It has truly been a pleasure doing business with you, David. Go well, as you clearly deserve to do.

I first worked with him when he set up a visit in Macau for my MBA students. The bus driver got lost, chaos was ensuing, etc., yet David kept his cool, kept thinking clearly and got us to where we needed to go and was a true professional the entire time. It was maturity beyond his years.

He will do well in life and will succeed at whatever goal he sets for himself.

Most importantly, he is a consistently nice, quality, humble and sincere person. Dude, don’t ever lose that part of you. These latter qualities are what sets the contenders (you) apart from the pretenders.

Not bad. Not bad at all for a fellow from Iowa.

You have done good, DD. Keep doing good ….

There seems to be a problem that I couldn’t leave a comment yesterday, now luckily I am able to do so.

For more than half a year, your manners and working attitudes impressed me a lot. Thanks for teaching me so much. Again, you always have my best wishes!

Fran

–Isaac Newton

Now that I’ve gotten through the requisite short joke, I would like to talk about movies. One of the professor’s favorite teaching movies, and I think a personal favorite as well, is Cinderella Man, a biopic that covers a portion of the life of James Braddock, a down-and-out Depression-era boxer who recovers from a gruesome injury and goes on to face, fight, and defeat Max Bayer, the heavyweight champion of the time. The story is a moving one–as the professor will tell you, he has yet to tire of watching it–and it deserved the awards it won in 2005. It created a compelling hero and deftly found a voice to tell a story that could easily have soured to a hackneyed, trite, or blase rehash of the classic underdog movie no one wants to watch again. Instead, we find a fresh, powerful movie with characters, lessons, and moments that stay in the mind long after a careful student has watched the movie.

James Braddock was a hero in most every sense of the word, both for his contributions to his family and for his late life military service and the construction and bridge-building he accomplished in his years after the ring. Yet I find the most ironic thing about that movie is the professor’s favorite character and the reason why I think he finds the story so compelling. Braddock, a dreamer, found a reason to fight and a cause to rally himself toward the defeat of a seemingly unbeatable opponent. He is the stuff legends are made of, and I would never compare myself to him. But the professor…

There is a character, often overlooked by all but of a few of Lonnie’s students, who is critically important to the development of this story, and his name is Joe Gould. Gould is Braddock’s manager, and does not receive quite as many great lines (though it won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) as one would hope for, aside from swearing about Jesus, Mary and Joseph and asking if he mentioned Jesus. Yet his actions during and after the plot of the movie remain critical to Braddock’s success during and after his stunning defeat of Bayer. Following the events of the movie, Braddock would go on to fight Joe Louis, one of the greatest boxers ever to live. Despite knocking Louis down in the first round and being the “toughest guy I [Louis] ever fought,” Braddock would lose the title to him, as was expected. The real beef of the story was taking place outside the ropes: Gould, in a moment of business shrewdness that could have been the focus of an entire movie, negotiated a 10% cut of all future purses from Joe Louis’s fights, win or lose, in exchange for Louis’s bout with Braddock and the chance to fight and defeat the reigning heavyweight champion. Though Gould would go on to die of lung cancer in 1950, Braddock would go on to build bridges and other construction projects around the New York area and would eventually donate a large portion of the money from Louis’ purses to the University of Notre Dame, with which a chaired faculty position in the university philosophy department was created.

Braddock’s successes are astonishing, but how he managed to achieve those successes, both in and out of the ring, came from the diligent shrewdness and single-minded determination of Joe Gould. Gould arranged the fight between Bayer and Braddock, Gould sold his furniture and personal belongings to fund the comeback training for Jay Braddock that would allow him to defeat BAer, and Gould’s business dealings after Braddock’s day of glory kept Braddock financially secure for the rest of his life. While I am nothing like Braddock, Lonnie certainly seems cut from the cloth of Gould. His determination to offer me dreams and possibilities, to show me visions of how the world could and should be, and his ability to frame our experiences of the past two years in meaningful light is a gift that I hope I can someday replicate for my students.

While I bear a small disagreement with Lonnie’s comment that is has been a dream-like two years–in fact, there were quite a few nights where we were sleepless for the sake of work–it has been two years of visions; for me, of learning to shape my experience and give it a meaning beyond the day-to-day struggles of being a young graduate living in a foreign country. Thank you for giving me so many opportunities to be successful, as I know that all too often, others that we work with, like Coffee, Ms. Yue, and the League, are never given those chances. As I move on to the next chapter in my life, I will think back on these times often and use them as a source of strength and guidance for the future.

In your future, I hope you continue to find people who can find something valuable in the gifts you offer, as I have done. I have always admired your selfless dedication to The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, and I know that your relationship with them will continue to be a significant cornerstone in your desire to help her and others. I hope that people continue to respect you and understand you for the passionate teacher you are.

Sincerely,

David

PS–And for the record, I can’t believe you still have that picture of me scratching my head. Or in the leprechaun ha

He is kind, honest, generous to a fault, and I am certain he is destined to achieve great things.

Good luck David, and I’m sure we’ll run into each other again soon.