Youth
Dufek grew up in Ann Arbor, the son of former fullback, Don Dufek, Sr., who was named Most Valuable Player of the 1950 Michigan Wolverines football team and the MVP of the 1951 Rose Bowl. In 1971, Dufek played linebacker for Ann Arbor Pioneer High School and was one of only three unanimous picks for the major All-State football teams in the State of Michigan, as selected by the United Press International (UPI), Associated Press (AP), and Detroit Free Press. The coach of Pioneer's cross-town rival Huron High School said of Dufek in 1971: "He's the best I've seen."
In a 2003 interview with the Grand Rapids Press, Dufek recalled growing up in Ann Arbor and meeting his father's Michigan teammates. "Living in Ann Arbor, and seeing all the things that embody a great university, you learned that there were highly successful people in athletics, and it just made you want to feel a part of it. Then, as you got older, and you got more deeply involved in the game yourself, you just hoped that you had a chance to play in college -- and after watching all those games at Michigan Stadium, that maybe Michigan would take a chance on you."
Read more about this topic: Don Dufek
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to, because otherwise their youth goes with you.... It’s very selfish, but it’s understandable.”
—Mick Jagger (b. 1942)
“Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of his enthusiasm, and there are now men,—if indeed I can speak in the plural number,—more exactly, I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible, that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest of sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be in his pocket, can he ever learn to dress like a gentleman-born. The merchants offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest “swell,” but he simply cannot buy the right things.”
—William James (1842–1910)