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For Rev. William B. Neenan, S.J., it all started when he was 8.
"On a Saturday morning, I would get up to read the baseball almanac. I can still tell you that Elden Auker pitched for the Tigers, and that Joe Medwick was the last National League player to win the Triple Crown," Neenan said, laughing.
Now, several decades later, he is the creator of the Dean's List, a recommendation of 27 (what Neenan terms "the mystical three-cubed") books that the University annually compiles. The 2005 Dean's List marks the 25th anniversary of the project.
But it began largely by happenstance.
"When I first became dean of the College of Arts and Sciences after arriving from the University of Michigan, I was told that I had to go out and give a talk to incoming freshmen," said Neenan, explaining its origins. "In the course of the talk, I told them that we had gone to great effort to build up a large library collection at the University, and since they were going to have four years here, it might be good if they read a book or two. And I named a couple titles.
"I saw professor [Paul] Doherty in the faculty dining room the next day, and he said, 'That's a great idea Bill, why don't you put out a list and call it the Dean's List?'" Neenan continued. "So next year I did. I realized this would get cumbersome if I just kept adding without subtracting, so I added up how many books I had on the list - 27 - and that's what I kept it at."
So, what does it take to make the cut?
"These are not necessarily great books, though some of them are," said Neenan. "It's really a response to the question, 'Have you read a good book lately?'"
This year's list includes perennial stalwarts like James Agee's A Death in the Family and David McCullough's Truman, as well as some more recent additions. The latter category includes new members such as His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis and Big Russ & Me, a recent memoir by Tim Russert.
Neenan was eager to talk about some of his favorites. He said that he was particularly moved by the biographies of Washington and Truman.
"I knew that George Washington was central to the founding of the country, but Ellis makes the point that without Washington, the United States probably wouldn't be a country," he said. "I think Washington gets short shrift, because he wasn't as charismatic as some of the other early leaders."
"Harry Truman is another president whose star has risen as the years have gone by," Neenan continued. "He was a man of impeccable integrity, who made some very hard decisions, and by and large in retrospect, they have proved to be the correct ones. He was a just a remarkable human being. I think he's the last person that didn't graduate from college, and yet, he was widely read. If it had been in existence then, he would have been an avid follower of the Dean's List."
But if a book doesn't quite sit right with Neenan, it won't make the list. He said he was urged to add Seabiscuit to the register a couple years ago, but he nixed the idea. Although he thought the Laura Hillenbrand novel was good, Neenan just didn't agree that Seabiscuit, a thoroughbred horse that became an unlikely champion in the 1930s, "took us out of the depression."
"The committee recognizes quality when it sees it," he said, jokingly in reference to himself.
Since its inception, the list has become iconic. The University gets thousands of requests for it each year, and students, faculty, and alumni all suggest additions. One book on this year's list, Charlie Wilson's War, was added in this way. The book chronicles how a renegade Congressman got the United States involved in a war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"I get stories about people who print it out, put it on their fridge, and check them off as they read them," he said.
Oh, and Neenan wants to set the record straight.
"Oprah's list came after this - I just want to point that out," he said.
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