ROGERS — When Rogers School District athletic director Mark Holderbaum went looking for someone to start a bowling program at Heritage High, he didn’t have to look far.
“We found out we had a pretty darned good, qualified person already on staff,” Holderbaum said.
Wayne Sargent, a mathematics teacher, expressed interest right away. Sargent’s been bowling pretty much constantly since age 11, except when his work as a mechanical engineer intervened. He even has a level one coaching certificate through the United States Bowling Congress.
The 58-year-old former mechanical engineer saw it as just another way to teach.
More than 50 showed up for tryouts, and Sargent cut that down to 22 (15 boys and seven girls).
Sargent grew up in Maine and has been in Northwest Arkansas less than two years. So he still possesses a noticeable Northeastern accent, dropping an “r” at the end of a word now and then. He even adds one to the end of a few words.
An engineer might evoke images of a stick-in-the-mud personality, but not Sargent. It’s something his students have some fun with. He even laughs.
Sargent says he tries to take a “laid-back” approach to his teaching, and his students back up that statement.
Senior Casey Wilber, a starting defensive lineman on the football team and a member of the bowling team, said Sargent’s style works.
“If you have a coach or teacher who’s serious all the time, you can’t really have fun with it,” Wilber said. “But when it’s time to get serious, he doesn’t show a lot of emotion.”
Sophomore Jeffrey Justiss, who has Sargent for geometry and is also a member of the bowling team, said his approach certainly works in the classroom.
“He can teach just about any type kid,” Justiss said. “He can be kind of grumpy at times, but he likes to joke around, too.”
Sargent’s approach to coaching bowling is also a mixed bag.
Sargent takes time to teach or correct, but a strike elicits as big a smile from Sargent as from the bowler, not to mention an occasional high-five.
Sargent even showed off some of his bowling skills at practice on Thursday afternoon. It was the first time he bowled with his team, but it had a purpose.
“I wanted them to recognize I practice what I preach,” said Sargent, who has a high game of 269 and currently bowls in a weekly league.
Senior Brittany McClain said she’s already benefited from Sargent’s bowling knowledge.
“He’s helped me a lot,” McClain said. “I throw it like a softball. He’s helped me slow it down and shown me it’s more about technique than just chunking it down the lane.”
Sargent is relatively new to the teaching profession, after spending 25 years as a mechanical engineer. He’s been teaching for seven years. But he believes he had something to share after spending years traveling across the United States helping design power plants.
Now as the first person in his family to graduate from college and holder of multiple degrees, he hopes to show students there are many avenues to a college education. Even bowling may provide high school students an assist.
“There’s 100 to 150 colleges that give scholarships for bowling,” Sargent said. “And more than that have programs.”
Not to mention bowling is yet another activity for high school students.
“... It’s available to kids and you don’t need to have some of the physical attributes that you need for other sports,” Sargent said.
PAUL BOYD IS A NORTHWEST ARKANSAS NEWSPAPERS SPORTS WRITER. HIS COLUMN APPEARS EACH TUESDAY.