From the Summer 2006 UWM Today
Now Playing at the Pavilion:
The Tierney & Melrood Show
Alums John Tierney (seated) and Paul Melrood work out at the new Pavilion three days a week.
Photo by Alan Magayne-Roshak
By Beth Stafford
So, you think you have a good excuse for not exercising regularly?
Meet John Tierney and Paul Melrood, and your rationalizations will seem pretty feeble.
Tierney (’36 B.A. Education) and Melrood (’41 B.S. Art Education) are well known to many in the UWM community. Tierney coached and taught at the university from 1942 to 1994, is in the UWM Athletic Hall of Fame, and received the UWMAA Award for Teaching Excellence in 1983 and Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1986. Melrood, a builder, real estate broker and founding member of the UWM Alumni Association, received the UWMAA Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1989.
The best place to catch up with them is at the spacious new weight room in the Pavilion at the Klotsche Center. Both men have been “regulars” at the Klotsche Center since it opened in 1977. Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11 a.m., you’ll find them going through their fitness routines.
Tierney and Melrood both wish, though, that their kind of dedication was reflected by more members of the campus community.
“As someone who ran the clay track at old Baker Field House as a member of the track team in the late 1930s, I can say that this facility is a superb complex,” says Melrood of the new Pavilion. “I only wish that the students, faculty and alumni truly availed themselves of this splendid workout opportunity.”
For 92-year-old Tierney, 20 minutes on the stationary bike is followed by bench-pressing (Melrood spots him), and then on to the weight machines. Melrood also does his cardio workout on the stationary bike, followed by weight room work.
For Tierney, being physically active is just part of who he is. “I’ve exercised all my life and taught it as well,” he says. He believes in teaching by example, and while instructing students “would get right in there with them and show them by doing it with them.”
His methods must have worked. Tierney’s teams won a basketball championship, 12 of 16 state conference championships in track, 10 AAU cross-country championships, six indoor AAU track championships and 17 outdoor track championships.
Tierney’s contributions to UWM also include a key role in developing the Physical Education-Recreation major program, and creating a master’s program for recreational administration.
Tierney credits his lifelong emphasis on staying physically fit with helping him, in his 90s, to have the stamina to serve as caretaker for his wife.
For Melrood as well, being physically active is part of his lifetime M.O. He graduated just before America’s entry into World War II, and was drafted into the Army Air Corps that December – two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Inducted as a private, four and a half years later Melrood was discharged as a major.
After the war, he turned his artistic talents to homebuilding to meet the needs of GI Bill graduates and their families.
He started Summit Homes Inc. in the 1950s, then pursued joint ventures with other brokers for several years. Melrood joined Deshur Homes Co. in 1984, retiring 20 years later on his 84th birthday. As a licensed real estate broker, he was always on the go. That pattern continues. Melrood’s business card lists him as “retired,” but he’s one of those people destined to be even busier since leaving the world of paid employment. He is still deeply involved in the UWM Alumni Association, Friends of the Golda Meir Library and the UWM Foundation.
And, as Tierney says with a smile, “Paul always can come up with a joke for any occasion.”
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