08/24/2026
If you are feeling stuck or lost and need some inspiration to take the next step forward, I highly recommend reading Chad Hicks' posts. Ordering his book now.
We CAN do hard things...just Keep Climbing❤️
Just under a year after Julie died, I did something I never thought I would do.
At 30 years old, a widowed father of 2-, 3-, and 6-year-olds...I enrolled as a full-time college student.
My reasoning was pretty simple.
I needed a career with a schedule that worked for me as a single dad with three school-age kids.
So, I'll coach.
Of course, I'll have to teach something too, so I'll teach history or health. I had always enjoyed history, and health seemed easy enough and went along with coaching.
There was just one problem...
College Algebra.
Math and I had a history.
I always did pretty well in school despite rarely studying or putting much effort into it.
But algebra was my nemesis.
My Algebra I teacher may as well have been teaching Spanish while speaking German and writing in hieroglyphics.
It just didn't make sense.
I remember needing a C on my final to pass the class. The teacher offered an optional review the day before, but in my teenage wisdom, I decided I didn't need it.
Surely if I got close enough, she'd pass me.
So I went with my friends instead.
I. Was. Wrong.
F.
The next year, I was sitting in Algebra I again.
By my senior year, I had absolutely no intention of going to college. I got my real estate license at 18 and planned to follow my parents into the business.
Life eventually took me in another direction.
Then, twelve years later, I was 30 years old, raising three kids on my own and sitting down with a college advisor.
And somewhere between me and that degree was an old enemy.
Algebra.
I took the Accuplacer to see if I could enroll in College Algebra.
I came up short.
Way short.
I had to take three modules of Beginning Algebra and then Intermediate Algebra before I could even attempt College Algebra.
I can still remember how out of place I felt walking into that first class.
I was at least ten years older than almost every other student, and to make things even better, the instructor had graduated high school with me.
I didn't want to look stupid.
So I worked ahead. I did the homework. I actually put effort into learning the material.
And something clicked.
First test:
105.
Then it happened again.
And again.
I never made less than a 105 on a test throughout my remedial math classes.
Eventually, my Intermediate Algebra instructor noticed me helping other students and asked about my degree plan.
I told him I wanted to teach and coach.
Then he asked what I thought was a pretty stupid question.
"Have you ever considered teaching math?"
I don't remember whether I actually laughed in his face or managed to contain myself.
But my answer was simple.
No.
He had a way of teaching that connected with me, though, so when it was finally time for College Algebra, I signed up for his class.
First test: 105.
Second: 105.
Third: 105.
Final: 105.
By then, that stupid question was bouncing around in my head.
So I made him a deal.
I'd take Trigonometry and Calculus I the next semester. If I survived those and still felt good about it, I'd consider changing my degree plan.
I finished both while maintaining my perfect 4.0 GPA.
The decision was made.
Math it is.
The following semester, I earned my associate degree and transferred to a four-year university in Little Rock.
And this is where I need to bring this story back to reality.
I'm not telling you this because it's an inspiring story about a 30-year-old going back to college and unexpectedly discovering he was good at math.
I'm telling it because this is part of what it took for my children and me to rebuild our lives after my wife—their mother—died at just 28 years old.
I was driving two hours round trip for classes while working as a math tutor back in Hot Springs.
Madison and Gavin were in school while Austin still had to be dropped off at a babysitter.
Naturally, all of those places seemed to be on opposite sides of town.
Then there were sports.
My kids played just about everything available at the Boys & Girls Club, and I coached every sport except soccer.
Our lives became a constant cycle of school, babysitters, driving to Little Rock, classes, driving back, tutoring, picking up kids, practices, games, dinner, homework, laundry and bedtime.
Then we'd wake up and do it again.
But that was the life we were building.
I wasn't going to college because I had suddenly developed some lifelong dream of earning a degree.
I was trying to build a future that would allow me to be the dad my kids needed me to be.
Two years later, despite some hardships that at times felt overwhelming, I walked across that stage.
My kids were there.
They watched hundreds of graduates cross the stage until eventually they heard their dad's name called.
Five years after their mom died, I had accomplished something I never thought possible.
But that degree represented far more than finishing college.
During those years, I was raising three kids alone while helping them learn how to grieve the loss of their mom.
I was working, coaching their teams, cooking dinner, doing laundry, cleaning the house, paying the bills and handling all the responsibilities that once belonged to two parents.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I was doing my own homework too.
Five years earlier, I couldn't see any of this.
When Julie died, I could barely comprehend what our lives were going to look like without her.
I certainly couldn't see myself walking across a college stage with our three children sitting in the audience.
But they were there.
And so was I.
Today, those three little kids are grown.
And somehow, the career I chose because I needed a schedule that allowed me to be there for them gave me something I never could have planned.
I got to be their teacher.
From seventh grade on, I was blessed to teach each of my kids math.
Madison is now married and building a life with her husband as he serves in the military.
Gavin is working at an adult rehabilitation center.
Austin is preparing to begin a Leaders Academy internship in September.
They're building lives of their own now.
And I'm entering the first school year of my teaching career without one of my children attending the school where I teach.
Almost 16 years ago, I walked onto a college campus because I was trying to answer one question:
How am I going to build a life that allows me to raise these three kids on my own?
I thought the answer might be coaching and teaching history or health.
I certainly didn't think it would be math.
And I definitely didn't imagine that someday I'd stand at the front of a classroom teaching algebra to the same three kids I was trying so desperately to build that life around.
When Julie died, I couldn't see 16 years down the road.
I couldn't see college or a math degree.
I couldn't see graduations, a wedding, careers or the adults those three little kids would eventually become.
All I could see was what we had lost.
But God could see everything I couldn't.
Looking back now, I can see His faithfulness woven throughout a story I never would have chosen for us.
There were plenty of days when I didn't know how we were going to get where we needed to go.
So we just kept taking the next step.
And somehow...
here we are.
