[NU Sports] The NU Wildcat Super Bowl "Curse"

[Joe Thiegs]

TRW was my professor for Accelerated Inorganic Chemistry in the fall of my
freshman year ('92-'93), and I attended a Weaver lecture on my first day of
college classes.  Normally the kind of coarseness described below really
turns me off, but for some reason it seemed almost endearing in TR's case.
Maybe because despite his occasional--okay, frequent--gruffness it was clear
that he really cared about his students and their progress.  I thought he
had an excellent teaching style in general.  Also, I found him to have quite
a sense of humor, which is a trait I value very highly in professors (or
people of any vocation, for that matter).  -Joe

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of John Labbe
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 11:35 PM
To: cherron604 at aol.com
Cc: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] The NU Wildcat Super Bowl "Curse"


I'll respond to the list since we're a bit slow lately.

When I was there in the mid-90s, TR Weaver was still going strong.  He  
was running the general chemistry labs and teaching weekly review  
sessions for freshman chemistry.  But then toward the end of my  
undergraduate career, he apparently went too far, cursed at one too  
many students, and they took away most of his teaching duties, leaving  
him to teach night-school classes only.  He's no longer listed on the  
faculty listing for the chemistry department, so presumably he's now  
retired.

For those of you who don't know, TR Weaver was a long-time institution  
in the Northwestern chemistry department.  He had attended Northwestern  
for graduate school in the 60s or early 70s and then he never left.  He  
was the coordinator for undergraduate labs and essentially coordinated  
all of the freshman general chemistry classes, including overseeing all  
the TAs, grading of papers, labs, etc.  He was known for having his  
opinions and a sharp tongue with students, on occasion.  He called a  
couple of friends of mine "f***ing idiots"---that got their attention.   
Another favorite saying was "smarter than a cow, dumber than a horse."   
Despite all that, he was fairly well liked due to his general patience  
and willingness to try to help students get through the class, but for  
those who got entrenched on his bad side, it probably wasn't much fun.

http://www.chem.northwestern.edu/faculty/lecture/


On Jan 30, 2006, at 9:57 PM, cherron604 at aol.com wrote:

> Somewhat off topic...
>  
> But is Tom Ray Weaver still haunting the halls of Tech ?
>  
> Or has he moved on ?
>  
> Though my grades were forgettable, I still remember the pipe aroma
> emanating from Weaver's old office (I think I spent a great deal of  
> time there explaining shortfalls in my chemistry work), and the  
> anecdotes of Fred Basolo.
>  
> Chuck Herron   Tech '85
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Labbe <johnl at mac.com>
> To: NU List Sports <nwu-sports at tssi.com>; Jonathan Hodges
> <jonathanwhodges at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:39:03 -0600
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] The NU Wildcat Super Bowl "Curse"
>
> Just to be clear, Northwestern has never been in the NCAA basketball
> tournament at all. Below you say "has subsequently never been" in the  
> tournament. We weren't in it in 1939, either. The finals just happened  
> to be played in Patten Gym. This curse is a bit suspect, though,  
> because although we've never been in the tournament, the final four  
> was again held in Evanston in 1956, in McGaw Hall, which we haven't  
> torn down. And although we tore down the "old" Patten Gym, we did  
> build a "new" Patten Gym, which ironically is now the "old" gym on  
> campus. The way T.R. Weaver used to tell the story (either you know  
> him or you don't), they tore down Patten Gym the day after the first  
> championship game to start building Tech. 
>  
> You can find more Final Four status at the following (rather long)
> link: 
>  
> http://www.n!
> caa.org/wps/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/ 
> 04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLN4j3CQXJgFjGpvqRqCKOcAFfj_zcVH1v_QD9gtz 
> QiHJHRUUAc0tpTA!!/delta/base64xml/ 
> L3dJdyEvUUd3QndNQSEvNElVRS82XzBfTFU!?CONTENT_URL=http://www.ncaa.org/ 
> library/records/m_final_four_records_book/index.html 
>  
> On Jan 26, 2006, at 2:44 PM, Jonathan Hodges wrote:
>  
> > And then there's the Patten Gym curse: The first ever NCAA final >
> four(men's BBall) tournament was held in old Patten Gym (in 1939, >
> Ibelieve). Patten Gym was then torn down to build Tech (in 1942, >  
> Ibelieve). NU's men's basketball team has subsequently never been >  
> tothe NCAA tournament. 
> > Jonathan
>  
> _______________________________________________
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> nwu-sports at tssi.com 
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