Phil McAnelly claims that the skills for becoming an athlete were “spawned” at elementary school recess.
I [Phil McAnelly] was born in Hondo, Texas, in 1946 and lived the first three years of my life right across the street from the old school, where the track now is. The house is still there. My dad was the Ag Teacher in Hondo High School, and he walked across the street to work. Sometimes I would accompany him to a class or two when my mom had something she had to do, or maybe he was just indoctrinating me early on to be an Ag teacher myself. Don’t know.
The Ag Building, or Ag Shop as everyone called it, was in the same building as the old gymnasium that later served as the band hall until just a few years ago. I remember one time when I was four years old I crawled up on one of the tables that was used instead of desks and told my dad, “You teach that side, Daddy, and I’ll teach this side over here.”The ag boys all loved it, and I was told about it many times down through the years.
There was no formal kindergarten or pre-school in the public schools back then, but there was an “old” lady by the name of Mrs. Fly who taught kindergarten in her house, a big, two-story house with a wraparound porch ~ much like the old Briscoe house that used to stand across the street from the Baptist church here in Devine. There were actually two houses just alike across the street from each other at the west end (at that time) of 20th street where I lived. Both belonged to the Fly family, a prominent family in Hondo’s early years. He was the judge, and they owned a pharmacy in downtown Hondo, across the street from the Raye Theater. Both buildings are still there and in use.
I started as a five-year old, along with about nine others, including Hunter Schuehle, who still lives in Hondo and has been an attorney there for many years. We were great friends then and went on to be classmates and teammates all through our school years. I would walk the three blocks to “school” all by myself. No one ever worried about it back then. We knew everyone in town, and the whole town knew us. Hillary Clinton was right about one thing: It does take a village to raise our kids.
The next year I started the first grade, and by then Hondo had built a new high school, and my first grade room just happened to be in the same room that had served as the old Ag classroom, so I felt right at home. I knew where the water faucet was, where the restrooms were, and how to get into the storage area under the bleachers. Neat place to hide.
My teacher was Mrs. Gaston, the wife of the County Agent, one of my dad’s closest friends. There were only two first-grade classes, and most of us went all the way through school together, except for the kids whose parents were in the Air Force and stationed at the Air Base in Hondo. Most of the pilots in WW II learned to fly in Hondo, but only the instructors or officers had families there. There was also St. John’s Catholic school that had an elementary school, and they joined us in the seventh grade.
One of my first-grade classmates was Tange Saathoff, the mother of Kendle Bain, David Bain’s wife. Starting school must have been traumatic for her, as the first week she spent crying until her mom would come and get her. She got over it and we became good friends. Tange doesn’t remember it, but she was my first girlfriend, first-grade style.
I already knew how to read, count by twos, fives, and tens and could pretty well stay inside the lines when I was coloring- so it was more of a social event than a learning environment for me ~ much to the chagrin of most of my teachers for the next six years. There was no such thing as ADD back then, just a bunch of very active, highly-inquisitive little boys. Thank God we had some parents and teachers who knew how to channel that energy into something positive.
School did not start until after the first of September, and we got out the end of May. Class started at 9:00 and ended at 3:00. We had a thirty-minute “break” in the morning, an hour for lunch, another fifteen-minute break in the afternoon, and then an hour long “play period”. That was probably more for the teachers than it was for us, but it gave us the opportunity to burn off a lot of energy where we could focus when we got back in class. We also learned how to stand in line (a most important skill that still haunts me to this day).
I always loved school, loved my teachers, loved my classmates, loved learning, but most of all loved “recess” where the fundamental skills of being an athlete were spawned.
Little did I know at the time that God was preparing me to spend my life teaching. I thank God for that. Very few if any careers are more important, and it is one of the few that every morning as you look at yourself in the mirror you can truly say, “Someone will have a better life because of me.”