Foundation figures

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Music bridge Text slide: Jackie Thompson Inaugural Wellness Lecture Gil Belles October 19, 2011 Western Illinois University TELEVISION Music bridge Dr. Gil Belles: Now that I've sufficiently lowered your expectations about what I'm going to do this afternoon. I too want to that the committee for creating this series on behalf and in tribute to Jackie. I can't imagine a nicer honor for her then to have this continuing and permanent annual lecture series. Jackie and I go way back. Jackie Speer when she was a head honcho of the car barn. I needed cars for lab school swim team, a university water polo team, and a university swim team. So we go way back for lots of reasons. So I'm really happy to be here. Okay now the professorial part of this get out your pencil or pen. You were giving a pencil in the beginning if you walked in. If you didn't your supposed to have something with you to write with. On the very back of your program you see those four boxes that's not a Mondrian painting there that's part of this exercise. In box #1 you can pick which ever one of those you want for box #1. I'm not very much of a dictator when it comes to stuff like this. Draw a tree... were going to go pretty quickly on this so don't pretend you're not in art class this is not something that's got to be real elaborate. Just draw a tree... Now since I am under a time constraint by the committee we'll move a little faster on this. Which ever box you want to designate as box #2... draw an object on your desk. Your work desk, your fun desk, which ever you consider your desk. Think on that and draw me some object that's on your desk. And remember you're the only one that has to look at this cause were not collecting them and grading them so you know make it as sketchy and as quick as you can on the object on your desk. Okay now box #3 draw something that would remind you of yesterday. Tuesday October 18th draw something that in your mind jog your memory of something that would remind you of yesterday... Dr. Belles begins to canvas room. We got some very talented people here and some not so talented. [Laughter] Okay let's move to the fourth and last box. Draw wellness... Now if we had a lot more time I would try to probe you guys in terms of what you think we just did there. In terms of the progression of those sketches and the idea that I had in asking you to do this. I think that if any of you would share your first box with anybody else that you know then ask them what is this? They would probably be able to tell you it's your drawling of a tree. Because it's a fairly concrete object we all know what trees look like whether their deciduous or pine trees. We don't have to much trouble sketching and identifying trees. So that's pretty concrete and obvious. The next box might be a little harder for people because not everybody shares the same kinds of things on their desk. But I'm guessing that because I kind of told you that we wanted objects on a desk that people will say oh well that's a cell phone, or that's a computer screen, or that's a pencil. They'll be able to pretty much tell that you're drawing in box #2 was some kind of object that one might find on anybody's desk. Now were getting to the little bit more vague and difficult things to identify other people identifying your drawing. Because most of us had very different experiences yesterday and the way even if we had a similar experience we might remember it in a different way. So how ever you drew that might be difficult very difficult for a perfect stranger or even your friend to say uh I know why that reminds you of something that you did, or you experienced, or you saw, or you heard yesterday. Now you see we've gone from the very concrete to a little less concrete a little bit more abstract the last box is probably the most conceptual. Because everybody in here probably would identify or identify wellness in a very different way and that's the point I hope I made. That wellness is not something that we all share the definition. Because it's very personal it means something different to each one of us. So that's where I want to kind of start the more formal part of this presentation. I want to do several things I'm not keeping it a secret were going to define wellness or I'm going to define it cause it's really hard to have an interactive kind of thing here, but we'll do that and then I'm going to try and describe or identify, or share with you why I think it's important. that's the title of this little talk The Importance of Wellness In Your Life and how we might measure that importance. It's fine and dandy for Mr. Belles to stand up hear and say it's important, but maybe I can help you with a little bit more feeling of why it's important and how we could measure that importance. Then what I'm going to do in the last portion of this is talk about some of the people that laid the foundation and the ground work for wellness in our community, on our campus, and in our city. People who were for me role models and inspiration. I don't think any of this come out as you know advocates of the Seven Components of Wellness. We've had to have people kind of nudge us that way or demonstrate the logic or the rational or the importance of it and so I hope today we can talk a little bit about some of those people in what I would call my Hall of Fame for wellness. Okay now let's, let's see if we can agree you don't have to I would like to throw out my definition of wellness... if you don't like it you can write your own and they'll ask you to give the talk next year. If you think you might find it compatible you might think about it every time you think about those seven components of wellness