Not often can you sit down and read a book of prose penned by a former Kansas University football player.
Come to think of it, the late John Husar might be the only former KU gridder whose writings are available in book form.
For 15 years, Husar was outdoors editor of the Chicago Tribune. A compilation of his best columns recently was published. Royalties from “A Voice in Our Wilderness” have been earmarked for an Illinois conservation group.
Husar died of Hepatitis C in 2000 at the age of 63. One of his most memorable columns tells about how difficult it was for him to obtain a liver suitable for transplant. The wait must have been agonizing, yet he never subjected his readers to self-pity.
It’s true Husar was a KU football player. He just didn’t play very long. Husar was on the freshman team in 1955, but the only black-and-white reference to the fact he ever played football for the Jayhawks appeared in the 1956 media guide.
Husar was listed on the ’56 roster as a 6-foot-4, 218-pound tackle from Chicago, Ill. The fleeting reference to him in the preseason prospectus called him a “good prospect.” Husar never did earn a letter.
I suspect the siren call of journalism — an affliction caused, I’ve come to believe, by a rogue gene — prompted him to give up football because you just can’t do both. There aren’t enough hours in the day. Show me a football player majoring in journalism and I’ll show you the ultimate overachiever.
When Husar died in 2000, the University Daily Kansan paid homage by running an editorial he had written for the student paper in 1958 about an upcoming visit to Mount Oread by the poet Langston Hughes.
“The ordinary college student will not fly into an ecstatic coma over this,” Husar penned, “but the majority of those who have an idea of Mr. Hughes’ accomplishments should darned well make sure they bring their cups of coffee to the lecture instead of rotting over run-of-the-mill Hawk’s Nest conversation.”
I wasn’t in Lawrence while Husar was — he graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism degree in 1959 — but I once spent two weeks with him in a non-journalistic endeavor.
In the early 1960s, he was working for the Wichita Eagle and I was firing up copy for the Hutchinson News. At the same time, we were in the U.S. Army Reserve and attached to the same Topeka hospital unit which meant we all went to summer camp together.
Members of the Wichita and Hutchinson sections — there weren’t many of us — rode all the way to Camp McCoy, Wis., in a motor coach. That’s when I first noticed Husar. You couldn’t miss him. He was 6-4, weighed at least 240 pounds and had one of those charismatic personalities that drew people to him.
Since we both worked for newspapers, we talked from time to time about our jobs while in the barracks, or when we were doing the usual training soldiers do — like build latrines for the officers, perform KP duties, shoot rifles and drill endlessly.
I didn’t see Husar again until about 10 years ago when he showed up unexpectedly at the Journal-World. He was driving through on I-70 and decided to stop for a nostalgic visit. We reminisced a bit about Camp McCoy, mused about how Lawrence had changed and quickly he was on his way back to Chicago.
Since the J-W subscribes to the Chicago Tribune wire service, I was able to read Husar’s outdoors columns over the years. Often we placed them on the J-W’s Sunday outdoors page.
“His laughter and zest were contagious,” it says on the dust cover of his book. “So is his spirit, which is reflected in the writings in this collection.”
The older I become the more people I have to remember on Memorial Day weekend and, with the publication of “A Voice in Our Wilderness,” I’m pleased to be reminded of a life well spent in a profession some of us find so rewarding.
