BELOIT — Emeritus Professor Tom Warren retired from Beloit College in 2001 after 31 years of teaching Education and Youth Studies.
That doesn’t mean he still isn’t teaching… and learning.
“I think to really learn something you need to teach it,” Warren said. “Students may not always learn it, but you do.”
Another way to learn? In Warren’s case, you write a book about something you’re extremely passionate about. In the research and writing, the author can’t help but become thoroughly absorbed in a topic.
For Warren, past books have featured “discoveries” — of the game of golf while growing up in Rockford, of the lure of Lake Superior and his beloved Western Upper Peninsula in Michigan and finally, of the state of investigative journalism in small-town America.
His most recent work, a novel called “The Learner: Confronting God, Golf, and Beyond” combines two of his life-long passions: religion and golf. Warren, who once played on a state championship golf team at Rockford East High School, is convinced by hitting the links on a regular basis one can truly become closer to God.
He says many golf club-carrying clergy he knows agree with him: Golf and God can go hand in hand.