My Serendipitous Life

Book excerpt: Over 400 pages with 380 photos, more than half in color, author describes eighty-five year life growing up in Irish, Croatian, German family in Whiting, Indiana, a Chicago suburb on the shore of Lake Michigan. Memoir details family heritage, quarterback of Whiting High state championship football team, nation’s leading football scorer at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, coach of the Rose-Hulman football team, earning a BS at Rose-Hulman, MS at The University of Kansas, and PhD at Illinois Institute of Technology; engineering professor at Virginia Tech and then the University of Virginia, expert in mechanics of fibrous composites, founding director of the NASA-Virginia Tech Composites Program, instigator of the Virginia Tech personal computer initiative, ACC football official, leader in U. S. national and international mechanics committees (ASME, SES, USNC/TAM, IUTAM), international travels; sixty-two (continuing) years of marriage with four children and eight grandchildren.