[1] Axtell retired at the end of the spring 2008 semester, although he taught a class at Princeton University in the fall of 2009.
Axtell attended Sidney Central High School, graduating in 1959, and was recruited to Yale University to play basketball.
He switched to track and field as a freshman and set school records in the indoor long-jump and outdoor triple-jump.
Axtell graduated from Yale in 1963, having also attended the Oxford International Summer School the previous year.
He earned his PhD in 1967, and his dissertation on “The Educational Writings of John Locke” was published the following year by Cambridge University Press.