He was disappointed, disillusioned and felt betrayed by his Coach and some of his teammates. Bruce began to harden his feelings: “I guess I’m still all alone in this. DeAngelo is Coach’s favorite and he’s the guy I covered for when I broke my leg. Man, I refuse to let this get me down. I know I’m not worthless. I’ll show them what’s more important than standing on the sidelines of a football field.”
He had a vision and a mission. Something burned within him. He had a feeling that kept urging him to take the next step, whatever it was. He knew he had to keep moving forward. Some people describe this as a gut feeling or intuition. Bruce didn’t know why. He just knew he had to keep going, one step at a time. He still wasn’t clear about what he was going to do or how he was going to do it.
He continued to research his adversary, the Soviet Union. He also wanted to know what the “nerds” at school felt about their futures. He asked some of them: “What do you want to do after high school? How do you plan to get it done?”
At first they were leery of Bruce and didn’t trust him. He had never shown any interest in them before. Bruce discovered that these kids were clear and motivated. They made a big impression on him.
One of the kids admitted, “I want to be a nuclear physicist and, if I could have one wish, it would be to talk to Dr. Edward Teller, the father of the H-bomb. That’s my dream.”
Someone else told Bruce, “I want to speak with Dr. Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist who is leading the emerging U.S. space program. I know this will never happen.”
These kids’ dreams made a great impact on Bruce and an idea began to form. It still wasn’t fully clear but he felt he was getting closer. The feeling deep within him kept urging him onward.
During his research he realized that other countries were far more committed to space and science programs for students than the U.S. He found that Germany offered a two-week-long science fair where students and top scientists interacted with one another. “This is great and a step in the right direction,” he thought to himself. “The United States of America is the greatest free country in the world and we don’t have any programs like this! We aren’t even close. The Soviets ARE winning and Khrushchev was RIGHT!”
He kept asking himself, “How can I make a difference? I’m just one sixteen-year-old high school student, a kid. What can I do?”
He felt at a standstill. “Where do I begin?”
All of a sudden he knew how to approach the problem. Like most kids his age he watched TV and enjoyed detective shows. So he imagined he was a detective and looked at the basic yet looming question again. He asked himself, “Why does Khrushchev think that his kids are better than us? What are they doing that we aren’t?”
He kept running this question through his mind over and over again until his head was spinning. It was a beginning and it helped him focus his research. He had moments of doubt along the way, however, and he continued to wonder and ask himself, “How am I going to pull this off?”
One thing remained clear to him through all of his self-doubt. The vision and mission of his research never changed. He was determined to discover if Russian kids were better than American kids.
Bruce was physically healed and he sat in his new favorite place, Drew University library, his own private room. His mind wandered as he thought about spring. He couldn’t believe how much research information he had collected and wondered how he was going to make sense of it. “How does all of this fit into my mission?” he asked himself.
It was while he sat there brainstorming that ideas began to crystallize for him. He realized that Russia and the United States were governed in totally different ways. He began to see that because of this difference most Russian kids didn’t have choices or a voice in their futures. The State decided who went to school and what schools they attended. In the U.S. everyone could decide their own futures and make their own choices.
He started to compare the two countries even more and realized that Russia was highly structured and organized. They had a selection process. Kids were focused in areas where they were perceived to have talent and strength. Once this was identified the kids received the appropriate training and education. Kids were put into immersion programs and usually they didn’t have a choice or a voice. They did what they were told.
United States kids, on the other hand, have lots of choices and can make them freely. Bruce recognized that in order for a kid in the U.S. to specialize or to be interested in science or technology some way to capture that kid’s interest had to develop. In some ways it appeared that U.S. kids looked for immediate gratification and lost interest easily.
Bruce continued to sort out and organize his thoughts and the information he remembered from his conversations with the school “nerds.” These kids, although interested and motivated, felt hopeless. They didn’t see any way to accomplish their dreams and to meet key scientists and innovators. They were left to their own devices to discover ways to get the training, support and education that would help them live their life dreams. Bruce thought to himself, “It seems as if freedom is working against us.”
His imagination began to take over and he became obsessed with finishing his project. He recalled the times that he went to New York with his parents and had visited the Hayden Planetarium and the American Museum of Natural History. These visits began to fuel the mental pictures that were forming in his mind.
He went to the front desk at the library and asked his friend, “May I borrow a typewriter?”
Bruce felt he was ready to get all of the thoughts and ideas out of his head. It was time to write down a solution for what he saw as the problem. The United States was behind in the space race and American students were not competitive in the areas of science and technology. The Soviet Union was currently leading in both the space race and in student development for the studies of science and technology. Where to begin?
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