Growing Up: Farm Life & Basketball in the 1940s & '50s

An inspiring story of growing up in a midwestern farm family of 15.

Heart-warming memories of a secure, but not easy, childhood with many fun times moderated by hard farm work and economic and educational challenges.

And, at childhood’s end, the life-changing experience of attending college on a basketball scholarship.

Born in 1941 on a farm that had no electricity and was operated with workhorses, Hal Schoen helped his parents and others in their neighborhood group to thresh wheat and oats and to butcher hogs among many other farm chores.

The farm was not just a site for work, but also a giant playground for us kids … we had exclusive access to a large barnyard, fruit orchard, the barn and other farm buildings, and 135 acres of fields that included a small woods and creek. (p. 47)

Neither parent had graduated from high school, yet the Schoen children did very well in school. College, though, was beyond their parents’ experience and financial means.

Fortunately, Hal’s college bills were paid by a basketball scholarship granted by legendary University of Dayton coach Tom Blackburn on condition that he make the team each year.

After some tough personal challenges and lucky breaks, he became a starting forward then team captain of the Flyers before earning his bachelor’s degree.

When the team returned [after winning the 1962 National Invitation Tournament], ...Mom, Dad, and a carload of siblings were in the crowd at the Dayton airport. After ten days in New York City competing in Madison Square Garden, I was struck the moment I saw them by the vast difference between the world I had just left and that of my childhood. (p. 178)

Don’t miss this richly entertaining memoir of family, farm, and sports in mid-twentieth century America.