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Moe and Grace before the Rotary Dance. Grace wears her high school sweater and was a cheer-leader at Upper Arlington High School outside of Columbus, Ohio, from 1956-1958. She tells me the school mascot was the Golden Bear. Jack Nicklaus, whose nick-name "the Golden Bear," was graduated a year ahead my mom; he was captain or co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams "and played a little golf on the side which none of us really knew about." Grace led cheers for the football and basketball teams and notes the teams pretty good. "There were six of us, three sophomores and three seniors."

On Upper Arlington High: The school has received a number of accolades, including the highest number of National Merit Semi-Finalists in Ohio's public schools for three of the last four years,a nationally award-winning student newsmagazine, Arlingtonian, and the National Cup for the top orchestra in the country. It was the only school district in the nation to receive three White House honors as Service Learning Leaders.

More important for our story, the high school sports teams are consistently ranked among the top Division I schools in Ohio, particularly in the sports of football, golf, tennis, basketball, water polo, cross country, lacrosse, and swimming. The Upper Arlington football team captured the Division One state title in football in 2000, and were led by Jeff Backes, who earned the Mr. Football Award for Ohio, and Simon Fraser, who went on to play for the Ohio State Buckeyes and Cleveland Browns. Upper Arlington is tied with the Cincinnati all boys school St. Xavier High School for the most Ohio High School Athletic Association team state championships both with 42. Upper Arlington has won 105 state titles overall, including sports not sponsored by the OHSAA.

"How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life."
--Jack Nicklaus