and how it's intergrated into your life. You might think back on this particular definition. I define wellness as the ability of each individual to pick and choose from all the alternatives all the choices you have out there in all of the different seven components that help you fullful your human potential. That's not the same thing as going into a weight room and saying I hope I can push 240 pounds five times. Unless that to you would be fulfilling one of your life dreams or short term dreams to fulfill some kind of physical potential that you've tried to achieve for a long time. It's a lot more than that it's lot more complex. I think when we talk about the mind, the body, the spirit, the social, the environmental, the occupational, environmental I'm missing one here I guess social aspects of wellness. Every time you face a menu of choices of what you want to do in the next 30 minutes are you picking choices that enhance, lead you toward the fulfillment of your human potential? Let me get a little more specific. I consider choices that have a quality to them. Over ones that are just filling up space and time. When you pick and choose something are you doing it because it's a quality activity It's a quality choice? Is it engaging whether than being boring? Have you engaged most of the compacity of you mentally, spirtually, emotionally, when your into that particular activity? Is it developmental is it leading somewhere is it moving you from point "A" to point "B"? In whether it's physical, emotional, mental, occupational. Whether than being transient and ephemeral. Is it creative and constructive? There are so many things that seems on the surface to be mundane and routine that can be turned into creative activity that this gives you personally the opportunity to see that you're achieving something in the area of human fulfillment and perhaps wellness. Now I don't want to get to far of the track, but I just suddenly thought of an example of this I hadn't thought of for awhile. When I first moved into the home I live in right now it has an quarter acre of lawn in the backyard and when I moved into that home I loathed [that means hate] mowing the lawn. But it had to be done and so I tried to make a creative game out of mowing the lawn. How fast can I do it today? Can I beat the record I did last time? Can I mow in different directions and create a different routine out of going horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. How quickly can I chase down some little critters in y backyard with the mower. [Laughter] Without hurting them and so I tried to look at this every week as a creative experience or game to take the routine and the mundane and the boring part out of mowing the lawn and so I could kind of look forward to that. I would also see it as exercise, fitness routine because pushing a lawn mower is a fitness exercise. Demanding if you have an old fashion push mower. So those things are what I consider the choices one makes using your imagination finding imaginative choices and ones that are challenging and perhaps risky. So when you face any of your activities that you might be able to define as wellness. Pick ones that you think will help you fulfill your potential in what ever way possible. So that's part of my definition then in the choices we make and the way we choose them and how it fits into my definition. Now let me move to the second third of this portion and I said I was going to try to prove to you the importance whether than just say it's important. How would a person measure the impact and importance of wellness in our own lives or in the life of our community and society on campus, city, state, nation. And I think I have come up with some very measurable, hard, statistical kind of things that a person could use if they wanted to prove that wellness is important. We could start with how much money is spent on wellness. That's the kind of numbers people come up with all the time. How much money do we spend on wellness actvities as a person, as a campus, as a city, as a community and those numbers can be siphoned out and filtered out of all the other kind of things. We can come up with a very big number. So wellness perhaps has some importance in our economy. How much time do we spend in wellness? You can calculate the number of minutes you spend on wellness activities. The number of time that we spend as a city, or campus on wellness activities and if you take out sleep, and you take out required sustenance and I say required because even eating can be a very nice social wellness activity in the dietary area it can be nutritious and all that, but you have to eat and you have to sleep. The rest of this is discretionary time. Alright I'm sorry I'm retired some of you have to work I apologize for that, but okay so take that out, but your employment your occupation can be apart of the wellness pyramid and so you could have chosen or you can choose or you can try to creatively imagine that your job has a human potential to it and so that can be part of the wellness pyramid. But sleeping and bodily sustenance you take that out and there's a awful lot of time there that can be devoted to wellness. We find that a lot of people are doing that. We have a fewer and fewer couch potatoes. Fewer and fewer people just sitting around and we find more and more people becoming engaged in something that might advance their intellect that might make them socially more fun person to be with. That might settle their emotional level to a nice steady state. So we, we really find that you can quantify the time spent on wellness. Okay, I'm going to move a little faster through these are I'd spend the whole rest of the time on it and I don't want to do that. Take my word for