By The Huffington Post News Editors
Before he became a legendary journalist and news anchor, Tom Brokaw was a promising high school graduate embarking on his collegiate journey — but his path didn’t go quite as planned. In this clip from “Oprah’s Master Class,” Brokaw recounts his turbulent college experience, which included dropping out of the University of South Dakota. He also reveals the event that catapulted him toward his successful TV news career.
Considering Brokaw‘s impressive high school résumé — he had been an athlete and outstanding student who had won leadership awards — everyone who knew him expected his successes to continue in college. “I came out of high school a real whiz kid,” Brokaw says in the clip. “[But] I went completely off the rails at the University of Iowa.”
This included frequently skipping class, the journalist reveals. “I was not going to class. I was having a good time,” he admits. “Woody Allen says that 90 percent of life is showing up; I was in the other 10 percent.”
