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needed that money perhaps even more than I did. But he was a big man. It was another fortunate encounter for me to meet another person who guided me with wisdom at a critical point in my life. I took his advice, and I’ve always been thankful for it.
    Flint Junior College had a championship football team. I played on it. After graduation, several of us were offered scholarships at a university in the South known for its athletic prowess. I went down during summer vacation to get in some football practice.
    When it came time to enroll, I was planning to select courses that could lead to my transferring to aeronautical engineering in another university after a year. I soon found out what my options were.
    “Here, kid, here’s your curriculum,” the coach told me one day.
    “But I haven’t chosen my courses yet,” I said, surprised.
    “Yes, you have,” he insisted. “You’re a coach’s assistant. You’re taking physical education.”
    “But, sir, I’m going to be an engineer. I’ve wanted to be an airplane designer all my life. I want to study aeronautical engineering,” I protested.
    “Kid, you’re a coach’s assistant.” He repeated, “You’re a coach’s assistant. Take it or leave it.”
    “Not me.” And that was that.
    My next move was to phone the University of Michigan about athletic scholarships. They offered them, and my grades were good enough for admission, so I got in my trusty Ford Model T roadster and drove up to Ann Arbor to try for a scholarship there. My $300 would do no more than pay the tuition.
    Just about the second thing I found out was that an undergraduatewas not allowed to have a car on campus. So I decided to take my car home and then come back to try out for football.
    On the way, I was forced off the road and across a culvert by a big Pontiac. I was draped across the windshield and had a deep gash in my forehead. Worse than that, the cut later became infected. I couldn’t go out for football.
    It was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because now I had to try to find work in an engineering line. I did, but not before I had washed at least 10,000 dishes, as many glasses, even more silverware, and carried out tons of garbage working in a fraternity house that first semester. The year was 1929, and there was almost no building at Ann Arbor so I couldn’t work at lathing.
    The best thing about that kitchen job was the way we were treated by the wonderful black cook. She saw to it that her twelve fellows in the kitchen working for their meals were fed first before the fraternity brothers—and with the best portions.
    After one semester, I became assistant to Professor Edward A. Stalker, head of the aeronautical engineering department at the university. It was a job I was to keep throughout my university career. But more importantly, it was my first work in engineering.

3
Becoming an Engineer
    T HE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN dates from 1817 as a territorially-chartered college in the then-frontier town of Detroit. The present campus was established at Ann Arbor in 1837. It is one of the early great universities, and a beautiful one—its big brick buildings of classical design, ivy-covered, amid neat lawns bordered by trees that flower in season, on a spacious, sprawling campus. It can be at once formidable and welcoming to an incoming student.
    But the real beauty of it for me when I enrolled in 1929 was the distinguished faculty. Many had impressive national, even international, reputations in their fields. I thought I never could be so smart as these men. I couldn’t wait to begin my classes.
    At that time, in order to get a degree in aeronautical engineering you had to study all the different fields of engineering—civil, chemical, electrical, mechanical—leading to the study of aeronautical engineering. It was an excellent curriculum because it provided a very good basic education in everything it took to design and build an airplane.
    My first professor was