Every 35 or so years I earn an academic degree, this time at age 57.

It happened this past Saturday in Muncie, Ind., when I marched along with kids less than half my age at the Ball State University commencement excercises.

So...

• Move over, Dara Torres, who will be an Olympic swimmer again at 41.
• Step aside, Rocco Mediate, who almost tamed a Tiger at 45 in the U.S. Open.
• And Rodney Dangerfield, I got you beat as well.  You were in your mid-to-late 40s and a washed-up aluminum siding salesman when you had your first break.
  

Yes, we're all late bloomers.  On Saturday, I ended a four-year journey to earn my journalism master's degree at Ball State while working full time as a teacher and director of its J-Ideas First Amendment institute.

It’s been a challenge.

After earning a bachelor's degree at the University of New Hampshire in 1973, I worked for 31 years in the news business.  In 2004, I was ready for a change and new challenge after spending six years at the American Press Institute, where I was vice president.

While working full time in trying to infuse new interest in the First Amendment on the part of the nation’s high school students, I did my master's a little bit at a time, consistent with my longtime personal compass – “Kaizen,” a Japanese term for slow, steady, continuous improvement over time. It was an ideal I learned and internalized from a former newspaper editor and boss – Lou Ureneck -- as we set out to modernize the Portland (Maine) Newspapers in 1988.

Last month, I finished my master's thesis and knew the degree was mine.  Kind of like a Championship Ring, right?

You know, a lot of time has passed since I donned a cap and gown in New Hampshire.  Richard Nixon was president (but not for long).  My new Toyota Corolla cost $2,100.  Long-retired football player Eddie George was born, as was Monica Lewinsky. There was a gas crisis -- with lines winding around the block.

When I filled my car with gas the other day, there was no line, but I guess that the more things change the more they stay the same at the gas pumps.

Going back to school was a central motivation for my going to Indiana.  I found early on that the journalism coursework meant more.  I was always a good student, but feared school – and failure.  This time I embraced trudging off to Monday-night classes after a quick nap and shower, and burrowing into a study carrel at the library while falling asleep trying to figure out the vagaries of standard deviations.

Along the way, I got to better appreciate the power of mass communication and understand the journalism field that I first entered as a high school sophomore. We need good, robust journalism more than ever in the time of change in the industry – no matter the method of delivery, I realized.  That kind of journalism is under assault as companies downsize and reduce dozens of newsroom jobs.

My quest for knowledge and late-life advancement puzzled my journalist friends, most of whom did not have an advanced degree and couldn't figure out why I would even try.  "You're 55 years old.  Are you an idiot," they exclaimed.

No, a life-long learner, I fired back.

They would just shake their heads.

When I went to a 40th high school reunion in New Hampshire earlier this summer, my old friends talked about how much they were enjoying their retirement. I felt they came from another planet. Retire from what? Life?

Actually, I found I was not alone in blossoming late in life.  University of Chicago economist and researcher David Gallenson found in 2006 that while some geniuses (like Mozart) do their best work early in life, that more and more achieve their greatest success later. Witness the great work of Alfred Hitchcock, Mark Twain and Colonel Sanders, who franchised Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was 65.

They just warmed up in the bullpen a little longer than most, I guess.
 
Anyone interested in a Ph.D?

(Warren Watson worked for newspapers large and small for more than 30 years.  The former vice president of the American Press Institute, he teaches writing, reporting and editing in the Journalism Department, College of Communication, Information, and Media at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.)