PEA RIDGE — What is your job title?

Health teacher, head baseball coach, assistant football coach and head cross country coach.

What does all that entail? Well we try to teach a well-rounded health education, not only physical health but social, emotional, environmental and mental.

During football season, I’m at the service of whatever coach Travis wants me to do, this year it was mostly working on the defensive side. We have four cross country sports in the fall and the first part of January we start getting ready for baseball.

Where are you from?

Charleston, Ark.

Where did you go to college and what is your degree? Arkansas Tech, health and physical education. I also did Army ROTC and got my commission in the Army.

What was your first job out of college? The first year I didn’t teach, I did officer basic course for the Army in Indianapolis, Ind. I was assigned to the Reserves. When I started looking for jobs, Pea Ridge was the one I took.

How long have you been in Pea Ridge? 23 years.

Did you play sports in high school and/or college? In high school I played football and baseball. Then in college, being in ROTC, that would have been my extra-curricular activity. They were paying for school, so I was committed to them.

What are your hobbies outside of work? When I have time, I like to golf.

I like to hunt, particularly deer hunt, and farm beef cattle.

How has Pea Ridge changed since you have been here? When I first came here, K-12 was just over 500 kids and we were all on one campus. Also, students had to go outside to change classes. It was K-6 and 7-12, you knew every student 7-12, it was about 250 kids. Today, you combine two grades and have 250 kids. I knew more parents. Overall, the education is much better now. The discipline is much better now.

What’s the most challenging thing about coaching? Dealing with all the different personalities, each one is going to have different things that motivate them.

What is a memorable moment you have had while being here? One thing is coaching and teaching second generation kids, kids who graduated and now they have kids. You see a lot of the same things in their kids you saw in them.

What is the hardest thing to get across to the kids? Trying to convey to them that what they do now, in their diet for instance, is not going to affect them now, but in 10 or 20 years it will; they are not immortal.

Sports, Pages 13 on 01/27/2010