‘GOODER’: E.C. Woman Revives Her Father’s Memory, Words in New Book
Marty Crowe was a legendary high school coach, but he also wrote a million words of wisdom
Throughout her lifetime, retired Eau Claire guidance counselor Maureen Slauson has honored her father’s legacy. She followed in his footsteps as an educator and mentor, she worked as a community organizer and advocate, and now she’s an author.
Maureen recently completed the book project she started three years ago: sorting through 50 years of her dad’s newspaper columns, which ran weekly for 15 years, and his handwritten essays – easily over a million words. She condensed that to 425 pages for the collection Gooder: The Writings of Marty Crowe, published in October. The subtitle says it all: selected from five decades of his thoughts on teaching, coaching, humanity, God, and life.
As Maureen sifted through papers from her father’s past, she could hear his voice again. Marty died in 1999 at age 85.
She chose the book’s name from a column Marty published in 1977, “People Were Gooder in the Depression.” He wrote, “I could say better, but better is not what I mean. I mean gooder.”
Marty Crowe was a legend, long before his induction to both the Wisconsin Basketball and Football Coaches Hall of Fame. In one column, Marty wrote about how he first ended up in Eau Claire when he got on the wrong train in St. Paul heading to La Crosse for a job interview. St. Pat's High School (now Regis) was also hiring; he was perfect for the job.
Marty did what many columnists do: turn their lives into stories. For him, the backdrop was American history – wars in Korea and Vietnam that took his students, integration, small town politics, and high school drama. He paid attention to what he called “the quiet ones, the meek, the shy, the lost.”
About a tattered relic from 1967 Maureen writes, “This column was in such poor condition … that I nearly threw it out … but as I continued to decipher the smudged letters, a simple but important message appeared.”
In that one, Marty wrote about Marinette, where he and his wife were raising six kids, and he was a high school teacher and coach: “This town takes its time and there are strange things like clerks who talk instead of sell and streets which go nowhere and end when they find it out … and people who know your name and say it.”
Maureen writes, “My father sought … a simple and clear summons for a troubled world.” She knows that his work still offers a crucial message today. Her insightful introductions to these essays read like love letters to her dad.
Marty Crowe was a legend, long before his induction to both the Wisconsin Basketball and Football Coaches Halls of Fame. In one column, Marty wrote about how he first ended up in Eau Claire when he got on the wrong train in St. Paul heading to La Crosse for a job interview. St. Pat’s High School (now Regis) was also hiring; he was perfect for the job. In 1948, Marty bought a three-story house on West Grand Avenue just three blocks from work. He wrote to his soon-to-be wife how much he hoped she’d like it. He and Helen lived there on and off until they died. Even when Marty’s career took them away from Eau Claire, they came back each summer with their growing family. During the school year, they rented rooms to UW-Eau Claire students. Maureen and her husband now own the house.
Marty was my English teacher for his final three years, until he retired in 1985 from McDonell Central High School in Chippewa Falls. As a freshman, I may have been enthralled by how Mr. Crowe brought alive Robert Frost and Edna St. Vincent Millay poems, but I was mesmerized by the stories Marty told in class. About throwing out his pitching arm just before he got to the pros or hopping trains as a young man or coaching his four state championship teams. Many of these appear as essays in Gooder.
Maureen discovered a handwritten version of “The Billy Haugen Story.” Marty told this football tale time and again, I would guess from the day after it occurred in 1948 until he died. It goes like this: Edgewood was walloping St. Pat’s 12-0 on a rainy November night. The Madison team changed into clean uniforms at halftime; Marty’s Eau Claire team continued in their wet, muddy ones. Then those cold and grimy boys rallied to score two touchdowns but needed to throw for the extra point in the final seconds. Freshman Jimmy Miller lobbed a pass to junior Billy Haugen. This gritty kid reached as high as he could, and then he found something in himself to reach even higher. I first heard this famous Marty story in 1982, and I can still recall his words. “You know what happens when mud hits mud?” He paused; all of us 14-year-olds in his American lit class held our breath as if we were transported to the bleachers at that very same game. Marty rasped: “It sticks.”
While I was his student, Marty wrote in a piece for the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “I don’t want a kid to walk out of my class who has only learned to be smart or clever. … I want to turn out a dreamer.”
At age 69, he still had that mischief-maker’s glint in his eyes. “You have a better jump shot than your brother,” Marty told me once. He coached Dave seven years earlier. “You’re cuter too. Make sure to tell him I said that.”
Marty would sit at his desk behind his newspaper and often munch Cheetos, even during first hour. He wore turtlenecks under the dashikis Helen sewed for him. He appreciated underdogs and free thinkers, runts and the overlooked. And they adored Marty.
Maureen recently told me about the magical times she had while working on Gooder, often alone in her tiny office, surrounded by her dad’s articles. One late night she doubted this project and herself. Her spreadsheet of cataloged essays was more than 50 pages long; the boxes of tattered newspaper clippings seemed endless. She said aloud, “Dad, can I do this?”
Her father’s signature phrase popped into her head, one he learned from Bobby Kennedy: “Why not?” Marty fired up students – generations of them – with this expression. In 1981, when his McDonell basketball team made it to the state tournament, he even displayed “Why not?” on a cardboard sign taped to the back window of his blue Lincoln.
Maureen came to realize about Marty’s nearly lost columns: “These are too good to have them filed away.” One of the most precious he published when Maureen was born: “A Prayer for My Darlin’: A Brand-New Baby Girl Gets a Send Off in Life from Her Father.” Marty wrote in 1952, “I want you to be a tough cookie . . . I want you spun of moonbeams and the dust from any forgotten street. … I want you tender and I want you reaching out.”
Gooder is the perfect send off for Marty Crowe from his daughter.
Gooder: The Writings of Marty Crowe, is available online or in person at The Local Store, 205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire. Also available at other retailers.
