THE WORLD’S GREATEST COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP [Su, 4-26-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old College Student—THE WORLD’S GREATEST COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP [Su, 4-26-26]

 

Yesterday was the 75^th running of The Little 500 bicycle race at Indiana University. It is called The World’s Greatest College Weekend. It mimics the Indianapolis 500 auto race, which takes place just 50 miles up the road. Even if you live outside of Indiana, you’ve probably seen or heard about The Little 500, through Steve Tesich’s film, Breaking Away, which delightfully tells the story of the unlikely Cutters, a team of mis-fit local kids, winning the whole thing.

I heard the film actress, Tan Kheng Hua, known for her role in Crazy Rich Asians, tell of how she came to study at IU. She said, “I was a Chinese girl in Singapore who spoke no English. I wasn’t interested in going to college or going to America. The only place I wanted to go was the mall. But at the cinema at the mall, I saw a film called Breaking Away, and I wanted to go swim in a quarry with Dennis Quaid...”

That’s how far The Little 500 is known, because of that film.

 

The IU Student Foundation started the race as a way of making money for scholarships for poor kids who had to work their way through college. I can’t remember exactly how they did the metrics, but the student who had the combination of the best grades and the most hours worked got the first scholarship each year, and also got their photo in the publicity for subsequent races. 70 years ago, I was that student.

We got even more publicity than usual that year, because of the runner-up. At the awards ceremony, we sat in order of achievement. I was in the first chair, so the runner-up was seated beside me. We had a good time getting acquainted, and the press thought it was hilarious, and took lots of photos of us, for the winner was a preacher, and the runner-up was a bar tender. We both worked a lot of hours to cancel out the other’s work. Or so the idea went.

That would hardly cause a ripple these days. Folks would say, “What’s strange about that?” After all, the preacher at our church does a weekly study session called “Pub Theology” that, yes, meets at a pub, where the preacher drinks what the bar tender serves, while they talk about how to be followers of Christ. [Lest there be a misunderstanding, not our current preacher.]

But 70 years ago, if you were talking preachers and bartenders, “…never the twain shall meet.”

I never saw my runner-up friend again, since he didn’t go to my church, and I didn’t go to his bar, but I hope he got as much out of that scholarship as I did.

John Robert McFarland