Daniel Smoody:  

Well its been a long time since grade school at St Al's in Greendale and Greenfield high but here goes. One of my first recollections of GHS was trying out for the freshman football team and quit because I didn't have the endurance for the grueling practice schedules I told the coach I was a fast sprinter in grade school and with a friend of mine were the fastest wide receivers on our football team.. I also remember being ridiculed because I didn't know the difference between the backfield and the line.so coach put me in a as a running back! Hated it and quit the team. Funny thing was in gym class one day when we were running track I ran the 50 yard dash in my stocking feet at 5.2 seconds - coach said I don't believe my stopwatch! run it again! - guess what? I ran the second heat in exactly 5.2 seconds, Coach said I should try out for track team and I said... (under my breath screw you asshole you missed out with me last year in football!) Just think I probably would have been GHS's all conference wide receiver all the way up to Varsity if the coach just put me in as a wide receiver!! yea me as a "G" boy? I shudder at the possibility - yeesh. Anyway I was taken under John Reichert's wing early in my Sophomore year as his trumpet student. He was a trumpet player himself so it was an easy choice for him to take a special interest in bringing me up to speed with everything musical. I learned Jazz trumpet concert band, Jazz band and sight reading from him. I had a special interest in writing my own big band charts in high school too having 2 compositions played by the Esquires in their final year end concerts. After high school I studied a year at the Wisconsin College Conservatory on Prospect Ave in Milwaukee but dropped out because I was going through withdrawals from substance abuse in high school. Many of you who knew me probably figured I kind of went overboard with my "recreational pursuits" yup sure did and cost me my first couple of college years. So I wandered around ...Expand for more