Submitted by Jim Love
I was a senior at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1975. I was on the Northwestern Sailing Team. Our sailing team had a boathouse on Lake Michigan at the south end of campus. It was really a garage, like any house might have, located right on the beach. At the time the Northwestern Sailing Team sailed right off of the beach at the south end of Northwestern’s Evanston campus.
The University said they needed the land to renovate the south end of campus and didn’t want the garage/boathouse to be kept. They gave us $7,000, if I remember correctly, for the loss of the current boathouse.
They reassigned us a new spot at the south end of campus and said we could fundraise to build a new boathouse. To raise money for the new boathouse we held a fundraising dinner at the the Chicago Yacht Club in February 1975. Our sailing team commodore and my college roommate, Bob Hurley, asked Buddy Melges to come to Chicago and be our guest speaker.
Buddy agreed and his presence was a major factor in our successful fundraising dinner. Buddy’s willingness to help the Northwestern Sailing Team represents one of the many things Buddy did in his lifetime to promote sailing. He was a wonderful man and sailor..
