Irony - 1, Superlatives - 0.
But to be fair, Redwood only had a glimpse at Robin Williams. Williams was constantly moving from school to school until he finally ended up in Tiburon and attended Redwood in 1969 for his senior year.
Williams’s mother reported in an interview for Newsweek in 1986 that as a kid Williams never showed the wild and crazy side that he does now. She said that once he came to California from Detroit he started to loosen up, symbolized by the moment when he received his first Hawaiian shirt.
Williams said in that same Newsweek article that in high school he believed his career would be in the Foreign Service, saying, “I loved languages and thought I’d be attached to an embassy. By now I’d probably be a hostage.”
During his senior year, Williams also enjoyed sports, starting on the boys’ varsity track team, the soccer team, and the cross-country team.
According to his cross country and track coach, Doug Basham, Williams still occasionally keeps in touch with him, even calling him “Coach.” Basham said he was surprised when he found out from one of Williams’s former running partners that Williams livened up the running group with his incessant and now world-famous impersonations and strange voices.
While his track record for the 4 x 4 relay is prominently displayed in the gym, according to Basham, Williams record is partially due to the injury of his teammate. Basham said that Williams was a really good runner, but the other quarter-milers were just a little faster. He said that after one got injured, Williams was his natural replacement.
Basham was not only Williams’s coach, but also his math teacher. Basham described Williams as more of an introverted student.
“He was kind of quiet,” he said. “Well, he wasn’t there long enough maybe. He was a good student.”
After his year at Redwood, according to the Newsweek interview, Williams slowly developed a love for improvisation at Claremont’s Men’s College. He once again ended up in Marin County, studying acting at College of Marin. He would later be accepted into an extremely selective advanced acting program at Juilliard, where he met his long-time friend Christopher Reeve.
Williams later frequented comedy clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles until he auditioned for the part of an alien in Happy Days. Williams reported in the Newsweek article that he was asked to sit like a man from space, so he sat on his head. This led to the development and production of his hit TV show Mork and Mindy, officially kick-starting the famous alum’s successful career.
