The First bass Professor
COLUMN
FOR THE RECORD
everybody gets ideas; lights come on in people’ s heads. And then, over time, most of the lights dim to darkness and life goes on. The brilliance gives way to the banal. The sure thing becomes the long shot. Yet some people follow through and actually succeed.
Stephen Lutz is one of them. The quiet, unassuming Illinois native can rightfully lay claim to being the founder of college fishing, which is surging in popularity these days.
Lutz’ s Big Idea came to him in 1968, during the long drive home from an Alabama bass tournament. It was football season, and Lutz reflected on the frenzy that surrounded the upcoming showdown between the University of Alabama and Auburn University. It was the same thing in Lutz’ s Big Ten, where games between such schools as Michigan and Ohio State, Indiana University and Purdue stirred up the same sort of excitement.
Lutz began to wonder, what if the Big Ten schools fostered the same sort of friendly rivalries through bass tournaments? What if college students who grew up fishing and hunting had an organized and positive outlet to showcase their skills? What if, indeed? Though a stint in the Air Force during the Vietnam era, an education at Indiana State University and a few years
COLIN
MOORE
The First bass Professor
teaching grade school and junior high intervened, the idea incubated in Lutz’ s mind. He started a bass fishing club in the Illinois grade school where he taught and, in the meantime, developed a plan to introduce bass fishing as a Big Ten sport.
In 1986, Lutz, having decided that Indiana University was more amenable to his ideas, convinced a dean there that bass fishing as a sport was a big
deal and getting bigger. He was hired to teach an hourlong class on bass fishing as a non-credit physical education course. A few semesters later, the Lutz class became a physical education elective that earned one credit.
Meanwhile, Lutz took the next logical step: The adjunct professor started the Indiana University Bass Fishing Club.
“ Only eight kids showed up for the first meeting, but they were enthusiastic,” recalls the 71-year-old Lutz.“ When we held our first tournament on a local lake there at Bloomington, I would take one kid out in my Ranger for 30 minutes while the other seven would fish from the bank. Then I would swap anglers until everybody had his 30 minutes in the boat. That was in the summer of 1987. By 1990 we had more than 50 kids, and the club included alumni, staff members, faculty and people in the community.”
The club didn’ t go unnoticed outside the Indiana campus. At Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., an aspiring angler named Shad Schenck and some of his buddies started their own club. In April 1992,“ The Old Minnow Bucket” tournament pitted IU and Purdue against each other on Lake Monroe in the first intercollegiate bass tournament. The Boilermakers won.
Lutz’ s original idea of promoting bass fishing at the college level grew exponentially, aided by the support and
Stephen Lutz( front row, second from right) almost single-handedly jump-started college bass fishing when he developed IU’ s club back in the late ' 80s.
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION / PHOTO HOEMANN
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FLWFISHING. COM I February-MarCH 2017