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From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Fedex's "C" grade, citation
Date: 12 Nov 1994 01:42:01 -0500

the following paragrapgh is from:

Business Week, 13-February-1989

(afraid I didn't scribble down the page number... ssm)

Title: Mr. Smith goes global

By: Dean Frost in Memphis (and lots of others)

Smith went on to Yale University, where he was awarded a now-infamous C on an economics paper that outlined his idea for an overnight delivery service. A member of Yale's secretive society Skull & Bones, Smith was a popular student who ferried friends on trips to nearby women's colleges in his twin-engine Piper. He was also president of hard-partying Delta Kappa Epsilon, where he originated some memorable pranks, among them cementing pledges into their rooms.

From: fred@page6.pinetree.org (Fred Ennis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: FedEx is old blue, not crimson
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 94 13:38:55 -0500

vjrnts@ultb.isc.rit.edu (V.J. Robinson ) writes:

> In article <39s2c5$642@newsbf01.news.aol.com> podsnap@aol.com (Podsnap) write
> >FedEx Fred Smith (isn't that his name?) was an undergraduate at Yale when
> >he wrote his senior economics paper about the viability of a hub delivery
> >system for packages. It did indeed get a C. (The thesis, that is.) I
> >believe this was in the late 1960s.
> >
>
> Personally, I'd like it to be true.

Ah, my dear Vicki, if it were only so easy to grant your other wishes.

In the book "Overnight Success" with the subtitle Federal Express & Frederick Smith, Its Renegate Creator, by Vance H. Trimble, published by Crown Publishers, ISBN 0-517-58510-3, page 80:

"Professor Challis A. Hall Jr. read the twelve or fifteen pages Fred Smith had typed up as his 1965 term paper in the course designated Economics 43A. For a few minutes he thought about the hub and spokes concept expounded, and he debated what kind of grade it deserved. Then he picked up his red pen and wrote "C".

"At the time, it was not important, not even to Fred Smith. But later that paper - and its grade - became a paradoxical Yale University legend if not embarrassing, at least whimsical.

End quote which I believe is fair use from a copyright work of over 300 pages.

It is also important to note that by quoting from this book, I, in no way intend to slight another fine book, "Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets " By our own Peter van der Linden. His book also contains over 300 pages.