This blog entry isn't about my career, though the events certainly had a major bearing on my future. So I hope you will bear with me.

Since I grew up in Madison, WI, there was never much doubt that I would attend the University of Wisconsin. But my college career, excited as I was about it, got off to a pretty rocky start.

Between working for the State Journal, being a manager for UW football, playing in a folk trio, discovering State Street's beer bars (it was legal to drink beer at 18 back then) and suddenly finding out girls would actually go out on dates with me, I had a memory failure. I forgot to go to classes or study.

By the end of the first semester, I was on academic probation. It didn't wake me up, so UW sent me packing at the end of my freshman year with the news that I was free to reapply after sitting out a semester. I was embarrassed and angry at myself, though it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I continued to work for the State Journal at night, got a day job at an Army-Navy store run by one of my dad's friends, then a mall clothing store and waited restlessly to restart my college career. Finally, I sent in the application and got a letter back from a dean, scheduling an interview on campus. He was not very encouraging.

"Only one of 10 students who are readmitted make it to graduation," he said. I boldly replied: "I'm the one." He said, "We'll see." But he accepted my application.

I won't tell you I suddenly became a great student, but I worked hard, got off probation and made it to graduation - though it took me a little longer than most.

After my last final exam, I was walking down Bascom Hill, the main thoroughfare on campus, when I thought about that interview. I veered off to South Hall, near the bottom of the hill, walked in and said to the receptionist, ``I'd like to see the dean.'' She was leery, especially since this was during the Vietnam War and the era of protests and sit-ins. But I told her he had let me back onto campus and that I just wanted to thank him and let him know I was graduating.

She got a big smile on her face and walked into the dean's office. Moments later, he came rushing out ahead of her and gave me a two-fisted handshake, saying, ``No one has ever come back to tell me they made it. Thank you.''

Flunking out, which stretched my time at UW to about 5 1/2 years, taught me a valuable lesson about putting in the work to find success. It also gave me the opportunity to meet my future wife.

Judy Rosée was born in Chicago and raised in suburban Skokie, IL. She almost went to the University of Illinois, but wound up, thankfully, in Madison. Our paths would likely never have crossed if not for two things: my horrible freshman academic year and Judy's constant curiosity about everything.

She was living in a dormitory on campus, where she ate breakfast in the cafeteria. Each school day, she would sneak two pieces of bread and some peanut butter out to make a sandwich for lunch. Then she would find a quiet place to study and eat between classes.

For a while, that quiet place was an empty classroom in North Hall on Bascom Hill. But, at the end of the first semester of her sophomore year, she found a lot of very big guys walking into the classroom as she arrived for her daily ritual. It was a physical education class for coaching majors on football analysis and strategy taught by Art "Dynie" Mansfield, the UW baseball coach and former assistant football coach.

Dynie, who was a wonderful guy and a bit of a character, shooed Judy out of the classroom and she found a chair just outside the open door. Being Judy, she couldn't help but listen to the conversation going on inside the room. At the end of that first class, she walked in and asked Dynie some questions about what he had been teaching.

"If you're listening to my class, you'd better be in the room," he told her. From that day on, she found herself auditing a class on a sport she knew absolutely nothing about. There were daily questions, which Dynie answered patiently and with a smile. Eventually, he told her it was time for some practical experience and sent her off to watch spring football practice.

By that time, I was the head football manager and had a lot of responsibility. Still, I couldn't help but notice this cute girl standing on the sidelines all by herself. I decided she must be one of the player's girlfriends. But, by the third day, I realized she hadn't made contact with anyone on the team.

I was playing catch before the next practice and told one of the other managers to toss the ball to me near the young lady. I caught the ball, bumped into her _ not part of the plan _ and said, "Hi.'' Very suave! NOT!

She was even more cute up close. I nervously struck up a conversation and, though I could see she was a bit uncomfortable, I eventually pushed my luck and asked her if she was busy on Saturday night? She said no and I had a date and, though I didn't know it yet, a future.

Later, she said that, being a very honest person, she grudgingly admitted she wasn't busy on Saturday night, fearing that I was a jock and not really her type. Had I phrased the question differently, asking her if she wanted to go out with me, she told me she would have said no.

Sometimes, you just get lucky.

We went out that weekend. It was shortly before a friend's birthday party and my unabashed pals asked her if she was coming to the party with me. Embarrassed, I had to tell her I already had a date with a girl from Milwaukee who I had been seeing for a while.

The next day I called the other girl, who was just a casual friend, and broke our date, telling her, ``I think I just met the girl I'm going to marry.''

Judy went with me to the party and we've been together ever since, about to celebrate our 52nd anniversary.

Some things are meant to be.