Gerald Fry
For those of you who knew me at East in 1957-1960, this story will be a real oxymoron. Many in those days saw me as a book-worm nerd, though I did play Little League baseball with such wonderful kids as Gary Byrd, Freddie Freeman, and Tommy Vosper (below). The brilliant Gary Byrd (probably #2 in our class after David Divoky in terms of heavy duty brain power) was our talented first baseman, and Freddie Freeman, our great catcher. I also played on a Little League Team, the Beewall Braves, that won a championship with Dick Zinn ’59 as our outstanding pitcher.
I did have athletic aspirations, but was skinny and weak with no chance whatsoever of joining any elite East team. Bizarrely, I was technically a member of our gymnastics team, for sure my worst sport. In my story, I will explain how that crazily happened and may have had some positive impact on my life chances. While a senior at East, I performed before the largest crowds of my entire life and career,
crowds much larger than at our exciting East football or basketball games. (Right, Gerald Fry, 1960)
Before telling the story of the role of sports in my life, let me explain what happened to me in East High athletics. Cy Sickles, our Athletic Director, had an innovative spirit. Somehow, he learned that there was a Wichita Unicycle Club, which included those who played basketball on unicycles. My dad and the father (Warren Petty) of one of our East ’60 classmates founded the Wichita Unicycle Club. Mr. Sickles had the idea of arranging for East students in the club to perform at the halftime of Shocker games at the new Round House. His idea was accepted and we performed a number of times before large crowds at the Round House. I got to ride the really tall unicycle and be the center near the rim. I was
also the only member who could ride with only one foot. (Of course, our half-time act can in no way compare with what the Red Panda,Krystal Niu, does on her really tall unicycle at the halftimes of college and NBA games these days. She is totally incredible.) As a “reward” for our efforts, Cy made us all official members of the Wichita High School East gymnastics team. So when I applied for colleges, I could technically put down that I was a member of our gymnastics team, which was a total fluke and really misleading since gymnastics was by far my worst sport. I was admitted to Stanford and chose to attend. (Left, Athletic Director Cy Sickles)
Just as happened at East High, in college, despite my aspirations, I could not make any Stanford athletics team, though they had more sports than almost any school in the country. (Only Harvard, I think has more.) However, as a freshman I was invited to join the three-man free-throw shooting team of Junipero House, a freshman dorm, to compete in a campus-wide intramural competition. Junipero ended up second to Delta Tau Delta, the big jock frat. During most of the competition, I was making around 84 or 88% of my free throws. But in the second round of the finals, I choked and made perhaps only 68% of my shots and caused Junipero to lose the championship. (This was the beginning of the history of my chokes). I also joined the Junipero intramural basketball team, and the highlight of our season was a friendly game against Palo Alto High School (Paly) across the street from Stanford. Decades later, Jeremy Lin was to play for Paly and then go on to become the best ever Asian-American NBA star. Interestingly, he did not play for Stanford in college, but played for Harvard. Ironically, later Junipero House was to become the Asia-Pacific theme dorm at Stanford. (Editor’s Note: The Delt House was the Stanford home for Bob Holgerson, Lin Lamme, and Dick Zinn, all ’59 East grads.)
My sophomore year I applied to study at Stanford-in-Germany but was rejected, one of my many failures at Stanford. As a freshman I was placed in “bone-head” English because of my poor writing skills, so I am not sure I really was a “student-athlete”. I applied again my junior year to study in Germany and fortunately was accepted. A number of guys in my Stanford-in-Germany group loved playing basketball, so we formed a team. We practiced outside in the snowy winter, the worst winter in Europe in about 50 years. The students with the best German language verbal skills were not interested in basketball, so I somehow ended up as the “athletic director” responsible for scheduling games against various German universities such as Tübingen and Technische Hochschule Stuttgart (now the University of Stuttgart). We played about 10 friendlies, and our record was about .500. At times the games became a bit overly physical, and it seemed like we were fighting World War II again, but after every game the beer flowed along with ample servings of great German wurst (sausage).