it these are things that you can quantify. The number of products that manufacturers make and the number that they sell that are wellness related. And a lot of people aore constantly buying items that support their wellness activities. That's a pretty broad kind of term because we have so many components now in the wellness pyramid, but every time you make a purchase that you know is going to help fulfill some kind of goal you have in the wide theater of wellness you're contributing to that number. The number of jobs that are in the wellness realm. When I joined the faculty 40 something years ago. The departments hear you couldn't have found very many jobs in terms of majors and areas of study and things that were directly related to wellness. Now very a large number of the departments have majors that are specifically designed for people to want to have a job in the wellness arena. Personal Trainers things like that. Okay... I keep getting of the track I want to go to this fast, but another number you can have is the amount of space we devote to wellness. When I say space I mean land masses. National parks, state parks, city parks, playgrounds, recreational things were we have taken those areas and dedicated them to wellness. That's a awful lot of space. Now add to that the number of facilities that we put on some of that land that have been very expensive, but their dedicated to pursuits of wellness all of it's varieties. Huge sporting arenas, skating rings, gymnasiums, and rec centers all of the kind of things that you can identify as wellness oriented. The number of facilities it's just enormous. Then lastly I think I'll jump through this last one. The number of people that are participating in wellness activities. The first homecoming run that we ran 25 years ago we had maybe 15-25 people in it. The last few years we've had over 150. Not that it's a great event, but more and more people are getting interested in that kind of thing now. When they come back for the homecoming weekend. So the numbers are exponetially getting larger and larger. Now... that could be one way I could justify calling wellness important and there's a lot more things there would get me way off track I won't go into that. Statistically you can find more proof that wellness has importance. Qualitatively a little more fuzzy, a little more conceptual like box #4 is the way in which we identify wellness with what I would call the quality of life. It's hard to measure that whether it's personal or community it's hard to measure what we think of is the quality of life. But it's kind of like art we know it when we see it. We know were in a community that's higher quality of life. Because there are more choices, options, and alternatives for us to achieve our human potential which are usually wellness related. So if I talk about the importance of wellness in that regard it's not easily measured, but it certainly is an important part of wellness definition. Were adding to the quality of our lives. that's another reason why I think I can justify the title of this talk "The Importance of Wellness." In your life as an individual in our lives as a campus, city, community, actually as a nation. Now there's another whole talk I'd like to give sometime and I won't bore you with much of it, but if you think about the level of our civilization, our culture, the United States as apart of the long train of human development. You almost have to identify the choices that we have in wellness with the amount of freedom that we have. If you look back on all the society's in the past some of which were catergorized when I was in high school and college were great! Oh the Egyptian Pyramids, oh the Roman Coliseums, oh the European Cathedrals what high culture and high acheivement. Well how many people that help build those had a personal choice to do that? How many people elected to be peons and slaves to build the pyramids, and the coliseums, and the churches very few. I can I think I can make a pretty strong case a society that enjoys more freedom and encourages it's citizens, and it's constituents to enjoy the choices they have is a much happier, higher quality place to be. Like I said I enjoy that kind of spin and I worked on that a little bit that's a whole and perhaps more boring lecture. So there's pretty much the definition of wellness from my point of view and the justification for calling this talk "The Importance of Wellness." Now the last third of this I'm going to devote to the background and the foundation, stones, and people in our community that I consider some of the role models for our current events that Judy Yates, and Cathy McMillan, Milly MacDonnell and Jackie Thompson have provided for us in the last decade. Now I'm going to go back to ancient history 1968 that's when I got here. The first person I met I was here to interview for a job in the History Department Morgan Hall. I flew into Galesburg and some of you are so old you might remember we had a commercial air service to Galesburg. So I flew from Nashville to St. Louis to Galesburg. I had to park the rental car in "Q" lot there wasn't any parking lot between Western Hall and Waggoner that was a midnight decision President Malpass which destroyed part of the Biology Departments praire land and he did it while nobody was on campus he had the bulldozer's come in tear it apart and put a parking lot there. Okay that's you getting some of my personal jabs in here I shouldn't do that. Okay, so I had to walk from "Q" lot I had to walk through Western Hall to get to Morgan Hall. I was already a strong advacate of swimming to relieve my anxiety and frustration and my well being. That's how I got through graduate school at Nebraska and Vanderbuilt cause I was a