I was a baseball player in junior college. I never dreamed that one day I would work at a university as a professor. This is likely because I had not yet experienced the generosity of so many people that I had not yet met, all of whom were invested in my future.

Let me offer one example. Don Larson was my Western Civilization professor when all I cared about was baseball. And yet his interest in me went well beyond my sports success; he wanted me to be able to think, use logic, examine evidence, and make good decisions as an adult off the field as well. And that investment in me extended well beyond my time as a student.

When I was done playing baseball, I took an interest in the Bible and in the history of the Holy Land that produced it. Remembering what he taught me in his courses — how what we know today as “Western Civilization” was rooted in the classical world of Greek, Rome, and what we now call the Holy Land — I enrolled in every archaeology course I could as a graduate student. And when I had the opportunity to travel overseas for the first time to visit these places for myself, Larson was one of the first to contribute financially to my trip, knowing that a young man from a small agricultural town with lots of potential couldn’t afford to travel abroad.

Larson planted the ancient history seed in my mind when I was a single-minded athlete, and he who later contributed directly to my success as a student.

Today, I am an assistant professor of Classics and Religious Studies in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, teaching biblical studies and archaeology in large part because one man saw some greater purpose in me when I was just a baseball player from a small farm town. And it is my hope that I can be the kind of mentor to my students — both inside and outside of the classroom, with my time, knowledge, experience, and my money — that Larson was to me.

Larson gave of himself and invested in me as a person, to give me a better chance at success. Larson is “Phil.” I hope to be the same.

Robert R. Cargill