My Words: A pretty wonderful life

To know my late husband, Kris Dressler, was to know that he would have had this epic weekend circled on the calendar a long, long time ago.

The 150th anniversary of men’s rowing at Wisconsin will be celebrated as only crew members can on Friday and Saturday. Dress not only rowed for the Badgers, he was an assistant under Chris Clark and was immensely proud of all that he learned, taught and accomplished during his time as an athlete and coach at UW.

Then, on Sunday, the annual Badger Challenge, which raises money for cancer research at the UW Carbone Cancer Center, will be held here in Madison. It’s an event that appealed to Dress not only because of its personal impact – for example, his father, Axel, had six different bouts with cancer – but because biking and running were among his favorite things to do.

The Challenge took on a whole new purpose and meaning for our family when Dress was diagnosed with glioblastoma – an aggressive form of brain cancer – that ultimately took his life on Dec. 1, 2022.

In his memory, Team Dressler – including me, our children Wally and Cece and more than 100 family members, friends, teammates, students, co-educators and co-conspirators – have signed up to walk, run and/or bike in honor of our dear friend Dress.

We’ve proudly raised over $15,000 to help fund cancer research and patient treatment initiatives at UW by helping to underwrite the Scholar Class, which is made up of the best and brightest cancer minds, ideas and technologies.

I think Dress would have found this to be the most important aspect of the Badger Challenge: That 100-percent of the $3.6 million raised since 2016 has gone toward the most promising lab and clinical initiatives at UW. He valued dedication and honesty as much as respect and loyalty. He was big on accountability and action, too. And, science.

To know Dress was to know that he was larger than life, a teacher at heart, a kind, fun-loving soul who passed away way too soon.

He loved his family, friends, music, challenges, adventures and the outdoors. He approached each one with purpose, passion and a sense of humor.

On the afternoon of June 23, 2022, he sat down for an interview with a local writer who knew of his condition and his terminal diagnosis. The writer then shared the 48-minute audio file with me. It’s one of my greatest treasures.

Of course, Dress was upbeat throughout.

“I look back now and say I’ve had a pretty wonderful life,’’ he said. “A little longer would have been nice, but I packed a lot into (49) years that most people don’t.’’

Dress loved the art of teaching, whether it involved an undergrad lecture hall, a racing shell or a sailboat. His philosophy was to comfort the uncomfortable and make the comfortable uncomfortable. In six years at UW, he received five distinguished teaching awards, all voted on by the students.

Dress recalled a chance encounter he had with one of his Hoofers Sailing Club participants.

“What might be trivial to you might be huge to someone else,’’ he said. “I was walking up State Street one time. It was close to bar time and I was walking towards the Capitol. Out of the crowd comes this skinny, little kid with curly hair.

“Kris Dressler. Kris Dressler. I can’t believe you’re here. You changed my life. You taught me how to sail. He comes running up to me and gives me this big hug in the middle of State Street.

“I’m thinking, ‘You’re just one of hundreds of sailing students I’ve had over the years.’ But learning to sail was this life-changing thing for him.’’

Dress was an assistant rowing coach at UW for three years until 2001. Many of the student-athletes he dealt with during that time organized a surprise get-together at Porter Boathouse in the spring of 2022. Their gift was an expensive German racing shell dubbed the “Doctor Dressler.’’  

“I’m no Bobby Knight, but my goal was not to be their friend,’’ Dress said of his coaching style. “My goal was to make them fast and sometimes making them fast is not comfortable and not fun and sometimes it seems unfair.

“Then, 20 years go by and they say, ‘Hey, you were a great coach and we were really glad to have you as our coach.’ That makes those tough days coaching all worth it.’’

Dress recalled one UW rower’s sentiment in particular.

“He said, ‘There’s no way I would have stuck around for four years if it weren’t for you,’’’ Dress said. “That meant a lot.’’

Ever since Dress was 12 or 13 years old, he was into bike racing, cross country skiing and swimming. All suffering sports. “I can’t out-coordinate you and I can’t outshoot you,’’ he said. “But I’ll out-suffer you because the only person stopping me from suffering is me. I always enjoyed the endurance sports, the Olympic sports, the suffering sports.’’

Curiously, it was another suffering sport that helped Dress deal with the ruthless pain of brain cancer. A member of the UW wrestling team passed along a shirt that said, “Win Every Day.’’

“You know it’s going to be a suffer-fest ahead of time,’’ Dress said, “and you know you can survive it, so you go and do it.

“What (cancer) forces you to do is live eight weeks at a time. Jam all the fun, all the positive energy, make the world a better place as much as I can these next eight weeks. Then you have a scan. Then you start another eight weeks.’’

Dress claimed he had the easy job.    

“My brain’s going to stop working sometime in the next couple years,’’ he said, “and other people will have to forge ahead.’’

Of course, Dress had a bucket list.

He didn’t get a chance to see the Tour de France in person nor did he pitch his tent and sleep on one of the 58 14,000-foot summits in Colorado or take his place on an America’s Cup sailboat, but we went to the Caribbean on a family vacation and that was unforgettable. His bucket list evolved until there was really just one item – time with family and friends. That, he did.

Dress was asked what message he wanted to leave the world.

“Take the time you’ve got – you don’t know how much time that is – do everything you can to leave the world a better place,’’ he said. “If you have to leave tomorrow or if you have to leave in 40 years, make sure that you’re doing everything you can to leave the world a better place in the time that you’ve got.’’

Dress left us too soon.

“No regrets at all,’’ he said. “I had a lot of fun. Did a lot of cool stuff. Taught a lot of people valuable things.’’

Did you enjoy reading this? Read more My Words stories from the Badgers here.