Some things do remain the same

Clockwise: A motorcycle is more apt to be Jack’s mode of transportation. To be competitive in disc golf the normally right-handed Roddick learned to throw left-handed. An almost daily event is socializing with his son Dan using Skype. The two often challenge one another with Rubik’s Cubes. Jack averages at least one planetarium show per week.

Jack Roddick’s adult life has revolved around several things—family, motorcycles, sports, and Shippensburg. He feels his life is a good life with no extreme lows or highs. Like many of his generation, he served in World War II and returned home to pick up right where he left off.

Jack’s connection to Ship began with his sophomore year. He originally attended Dickinson College but after his freshman year, he could not afford to return. Upon his arrival at Ship, he promptly tried out and made the football team. He also ran track. His college years were interrupted by World War II. He spent several years in the Army Air Corps. After his discharge, he returned to college and received his degree in 1947.

He was hired by the Swatara Township school district as their football and track coach, and taught chemistry and physics. He actually had the job before he graduated. He stayed for eight years, having coached both teams to championships in 1951, 1952, and 1953.

On the basis of his sports success, Shippensburg State Teachers College president Harry Kriner hired Jack away from Swatara primarily as head coach for Raider football and track. He coached football for nine years and track for seventeen.

One milestone Jack is quietly proud of is winning both championships in the 1956-57 academic year. He has the jacket to prove it—and it still fits! Football was deemed co-champion in the fall. A few months later, track joined the championship ranks. Overall he said his track teams posted a consecutive win streak of 43 dual or triple meets, a record that still stands.

“I liked winning the championship. But there was a year when I lost them all.” He laughed speaking of football.

With his coaching stint over it didn’t mean an end to Jack’s affiliation with Ship football. One of the biggest problems was getting game films, so Jack starting filming the games. At first he developed the film himself, but then fell into a routine. “I would usually leave the game on my motorcycle and get the film to Lett’s in Camp Hill. I had an arrangement with them so they met me, processed the film, and then I brought it back to Shippensburg. The last several years I’ve been shooting digital. I’ve been doing the game films for 45 years.”

He may not have been doing it for quite as long, but Jack has racked up more than 35 years doing Dibert Planetarium shows. His role as director happened pretty much by default. He was the only member of the physics department interested in astronomy. “President Ralph Heiges and I talked about having a planetarium for years. At one point we were going to put it on the stage in Old Main but that got shot down because there weren’t enough exits.”

When a new science building was on the way to reality, a planetarium was added to the plans. Franklin Science Center hosted its first planetarium show in 1971. From its opening until he retired in 1989, Jack did a show every Tuesday while classes were in session. When he retired, he and President Tony Ceddia thought the shows could be less frequent. At that time most of the shows were public. Over the years, Jack has decreased the number of public shows to about six per year. However he does an average of 50 private shows each year.

Most of the private shows are for special groups and Jack gears the shows to the audience. “These are what I call the best of Carson,” he said. He used to shoot slides, write scripts and add music, creating his own shows, to supplement those available commercially. Now with so many planetarium shows under his belt, “I just go live.”

“I’ve really only had two jobs in my life,” Jack said. “I taught at Swatara and then here at Ship, then I retired.”

A group of alumni athletes from the 1950s paid tribute to their friend at a luncheon on campus in April. Jack was inducted into the SU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Pennslvania Sports Hall of Fame the following year.

It might have been that simple. After Jack married his wife, Arlene, they had a son, Dan. When Dan was young, he wanted his dad to come out and play. Since Jack had limited time, he looked for something that was fun, easy, and could be stopped and started just about anytime or place. What he found was the Frisbee.

The little plastic disk that sailed through the air put Jack and Dan in the records books. And it all started from a vacation.

It was 1962 and the Roddick’s were vacationing with George and Miriam Kaluger. “We hit every national park west of the Mississippi except Mesa Verde,” Jack recalled. “During that trip we stopped at the World’s Fair in Seattle. Wham-O had a demonstration team there and we were just amazed at what they could do.

“Of course that meant we came home and started practicing. At the New York World’s Fair, there was another demonstration team for the Frisbee. They would give folks from the audience a chance to see what they could do. Danny and I stood for two days before we got our chance. We did stuff the Wham-O team had never seen before. They offered us a position on the team.”

Over the years, the Frisbee grew more popular and Jack and Dan got even more involved in the sport. The International Frisbee Organization organized games and held championships. The Roddicks competed for the first time in 1975, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California where Jack came in second in the Masters World Championship. In 1976, Jack won the Masters championship winning six of seven events.

Wham-O paid transportation, lodging, and expenses for the qualifiers. The Roddicks were perennial champions and earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records with three world records in the same family: Jack, his son, Dan, and his grandson Tyler.

Jack has been competing in disc sports for 30 years. He has won the world championship eleven times and now competes at the Legends level, usually in disc golf.

In mid-July, both Jack and Dan plan to compete at the World Masters Championships in Ithaca, New York. Jack expects to compete in several events.

“Golf is about all I can do now, my legs are shot,” Jack said. “The class I compete in is for over 65. I’m 86, those are a tough 20 years to give up.”

Don’t think Jack isn’t competitive. A chance remark about table tennis led to his admitting only one Red Raider football player, Jamie Ware, ever got the better of him. It’s a game often played on football road trips and Jack definitely holds his own.

Recently Jack has been part of installing disc golf courses at several area retirement homes and he would like to see more of them. Disc golf is now also part of the Pennsylvania Senior Games.

Through disc championships, vacations, his classes, the football teams, and motorcycle clubs, Jack knows a lot of people. In May, Jack made his seventh annual motorcycle trip, camping along the Blue Ridge Parkway to Huntsville, Alabama.

His love affair with the motorcycle started with his time in the military. When he returned from the service, it made sense with his limited income to buy a motorcycle. He used it to ferry those game films back and forth, and he met his wife Arlene on a motorcycle. The two of them would ride together. Arlene is unable to ride due to her health. It is not uncommon for Jack to hop on his bike when he goes to see her nearly every day at the assisted living facility where she now resides.

Jack visits Arlene almost every day and the two enjoy their visits. He sees his son almost every day too, even though Dan and his family live in California. The two visit through the wonders of technology. A program called Skype allows their computers to talk to one another in real time. So the Roddicks added webcams to their computer systems and can see and talk to one another almost anytime they want.

“It started with Monday Night Football,” Jack said. “We would watch the game together and make friendly bets on plays, scores, whatever. We could hear each other’s comments just like we were in the same room. Actually for all intents and purposes, we are. It was fun, still is.”

Jack went on to explain how one day a few weeks ago Dan was trying to fix his car and ran into a bit of trouble. Jack pulled up a repair manual for the exact make and model of the car and guided his son through the steps necessary to make the repair. Except for handing Dan the actual tools, father and son made the repair together.

Jack’s content with his life. His new toy, a Segway, is a two-wheeled vehicle with gyros that is operated by leaning in the direction you want to go. It helps him cover ground his legs don’t want to cover any more. And it seems he is still setting records. The Segway company reported their oldest owner was 78. Not any more. Dan is trying to verify his dad is indeed the oldest owner.

It may be Jack Roddick is up in years but his spirit hasn’t aged a bit.