I guess it hit me one night in college.

As a 20-year-old college student, I had one responsibility: to earn a degree in meteorology. I was having a lot of trouble with the program’s curriculum at Penn State; I kept flunking a calculus course. What was worse was that I was an out-of-state student with no financial aid, and my parents were footing the bill.

That was hard enough to take, but there was one night when I had an even tougher realization: No matter what I would do in my life, I would not be able to measure up to my dad.

How did I come to this conclusion? Well, he did it, except he was 31, had a family and put everything on the line.

My dad, mom, brother and I left our Rhode Island home in 1961, when my dad pursued a degree in meteorology at Texas A&M. There was no turning back. He not only earned a degree as a father, he also did well with both.

He played with us every night, whether the sport was football, baseball and basketball. He also took us to Aggie games, be they football, baseball or basketball. This full-time father and husband didn’t realize what he really wanted to do until the age of 31. I, on the other hand, knew when I was two that I wanted to do the same, and I still struggled to finish.

This was my family’s Battle of Waterloo. Lord knows what would have happened had my mom and dad come up short. But it wasn’t until much later that my brother Matty and I knew how tough things actually were.

I needed my own Waterloo, a now-or-never kind of moment. I make no secret about the fact that this is when wrestling saved me. It brought me back to the things I was taught as a kid, things I had lost when I was at Penn State. And it kept me committed, both to wrestling and school. If I had quit the team, I surely would have flunked out of school.

My dad’s back was against a wall when he was a student (though I didn’t know it at the time), and so I followed his example of how to overcome obstacles. It certainly wasn’t to the degree of his success, but it was in his footsteps nevertheless.

I also wanted to be tough physically, like my dad. He was always much stronger than me. Always.

We would box, and he never let my brother or me beat him, though he never hurt us. (Friday night fights, gloves and all, were a staple in Italian households in the old days. I’d bet “JayPa” or “JoeBa No. 1” would say the same thing if you were to ask them.) He always said you had to knock out the champ to be the champ. He taught us that nothing was free. These teachings were quite a bit different from today’s “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. It didn't hurt my self-esteem, obviously.

Perhaps someone in psychology out there is reading this and saying, “This guy has problems. You can’t go chasing after your dad all your life, trying to measure up.”

Yah, well, to that I say, "Why not?"

There’s nothing wrong with trying to measure up to people, especially if they’re capable of successes you’ve never attempted. You don’t know if you can match them, but you’re willing to try. I call those people guideposts, and Lord knows I have had my share dropped in front of me, none bigger than my dad.

And now, as a father, I continue to admire and attempting to measure up to him, even if not as a student anymore.

So on this Father’s Day (Sunday), I’d like to give something to all the other fathers out there, especially my own and those of his generation:

Eddie Fisher’s “Oh My Papa”