Back to the main Media page To Greenland and Back for City Kids Chicago Sun Times, 10.30.06 BY TOM McNAMEE Sun-Times Columnist On a spring day in 2000, a man shows up at the San Miguel School at 48th and Damen. "This is Gary," a mutual friend tells the principal. Gary wants to look around. He's been helping out at another South Side school, and he's looking for ideas. The principal, Gordon Hannon, takes Gary on a tour. Gary is especially taken with a project the eighth-grade teacher is running. She's got her kids going online and following the Iditarod, the dog sled race up in Alaska. The kids are having a blast figuring out things like how many calories the dogs burn per mile. All the same, Hannon says to Gary, all the computers and high-tech gizmos in the world can't take the place of one good teacher, and at this Gary nods. "What do you do?" Hannon asks. "I work for Lands' End," Gary says. After an hour or two, Gary leaves. Hannon shakes the man's hand and watches him go, and it occurs to him that he's impressed. This guy Gary listens well and asks good questions. But what, he wonders, is Lands' End? A week or so later, he learns. Lands' End, he is informed, is an enormously successful clothing company. And the company's founder, 72-year-old Gary Comer -- that Gary -- is a billionaire. Hannon can't know it, but he and Comer have just begun a strange waltz. Join me on my ship? In the months that follow, Hannon and Comer meet now and again. Comer has created a Web site for the students at his alma mater, the Paul Revere Elementary School, so that they can follow his private ship, the M.V. Turmoil, on its explorations around the world. He wants Hannon's thoughts on how to improve the Web site. More generally, the two men talk about a mutual passion -- how to make urban education work. Hannon joins Comer's informal kitchen cabinet, even driving up to the rich man's farm in Wisconsin once or twice to take part in roundtable discussions. And then one day, in the spring of 2001, Hannon gets an e-mail, a sentence or two. It says something like, "Would you like to join me on the ship to go see the coast of Labrador?" The coast of Labrador! Hannon, like Comer, is an outdoorsy guy. He once worked as a canoe guide. He'd love to explore the coast of Labrador. But wait. He's finishing up his master's degree this summer. So he writes back, "I really can't." At work the next day, Hannon mentions to Brother Ed, who is president of the private Christian Brothers school, that he got this amazing invitation from Gary Comer but had to take a pass. Now, Hannon is a young man, but Brother Ed has been around. Hannon thinks he has turned down a three-week sail among icebergs, but Brother Ed knows he has turned his back on a fund-raiser's dream. "Gordon," Brother Ed says, "get your ass on that boat." Aboard the Turmoil On June 15, 2001, Hannon flies to St. John's, Newfoundland, and steps aboard the Turmoil -- carrying a Gap bag. "I'm holding a Gap bag," he thinks, looking around at the crew, "and everybody else is wearing Lands' End." Any professional fund-raiser, he tells himself, would have known better. Then again, Hannon realizes, this is precisely his problem. He doesn't know if he's there to pitch Comer for money or just to see the sights. San Miguel School has a plan to open a second campus on Chicago's West Side, and Comer must surely know the school is looking for money, but it's never been discussed. Just in case, Hannon has brought along a three-page proposal. The Turmoil sets sail and ventures north. Comer's very own sea plane follows. They sail past Fogo Island and Pistolet Bay, skimming by icebergs and islands. Henley Harbour is breathtaking, and Battle Harbour is good for conversation. It was here, in Battle Harbour, that a debate raged for decades, long before the whole world took it up, over whether Adm. Robert Peary or Frederick Cook had reached the North Pole. Every other evening, the pilot of the plane or the captain of the ship joins Comer and Hannon for dinner. The dining room is burnished wood and polished brass, and the talk is about Greenland and Admiral Peary and the North Woods -- outdoor guy stuff. But always, Comer comes back to this: "So how do we help kids in Chicago?" When Comer gets on that topic, Hannon can always hear the intensity in his voice. That's something he's come to know about this curious man from Lands' End -- he'd fly to the moon to help poor city kids. And it's not about money for Comer, it's about making things happen. If Gary were a carpenter, he'd build the kids bookshelves. Two weeks sail by. Hannon still hasn't made his pitch. So Comer, sensing Hannon's hesitation, brings it up himself. Is there any specific idea, he asks, that Hannon would like to put before him? Hannon leaps at his chance. His school's got this plan for a West Side campus, he says, and there's a written plan. Comer says, "Just tell me about it." They talk for three days. This new school, Hannon says, would be for kids in the middle grades who have already done poorly at other schools. They would be kids from the toughest part of town. Comer asks questions. He expresses doubts -- not about the kids, but about the plan. Finally, as they sit in the ship's study, Hannon just has to know. "What do you think?" he asks. "No," Comer says. "I can't do that." Hannon is devastated. He wants to jump overboard and swim home. This good man has shut him down cold. The trip drags on for a few more days and Hannon tries to shake his funk. "I'm flying over the ice cap of Greenland in a sea plane, for God sake," he tells himself. "This is amazing." But he can't. Before he gets off the ship, he writes Comer a note. Thanks for the fantastic adventure, he writes, and as for this new school -- we're doing it whether you're in or not. Purse strings finally loosen Two months later, back in Chicago, Hannon gets an e-mail from Comer -- "Let's have breakfast." He and Brother Ed and another brother get together with Comer at the Paul Revere School. Comer talks about how he took the ship up the Northwest Passage after Hannon got off, and about global warming and such, and Hannon begins to wonder what's the point of this breakfast. And then Gary asks, "Still moving ahead with your school?" Everybody at the table nods. "All right," Comer says, "I'm going to give you $400,000 a year for three years. That's half your budget." A fog blows through Hannon's head. He can't hear another word. All he can think is, "Somebody has just promised us $1.2 million." Comer's support would get even better, of course. Over the next five years, he would pledge more than $8 million to the new West Side campus and become a real partner. He would be one of them, a member of the team, dropping by all the time. The new West Side school would open in 2002 and be called the San Miguel Gary Comer Campus. Gary would beam with pride. And he would die, at 78, on Oct. 6, 2006. But Hannon doesn't know any of that now. All he knows is that his sailing pal is on board. Comer gets up from the table. "I have an appointment to get a haircut," he says. Tom McNamee's "The Chicago Way" column runs Mondays in the Sun-Times.