recreational swimmer and I did that to flush out my head it was like diarrhea of the head. You know you swim a thousand yards or something and you fill pretty refreshed. All the anxiety, problems, research, papers go out the window. So I came through Western Hall and I asked this guy that was standing there I said I'm interviewing for a job and I kind of like to know what kind of swimming facilities do you have here for faculty staff? Well this guy name was Harry Fritz. Harry Fritz was the Athletic Director, the Chairmen of the Department of P.E., and the Dean of the College of H.P.E.R. Health Physical Education Recreation. One guy wore three hats now that's the old days see you don't do that any more. Any way he said oh I can introduce you to the current swimming coach he can tell you all about it we got two swimming pools the Western Hall pool and the old Brophy pool. He said so you'll find some time. So he introduced me to Paul Hutinger who was then the coach of the swimming team who had recreational swimming and swim team stuff out at Glenwood and because of that I met another one of my old friends that's not the way to phrase that is it when were our age. A long term friend Mary Warnock cause she was out there teaching swimming too and so we got acquainted over the Glenwood pool. I was competing for water polo time for the "Y" kids. She was competing with me for lessons we've had a nice tight interesting relationship ever since then. So Paul Hutinger and Mary Warnock are two of the people I met early on. Paul introduced me to the science of physiology and the science of exercise cause he was using himself as a subject measuring all of his physiological perimeters and the role exercise played in lowering blood plessure, lowering heart rate, increasing lung volume, reducing sodium all those kinds of things that some of you know about. That are statistically shown to improve your health and longevity well any way. So I consider him a very important person he created a program here in Macomb that was called "The Masters Swimming Program." It was open to everybody in the town and we had bankers, and lawyers, and all sorts of people joining in. The only requirement in 1971 was that you be over 25 years old. Cause we were going to do this with young snot nose college kids. Were not going to get in the pool with them. We had a whole lot of fun and it became a state program "The Illinois State Maters Program" it became a national program and it became an international program. Paul Hutinger got induced into the International Hall of Fame one in Ft. Lauderdale one in Italy because of his contributions to Masters swimming. Another guy I met and I shouldn't put them guy another university professor that I met at the same time was Randy Swedburg he teaches up in Canada maybe he's retired by now. He taught me the value of exercise on a stationary no go where bike. That's the handle you give an airgometer cause it doesn't go any place you just sit there and pedal. And I thought that was kind of boring up until the time Randy showed me the value of this kind of exercise. You have three variables that you can constantly adjust, change, and modify. So you have almost an endless number of routines and exercise patterns that you can have. You got the speed that your cranking the pedals, you got the resistance on those pedals, and you got the number of minutes you want to spend on it. Now when he introduced that to me and I became one of his guinea pigs doing the exercise bicycle. I learned that that's a triangle that you can apply to a whole lot of other activities in your life. How long are you going to do it ? How hard are you going to do it? How fast are you going to do it? And so you can take something like mowing your lawn and turn it into an exercise like that and find a lot more value. Okay so Randy Swedburg who is know longer is on our campus is another of those people that I consider a part of my little... my little Hall of Fame. Another person who is the next Dean of the College of H.P.E.R. who was named and I say was cause he died. Is Bill Lackey he was a very instrumental person in a lot of the things that we take for granted on our campus. He was very broad base in terms of access to facilities and sharing things on campus so that we could all enjoy some of the facilities, buildings, and stadiums that had been kind of locked up by Harry Fritz. As the domain of the athletic department or the domain of the college. Bill was a lot more friendly and when I went to him in 1980. I said I read in Sports Illustrated about these guys in Hawaii creating an Iron Man they swam 2.4 miles in the ocean, the bicycled 112 miles around the island, and they ran a marathon. I'd like to create a modified version of that on our campus and I would need your help. He said you've got it... I will support you and he sent me in to see George Herman who is Chairman of the P.E. Department. George said I think this sounds pretty cool we will help you in the creation of this and I... I call it the "Tin Man" since it wasn't the "Iron Man" it was a little bit less than iron it was a little bit more tinny. We still did 2.5 mile swimming we used a swimming pool. Back then we had 3 swimming pools. Horrabin Hall, Western, and Brophy. So we could put the start everybody started by telephones, bicycles, and ran. Now we didn't use made up numbers. Bill Lackey, George Herman, Paul Hutinger, and I we worked to try to make the three components of this event equal in energy expeditures. The "Iron Man" event is ran random these guys just said we like swimming from hear to hear so how long is that... oh that's 2.4 miles. Once around the island on a bike turned out to be 112 miles and the marathon seemed to be a convenient. There's no