Lehigh Will Shine

I remember my dad taking my brothers and me to Lehigh University football games on Saturday afternoons back when I was a kid. Taylor Stadium (gone now) might as well have been a coliseum; the grass of the football field appeared to be the greenest grass that ever sprouted from the earth.

I loved the Lehigh marching band, “The Marching 97.” It was my indoctrination to the organized spectacle of a sporting event—the combination of play on the field and music in the air to energize the faithful. (Completely overdone and ruined today by recorded music. If I hear one more over-modulated, over-amplified, over-used, clichéd rock song at a hockey game I’m going to….)

Anyway, my favorite Marching 97 fight song was Lehigh Will Shine. Okay everybody, sing along:

Lehigh will shine tonight, Lehigh will shine;
Lehigh will shine tonight, Lehigh will shine;
Lehigh will shine tonight, Lehigh will shine;
When the sun goes down
and the moon comes up,
Lehigh will shine.

I can hear it so clearly now. Snare drums snapping and crackling sound waves across the stadium … everyone singing at the top of their lungs … including twelve-year-old me.

The were The Engineers back then. Somewhere along the line, in the 1990s I think, Lehigh became the Mountain Hawks. Why? I can’t think of a better name for a football team than The Engineers.

Which brings me to why, once again, I’ve stepped back in the time machine this morning.

Dad was an engineer, and spent his entire professional life at Lehigh. For almost a half-century he was the face of Civil Engineering at Lehigh: Director of the historic Fritz Laboratory, Founder of the world-renowned Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

I’m unendingly proud of dad … of the things he achieved … of the father he was. I love him so much and miss him every day.

Especially today.

Because today I am equally amazed and equally proud of Max. Today he starts work on his Masters Degree in Civil Engineering at Lehigh University. I can hardly get my head around it: My son, taking classes in the same building that dad once taught in. My son, a research assistant, maybe even doing work in the same laboratory that my father once led.

What I wouldn’t give to see Dad’s reaction today as his grandson steps onto that Lehigh University campus today to begin this new chapter in his life … discovering his own path, and maybe … just a little bit … following his grandfather’s well-trodden footsteps as his guide.

I can hear the Marching 97 playing that fight song already.

Lehigh will shine.