Nick Lowery '78 John Rassias

"Passion Was Another Way of Learning."

O MAKE IT AS A KICKER in the National Football League, you have to be at peace with the notion of making a fool of yourself. There's a nakedness in being out there alone in front of 80,000 people; everyone knows whether you succeed or fail That willingness to take risks is something I learned through the teaching of John Rassias. In his classes, I developed a healthy attitude toward rejection and learned to welcome the chance to be humiliated. After his classes, I felt I could handle anything. Without that experience, I doubt I could have made it in pro football.

I had heard a lot about Rassias, of course, before I took my first class with him, and I was a little apprehensive until I saw the phenomenon at work. Right away I was electrified. I saw why so many people had come to see his method as in the best sense of the word a religion. Rassias stirred our blood and showed us that passion was another way of learning it didn't have to be all reading and reflection. And he was right. I never thought I could learn French, but here I was learning it right away. He tried to make his classes surprising and fun, he tried to show us that loosening our inhibitions improved our ability to communicate. We never knew, from one minute to the next, if he would drop an egg on our heads or pull his pants down. He wanted us to feel first and think second. His philosophy was, and is, that you learn things when you combine them with emotion, and that's how they stick.

Rassias didn't play favorites. He responded to anyone who responded to him. And he responded to anyone who didn't respond to him, sometimes even more so. But he did single me out. I didn't have him for many courses, but I think my being a kicker intrigued him. He showed me that an athlete doesn't have to be one-dimensional.

Nick Lowery

NICK LOWER?.; a placekicker the Kansas CityChiefs since 1980, is the most accurate field-goalkicker in N.F.L. history. He has spent his off-seasons working with various senators on CapitolHill and has been a board member of the UnitedWay, the Lost Child Network, and UnitedCerebral Palsy.