My biggest “coup” was scheduling a game in East Berlin at the large Karl Marx Stadium with an East German team. Probably because of my imperfect German, there was some misunderstanding. They thought they would be playing the Pac-8 Stanford team, then ranked # 10 in the nation. They played at the Old Pavilion which was roughly the size of our East High gym, so it was a real “snake pit” for visiting teams. They did not realize we were the team from a small Stanford branch campus in Germany. So we ended up playing one of the East German national teams. We lost something like 94-16! But again, after the game the beer flowed along with the great wurst and we had all these new communist comrades.
As early as 5th grade with my love of sports, I had already aspired to become a sports announcer and/or writer. I lucked out and, as an undergraduate, landed a job writing sports articles for the Stanford Daily and being a sports announcer for the university radio station, KZSU. My big coup was doing an interview with John McKay, the head coach of the USC Trojans. It was also fun predicting in the Daily who would win Pac-8 college football games.
Going on to Grad School, my sports enthusiasm took an interesting turn. While I was doing a Masters in Public Administration at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, Bill Bradley was the star of the Princeton college team. He was terrific at making the players around him so much better. I loved watching him play. At lunch time, we were able to play “rat ball” on the same court where Princeton played its college games. Most of us playing were students at the Woody school, but there were also guys from the Princeton Admissions Office and a wonderful Black janitor who was the most jovial, fun-loving person I had ever met.
Once on a trip home to visit family in Wichita, I went out to play basketball at WU, and by accident met and played some ball with Dave “the Rave” Stallworth. His personal style was similar to that janitor at Princeton. Coincidentally, he and Bradley were teammates on a great Knicks team that won two NBA titles. Bradley was so good at Princeton that he took them to the Final Four where they played our beloved Shockers and beat them 118-82. Kelly Pete (East ’62) and Jamie Thompson (East ’63) were stars of the Shockers and Bradley poured in 58 points. Pete and Thompson had led East to the state championship in 1962. Sadly, WSU did not have Stallworth, because Ralph Miller had played him the second semester of his freshman year (more about the great Ralph Miller later). Stallworth helped the Shockers get to the Final Four, but was ineligible for the second semester to help them possibly win it all.
At the end of my first year at Princeton, while playing tennis on Princeton’s wonderful clay courts, I ran into a group of Thai judges who played there while they were doing short-term training at Princeton. They were super friendly and urged me to visit their beloved Siam. Later, one of them sent me the
postcard at right urging me to find a way to come to Siam. After graduating from Princeton, I joined the Peace Corps and indicated Thailand as my first preference for assignment, which I got, and that totally transformed my life. Subsequently I have traveled to Thailand over 150 times and lived there on nine different occasions, the longest being for four years when I played in the Bangkok Basketball Association.
Since Princeton is close to New York City, I was able to attend NIT games at Madison Square Garden. I took my Princeton classmate, Leo Falcom, to see the Shockers and the great Warren Armstrong play. Later Leo was to become the President of the Federated States of Micronesia.
(Editor’s Note: This is the first of four parts of Gerry Fry’s essays about the role of sports in his life. Even as a student-athlete, he found rewarding personal and professional opportunities through sports experiences, a pattern that continues over the decades.)
Absolutely fascinating tale! Look forward to more stories.
Gerald – surely there is a connection between your legendary stamp collecting prowess and sports! Lee
Fabulous writing with eye and memory for detail that paints a great picture. Looking for next installment. Bradley was a DC neighbor, daughter babysat for some of us.
Classmates who lived in the neighborhood remember that Gerry liked to play catch. He had mastered the curve ball as well as the unicycle. He could throw a wicked curve ball in a very slow pitch.
Amazing that you remember that I was a junk man. Calvin Ross had a wicked fast ball. When there was a strong wind, my slow curve ball could be wicked.