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In the spring of 1967 I read a small article in our local newspaper announcing the College of Creative Studies. At the time I was a high school senior looking at football scholarships as my path to higher education. I was interested in the arts, but football would pay for college. UCSB had a football team then. They wanted me, but their team was in a small conference, and they could only offer to pay for books and tuition. The big schools had scholarships that could pay for everything. I figured that if I was going to play, I should go away to a major university and play at the highest level.
At the same time, there was something intriguing about that newspaper article and I attended a meeting about the College of Creative Studies at my high school. What founding Provost Marvin Mudrick had to say about his new college that afternoon was much more interesting than what the recruiters from football teams that came to Santa Barbara and took me out to lunch to talk about their schools had to say. So, even though it meant I had to live at home and play for a lower ranked football team, I decided to go to the College of Creative Studies.
Before I went to CCS, school was boring, something that got in the way of what I was interested in studying. CCS was about removing obstacles to learning, like a good blocker opening up a hole at the line of scrimmage to allow some open field running. . I remember a music student explaining to me how he was trying to ?burn the mist off Debussy? I was amazed at how accessible and smart the faculty and visitors were. I got to hang out with Hugh Kenner, principal dancers from the New York City Ballet, Buckminster Fuller, Harold Rosenberg, Paul W onner, etc, etc. .
CCS ended out to be a lot more interesting and challenging than tackling fullbacks. So, I quit the Gauchos during the first weeks of classes. I wanted to read and paint all day and stay up late at night talking with the people I was meeting (I got a few odd jobs, living at home was cheap, and tuition in 1967 was about $500 a year.)
The basic structure of CCS is a radical opportunity to be curious. I have seen that just the idea of the College attracts students and faculty and visitors who sense hat there might be something interesting and of value going on. For me, Mudricks ruthless intelligence and sensual appreciation of knowledge was as exhilarating as the violence of football, and a model for something that might be more ultimately more rewarding. In the long run, I think paintings and books are more interesting than trophies.
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