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This story appeared in the Fall 2021 Letters & Science magazine.

Interview by Jenny Price ’96.

It's a weekday afternoon during the 2021 baseball season and Allan “Bud” Selig (BS, History/Political Science, ’56) is over the moon.

Supporting Excellence

As one of the university’s most involved and supportive alumni, Bud Selig (who founded the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970 and served from 1998 to 2015 as acting and official Commissioner of Major League Baseball) and his wife, Suzanne, have given generously to support faculty excellence and student success. In 2010, they endowed the Allan H. Selig Chair in History, focused on the relationship between sports and U.S. society from 1900 to the present. They have since endowed two more chairs in history, one of which is held by the department chair and provides resources to meet the department’s most pressing priorities. Endowed chairs are enormously important in helping the history department attract and retain the very best faculty, and scholarships help attract the brightest undergraduates. In addition, Bud and Sue inspired the creation of a UW-Madison Great People Scholarship, which their friends from Major League Baseball have endowed as a tribute to the couple and their commitment to UW-Madison. The Suzanne and Allan “Bud” Selig Great People Scholarship has already supported more than 100 undergraduates from Wisconsin, many of them first-generation college students. The Seligs have also generously supported UW-Madison’s student athletes.

In 2010, baseball great Hank Aaron and his wife, Billie, established the Hank Aaron Chasing the Dream Foundation 4 for 4 Scholarship in Honor of Commissioner Allan H. “Bud” Selig. This four-year scholarship is designated for a UW-Madison undergraduate student who has participated in Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee programs.

The Milwaukee Brewers have just stormed back from a 7–0 deficit against the Chicago Cubs, thanks in part to a grand slam from shortstop Willie Adames. But Selig expresses just as much joy when the conversation turns to the UW–Madison students enrolled in the history course he has been teaching with Professor David McDonald since 2015. “I’m lucky,”

he says during a phone conversation from his office in Milwaukee during the fourth inning. “Because once I retired, I didn’t know what my life would be, and this has been remarkable.”

The 600-level seminar, Major League Baseball and Society Since World War II, focuses on how sports interact with social change, exemplified by Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. But with Selig as their instructor, students get a firsthand account of every aspect of modern baseball, from the scouting of talent to labor–management relations to the financing of stadium construction. Selig shared his experiences in the classroom in this interview, edited and condensed for length.

This fall will be the 13th time you’ve taught the course. What have you learned from this experience over time?

When I was a kid at the university, back in the ’50s, I wanted to be a history professor. It has been a remarkable experience. I love my relationship with the students. I’m thrilled with my career, but I guess maybe it would have worked out fine because I’ve really enjoyed this.

What is it like to have discussions with students about the controversies you’ve lived through, including steroids, labor relations and issues of equity and diversity?

It’s fascinating because I often wondered about how history would treat these issues and how people would look at them. Whether it’s the steroid issue or labor relations … in my era we had a lot of controversies. I love watching how the students react. Sometimes they don’t always agree or come up with the things that I think, but that’s great. That’s why they’re there.

What is your favorite topic to teach in this course? Why?

The Jackie Robinson stories. I think baseball is a social institution, and I really think that proves it. There are a lot of things that I enjoy, but that is certainly, if not my favorite, one of my favorites.

How do you see baseball as a social institution?

Baseball makes an enormous impact on our society, and it has the pluses and the minuses of any social institution, but it clearly is one. I just talked about Jackie Robinson [and] how that changed America. In fact, I think to this day that Jackie Robinson and [Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager] Branch Rickey, who signed him, are two of the most influential people of the 20th century.

How does engaging with our history in this way prepare these students for life after UW–Madison?

A history education to me is invaluable. It teaches us so much about life and about where we are and what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. It’s a rare opportunity for them—they all say that to me—but it’s a rare opportunity for me, too. My impres­sion of the students gives me great comfort for the future. I say this to people all the time: You ought to come on Tuesdays and observe this class. These kids are smart, well prepared, thoughtful, sensitive—I can’t say enough about them.

How long do you want to keep teaching this course? It sounds like you have no plans of stopping?

Well, I don’t at this time. It’s keeping me young, and it’s so thought-provoking. We discuss all these events that I either did or lived through or watched. I know they enjoy it—I hope they know how much I enjoy it.

What kind of feedback do you get from the students?

What’s made me happy is I’ve had more students either say to me or to others that it’s the best course they took at UW—and that makes me really feel good.