Thank you for your profile of this year’s Faith and Learning Award recipient, Ralph Honderd (summer 2016). Alas, nary a word about Ralph’s (noncoaching) athletic achievements in his storied undergraduate career at Calvin. Ralph was, by far, the greatest sports hero of my youth. Who can forget that powerful left-handed jump hook Ralph would launch over many a hapless defender as he swept across the free-throw lane? Or the way he used his muscular power-forward dimensions to box out on defense and crash the boards on offense.

I know Calvinists are allergic to boasting, but your profile was particularly negligent in not men-tioning Ralph’s role on the greatest basketball team that Calvin ever had, the undefeated (20-0) team of 1960–61. Honderd was joined on that roster by, notably, the magical All-American point guard Carl DeKuiper and Len Rhoda in the backcourt, and the high-scoring center, Bill (“Goose”) Wolterstorff. Their victims that year: Division I Central Michigan U.; nationally ranked small colleges like Taylor; Hope (twice by 20 points); and Central State of Ohio, a perennial Division III powerhouse. The MIAA had banned all its teams from any postseason play that year, but for my money, those 1960–61 Knights could have won it all. Ralph was the most popular player on that team and went on to become an institution at Calvin.

Speaking of institutions, I’ve been asked to provide some vital corrective information concerning the origins of Les Jacques de Chimes, since I was, along with the late Marlin VanElderen ’66, Tom Hoeksema ’66 and Bob Holkeboer ’65, a co-founder of Les Jacques, the intramural football team we launched in the autumn of 1964 to show that a bunch of bookish nerds on the school paper could field a competitive intramural football team (not to mention, a very decent basketball team). Within days, the Faculty Fumblers were founded—featuring legendary speedster George Marsden and Al “the Human Bulldozer” Plantinga (who gleefully dismantled proofs for and against God’s existence at his day job)—to show that a bunch of high-testosterone professors could knock said nerds on their butts. Often unsung in those early years were a couple of pugnacious interior linemen, the late historian Howard Rienstra for the Fumblers and Paul Schrader for Les Jacques.

I should acknowledge that the Chimes sportswriter, in reporting Les Jacques’ win over the University of Michigan that year, exaggerated. They were in a position, notwithstanding, to win that game had they not been penalized repeatedly for too many ineligible philosophy majors downfield.

Our guiding watchword during those early years originated with John Calvin himself: “Sound mind, sound body—take your pick.”

Reinder Van Til ’67, Chicago, Illinois