relationship to energy expediture or mets or anything else than that event. So we took the 2.5 mile swim no waves, no salt water, no jelly fish, no sharks, a nice clean chlorinated pool that seemed like a nice distance any way. It doesn't take that long to swim 2.5 miles in a pool. What's the energy equivalent for a bike ride? Turned out to be 40 miles so that's what our bike was. What's the energy equivalent for a run? Turned out to be a half marathon. So that's, that's I'm getting much to long winded on that cause there's a lot of fun and I had the total support of the P.E. Department, and the College of H.P.E.R. and remember I'm still in the History Department. A very junior faculty member in history where my colleagues in Sterling can nod his head on it. They thought I was wasting my time and I was frivolous I wasn't writing sophisticated research papers in history. I was messing around with sports and activities like that, but I found those more fulfilling my human potential. That's the way it fail out. Okay let's try to get some more names in here. I don't see him here today, but John Leach was a very important person in my development. He was in the Health Science Department and together with he and George Herman and Bill Lackey we took something that the Govenor had started at Jim Edgar at the state level. He had this Govenors Council on Health & Fitness. We created a chapter hear on campus it got chartered in 1986 and it had people like George Herman, Bill Lackey, and John Leach as their charter members. They also had Doris Simpson who was with the county Health Department. It had Donna Anderson who was with the hospital. I don't want to miss some of the important people that were in this okay I call it the Y.M.C.A.. Peggy Foster whose her today representing the "Road Runners" which was a thing that she and her husband, Bill & Diane Stevens created "The Road Runners Club" opportunities for al people around the city to be able to ride bikes together. Run together they had a bike club too, but their stick back then was running. They created the "Frosty Four" What did you have have 12 or 15 of those? Frosty Fours... 13 of them. They would run regardless of the weather. I can remember one time the infamous Frosty Four were the temperture had dropped very significantly and we had a snow shower sleet shower for the entire race it was very uncomfortable, but nobody... didn't do it I mean everybody that was registered came and did it and we felt really good about it afterwards. a couple of people that deserve a little credit. Doug & Hugh Anderson down at Gumbarts they created a long term series I think it lasted 10 years Gumbarts TC'S 10K Road Race. 10K was the standard back then none of this wimpy 5K - 3 mile stuff. Every road race was at least 10K - 6 miles and they went on, and on, and on. Former Mayor Tom Harper who is now the Chairman of the Board of Amtrak. He had a business out in the square Tom's Cafe this was before he was Mayor. He created the "New Years Day Run" Champaign & Chili Run and no matter what the weather was like on New Years Day you participated in this and then you ended up with champaign & chili at the pub or the cafe. Gordy Taylor in the Alumni Association he approached me after I had moved over into the R.P.T.A. Department. He called me over 25 years ago he said. I would like to incorporate a road race in homecoming. He said would you help me do that and so we started at this old stomping ground running around a 5K - 3.1 mile run. That was incorporated in Saturday morning homecoming events which has grown again expediently and provides a lot of fun for people returning. Well those are what I consider the foundation figures the Hall of Fame people that go back from 1968-69 up to the time I retired in 1996. Then I kind of lose touch with what's going on on campus, but Cathy McMillan provides a bridge to a lot of this. She was kind of working with the "Y" at the "Y" here on campus until she became a full fledged faculty member. So she provided all kind of activities between the two community "Y" and campus activities. She got one of her classes to administer a grant that she got let's see where is Cathy. How many years did the kids fitness evaluation how many years did that go? Cathy McMillan: 18 years. Belles: 18! Okay, for 18 years all the kids in some low grades 5th, 7th, something like that I don't know. McMillan: K thru 5 Belles: K thru 5 would go to the "Y" three times a year or something the numbers aren't really to important. But they'd go in there a couple times three times a year and her students would test them on fitness perimeters and we would compare that over 18 years of data to see what kind of results were going to be that these kids would have by incorporating their fitness, their P.E., their gym, their activities at the "Y" and the playgrounds with their health. It was a momumental kind of study that really bridged the gap between community and university. So those are some of the people that I wanted to pay tribute to and Judy Yates who really coodinate and organized this whole event today. Jackie Thompson whose provided a lot of the funding for what you find now in your program there's event program for just the Fall 2011 on the back table. It is full it's a 8 page flier with just all kinds of events by the month. That this campus, employee, fitness program sponsors. I hope that if you aren't acquainted with that you will become acquainted with it and I want to thank you for listening to this ramble. I hope it didn't insult you or the committees tribute to Jackie Thompson cause I feared that maybe I should type up a 25 page paper to read it, but that's not my style. So you got what you paid for thank you very much. [Applause] Music bridge