball coach, i.e. my dad’s assistant coach, that he had the most impact on my personally. Here he was in a sport he knew virtually nothing about so he wasn’t there to impress me in the way he could if this were wrestling. Instead, he provided great perspective. Perspective of where sports really fits into the big picture. One time after a tough game he noticed that my head was down and I was taking it pretty hard. I remember him simply saying, “Hey, there are billions of people around the world who don’t give a shit about that game.”
For some reason that sunk in instantly, and that sentence has been a soundbite I go back to often. Coach Woods never used perspective setting statements to replace the priorities of working hard and committing yourself to do your best, yet those perspective inducing comments helped remind me that it was indeed the hard work and commitment that mattered, not the results on the scoreboard or stats pages.
Advisor/Mentor — Joe Story
After I made the move to finish my undergraduate studies at Pacific University in Oregon, ostensibly so I could play college baseball versus watch it from the bench in Pullman, WA, I met Dr. Joseph Story. Dr. Story was the head of the Economics Department at Pacific, but more importantly he became a central figure in my life during the final 3 1/2 years of my undergraduate years over which earned a double major in mathematics and economics.
For some reason Dr. Story was always willing to let me pop into his office, unannounced and unscheduled. I’m sure he has many memories of thinking “Oh, here’s Brian Grey again, I wonder want new academic pursuit he wants to chase or what new career path he’s mapping out?” But even if those thoughts rolled through his mind, he was always there to listen, advise, and encourage me as I struggled to put my finger on what would be next after college.
He supported me immensely as I took on the challenge of a major research study and campus-wide presentation that tried to make sense of the stock market meltdown of 1989. And he also supported me in my first post-undergrad effort to pursue a graduate degree in Economics, which while not ending in a PhD as originally planned, did end with an MA in Economics and me landing in California where I’ve been ever since.
Dr. Story left an impression on me in terms of how important it is as an advisor/mentor to always just “be there” — to be present. From him my biggest lesson learned has been to try to do the same for as many people as I can who reach out to me for help, a conversation, or specific guidance.
So this Thanksgiving I’m saying thanks to Professor Stromsdorfer, Coach Woods, and Dr. Story.
Originally published on Medium on November 22, 2018. This Substack version is maintained as the canonical archive.