Popular Culture Review
Nancy” but lauded Williams’s younger brother Dakin who was a football hero
and a distinguished World War II veteran. When Williams enrolled at the
University of Missouri from 1929 through 1932, he played golf, tennis, took
dancing classes, and rode horses for a course labeled “Horsemanship,” primarily
to evade ROTC which he loathed because of its military drills and regulations.
The timid poet-playwright even had a “brief career in wrestling” as a member of
Alpha Tau Omega. As Allean Hale points out:
The fraternity, despairing of his ever gaining the required
points for activities, forced him to enter the intramural
competition as a 115-pound flyweight. With two farm boys
also entering the field, he posted a sign on the bulletin board:
“Williams Ultimatum: Liquor! L