Yes, there is a life outside of academia. Mine has been filled with sports, and raising children, traveling and cooking.. The former was a passion in both high school and college where I ran track.
Madison Square Garden, 1966, representing St. John's University in the mile relay.
I also played basketball in high school. I have continued to run, although not as much as I should, and have also recently been persuaded to take up paddleball. I also play golf from time to time. Fatherhood and sports intersected for a number of years as I became deeply involved in coaching my daughter, Gina, and my son, Michael, in a variety of sports through the YMCA Youth Sports Program. These included soccer, indoor soccer, floor hockey, basketball and tee ball. I was deeply committed to the YMCA sports program because it stressed participation for all and de-emphasized competition. I was honored to receive two awards from the YMCA in Lansing for my contributions to coaching. I also coached YMCA basketball and AYSO soccer in Lansing and in Tucson until my kids decided to concentrate on other interests. Our AYSO team in Lansing, the Predators, the team choose the name, was runner-up for the district finals. We lost on a penalty kick-off.
The Predators, that's my son Michael standing in front of me
Music has also been a large part of my life, not because I have any talent but because my kids do. We are not exactly sure where it comes from, but all are sure that I had no part of it. Gina, who really wanted to play the cello, but could not because of scheduling conflicts in middle school took up the oboe. While at Sabino High School she played in the symphonic band, where she made the regional band on numerous occasions and won a music scholarship to Ripon College. More on Gina below. Michael is a percussionist. He plays in the Jazz band at University High School and last year was principal percussionist for the Tucson Philharmonia Orchestra. He has been in the orchestra since he was in seventh grade. He forms part of a talented group of percussionists. Last year he was the recipient of one of the outstanding performer awards for the orchestra. Mike has also performed as part of the Disney Youth Orchestra, they played at the Hollywood Bowl, that was really a kick, and twice has been selected to attend the prestigious Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan. When Gina was senior she too made Philharmonia and one of the highlights of my life was to see the two of them perform together on stage.
The Compitello family musicians
That year the Philharmonia's annual tour was to Hermosillo, Mexico. This was the first time the group traveled out of the country. In June 2000 the Philharmonia reached it greatest moment when it played Carnegie Hall in New York City.
If my kids insist that I don't sing, my wife has always complained bitterly that I can't dance. Nevertheless, for many years dance was an important part of our family's existence. Gina began ballet lessons when she was four and danced all the way through middle school. For a number of years she danced with the Children's Ballet Theater of Lansing. The highlight of CBT's performance year was the production of the Nutcracker Ballet.
Pat also danced for a number of years in the opening party scene. I was relegated to backstage work, and serving as Secretary of the Board of Directors for the company. The backstage work was really a lot of fun, and challenging.
Our decision to move to Tucson has been profitable academically for all of the family. Gina completed ranked 8th in her graduating class at Sabino High School, where she was president of the French Club and Editor in Chief of Cat Track News, the Sabino newspaper. She also participated in the Indiana University summer honors program in St. Brieuc France after her junior year in high school. She won scholarships to a number of colleges and decided to accept the offer to be Pickard Scholar at Ripon College from which she graduated--Phi Beta Kappa--in 2003. While at Ripon she edited College Days, the oldest college newspaper in the United States, Parallax, the college literary magazine played in the orchestra, majored in French, minored in music as was deeply involved in a number of social and political organizations. . Gina also participated in a Ripon Maymester program in Benicassim, and the University of Arizona's summer program in Paris. She also did volunteer work, teaching Spanish to local second graders in Ripon. Gina will begin graduate studies in French at the University of Oregon in Fall, 2003.
Michael graduated University High School. He is deeply involved in musical activities and has had gigs with the Catalina Chamber Orchestra among other groups and has won awards in various music competitions. He has attended the Interlochen Arts Camp and the Aspen Music Festival. He will begin studies toward a dual degree in the College of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and the Peabody Conservatory of Music where he just completed his freshman year as an honor student. Michael was awarded a Woodrow Wilson undergraduate research fellowship at John's Hopkins and a music scholarship at Peabody. He was also accepted at Princeton, Oberlin, The Manhattan School of Music, The Cleveland Institute of Music and the University of Arizona.
Pat works in the office of the Dean of the College of Humanities where she is now Assistant Director of Development after coordinating outreach activities for a number of years. She also works with the orientation programs for new freshmen. In Michigan she coordinated the highly successful after school language program for children at risk that was a collaborative venture of the the College of Humanities at Michigan State University at the Black Child and Family Institute. Both Pat and I were also very active in working with the Lansing school system. Pat coordinated a number of volunteer efforts at Bingham Elementary School and I was on the site management team for the school. We also both taught Spanish to second and third grade classes on a volunteer basis.
Travel has also been one of the leit motifs of our existence. Pat could write the book about traveling with kids. Since I directed a number of overseas study programs and had a year long grant to study in Spain during the 1983-1984 academic year our kids have done a lot of traveling in Spain and France and have seen a lot of European airports. Both also consider the MLA Convention a kind of second home and have traveled with us to a number of other conferences around the country.
One of our travel highlights occurred in 1994, the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in which Pat's father Fred, too part as a young second lieutenant. He invited the whole Brooks clan to retrace his steps with him.
The Brooks clan in Normandy near the spot where Fred was wounded, now the parking lot for a large chair super market
The trip was an important milestone in our family history. Fred married during his tour of duty in France and Mado, whose father ran a steel mill on the French-Belgian border moved to Logootee, Indiana with him, but traveled back to France every summer to vacation with the kids, Pat, Dick and Phil on the beach in Perros Guirec, Bretagne where her family vacationed when she was a growing up. Perros holds a kind of mythical attraction to all the members of our family.
Gina was so impressed by the 50th anniversary trip that she submitted an article to the local newspaper in Lansing, the Lansing State Journal. The paper was so impressed by Gina's article that it asked her to do others. A number of local veterans were so moved by her piece that they wrote personal thank you notes to her.