tcudoc
Full Member
I think my year was one of Dr. Smith's final years to teach the OChem class. He was tough but fair. It is probably the A on my transcript that I am most proud of because I know I earned it against the odds.
Dr. Koehler will always be one of my TCU sports heroes
- Thread starter TopFrog
- Start date
BleedNPurple
Active Member
I learned from his students who did well that only the best made it through.
Some sorority coed was telling me that her roommate was failing his class miserably. She dressed up to the nines and went to see my father at his office in an effort to charm him into giving her a passing grade. She told him she just couldn’t understand why she was doing so poorly - she was a top student and wanted to get into Med school. Pop said well let’s see if we can help you and he proceeded to pick up a book that had all of her college class grades in it. He looked at her grades, closed the book and said my dear - you will never get into Med school. There’s nothing I can do to help you other than recommend you change your major.
The coed said with a laugh - your father is brilliant.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
Heh. I was weeded. Never had the discipline. Funny thing is, I still remember a reasonable amount of Chem and it comes in handy in the oddest of places...
Double D
Tier 1
Virginia Frog
Active Member
B n' P: It must be extremely satisfying to have this level of testimonials in respect to your Dad's work.
You don't say but with a Dad like that I bet YOU went on (continue on) to great success!
I will be forever grateful to Dr. Koehler. I don't remember the year exactly....96 or 97. At the recommendation of Roger Williams, I wrote a long letter to Dr. Koehler expressing my frustration with TCU Athletics and recommending various tactics to improve the experience.....winning again being the #1 priority.
I'm not a big shot donor or big shot in our community. Expecting the typical "form letter" response....... you can imagine my shock when his secretary called me to schedule an appointment to meet with him in Sadler. He spent at least 30 minutes with me......listened to all my concerns and assured me that things were going to turn around. And we all know the rest of the story.
It was later that I found out that Koehler was the key person in Sadler that shook things up in our Athletics department.
Thank you, Dr. Koehler!
I'm not a big shot donor or big shot in our community. Expecting the typical "form letter" response....... you can imagine my shock when his secretary called me to schedule an appointment to meet with him in Sadler. He spent at least 30 minutes with me......listened to all my concerns and assured me that things were going to turn around. And we all know the rest of the story.
It was later that I found out that Koehler was the key person in Sadler that shook things up in our Athletics department.
Thank you, Dr. Koehler!
BleedNPurple
Active Member
Thanx Virginia Frog - I’m as driven as he was. I’ve built 3 businesses and have a wide range of interests that we shared together.
He had 8 master degrees and the equivalent of 4 PHDs - Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Math. Suffice to say nobody could touch him in the game Trivial Pursuit. The only way to get the board back was when we got a question like Who asked the musical question “are you experienced?” We’d get to draw finally and he’d crush the next answer (-;
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BleedNPurple
Active Member
I am not surprised - Bill Koehler’s door was always open and he was an excellent listener.
geezer
Colonel, USAF (Retired)
Dr Watson was my pre-med demise. Tanked in the first semester of my freshman year.
BleedNPurple
Active Member
It's better to find out early. So many of my friends started out as freshman as Premed Majors and between the lab work and the testing it's extremely rigorous. Geology was my passion in science. I used to take my fathers freshman Chemistry Exams for nursing majors when I was in high school - aced them. He would then have me grade their papers.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
Would you believe it if I told you booze?
NF
Limp Lizard
Full Member
A lot of the prestige of Pre-Med and Pre-Dental at TCU in the 60's was due to William Hewatt in Biology. He was chairman of Pre-Med/Dental Committee for a while and taught another Soph weed out course: Comparative Anatomy. He took those responsibilities very, very seriously. He was the only prof at TCU who I found truly intimating. Those who took Comp. Anatomy under him know what I mean.
He weeded me out from Pre-Dental when I figured out that I had the digital dexterity of a seal. I would have been a disaster as a dentist. My lack of coordination hurt me a lot in Chemistry grad school because I was awful at the slide rule. One rich guy in grad school (Viet Nam Vet receiving both veterans school stipend and his fellowship, plus wife was president of Texas Chemical Engineers) had an HP-45 which made courses with lots of calculations a cinch. When I got out of school (with just an M.S., sigh), as soon as I could afford it, I got an HP calculator. It used RPN and when people in the lab borrowed it, they asked: "Where is the equals sign?". Heh, Heh.
He weeded me out from Pre-Dental when I figured out that I had the digital dexterity of a seal. I would have been a disaster as a dentist. My lack of coordination hurt me a lot in Chemistry grad school because I was awful at the slide rule. One rich guy in grad school (Viet Nam Vet receiving both veterans school stipend and his fellowship, plus wife was president of Texas Chemical Engineers) had an HP-45 which made courses with lots of calculations a cinch. When I got out of school (with just an M.S., sigh), as soon as I could afford it, I got an HP calculator. It used RPN and when people in the lab borrowed it, they asked: "Where is the equals sign?". Heh, Heh.
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