By: Kush Shah
Dr. Boling: “I came here 13 years ago to the community and I was teaching in middle school, mathematics classes, and I was interested in law. The way I got here was I became the tennis coach at this school, and when I became the tennis coach I made a decision that I wanted to come over to Howard to be able to — for students to understand who I was because I was just this guy just coming in just for tennis and nobody really knew who I was or what I did. I never really wanted to be a high school teacher, I always wanted to be a middle school teacher when I graduated college, so I made a decision well I’ll apply to come over to Howard and so I sat down and interviewed with the principal then which was Dr. Messelah and they hired me to come over. That way when I was here I was able to — you know people knew who I was in the building you know if people had questions about tennis or something like that they knew who to come to, other than this guy that just came over. And I just came over and I started teaching very basic classes. Let’s see, I taught Geometry and Algebra 2 when I first came over here, and I have been here ever since then. Do you have a question you want to ask or a follow up question?”
Kush: “Did you face any challenges at all? What was the biggest challenge you faced throughout, you know, your way getting here whether it would be like getting your degree or what you wanted to do trying to figure things out?”
Dr. Boling: “Probably the biggest challenge was when I went to college, and I had been accepted on a full scholarship to play tennis at a college in Florida, Flagler University, but then I had to — I had also been accepted to go to Frostburg too but there was no scholarship there to go there because it was a Division III school. And I was all prepared pretty much to go and I had graduation and then in June found out that my mother was sick with cancer. Instead of going to away to school, I choose to stay closer at home; so I ended up turning down the scholarship and then going to Frostburg because it was only — I mean Flagler was all the way in Florida so that was you know 16-18 hours, so I decided to go to Frostburg because it’s only about 2 ½ - 3 hours, that way I could come back every weekend to see my mom and stuff like that because I wasn’t going to be able to do that in Florida because I was actually not going to go to school, I was going to turn it down and stay at home and help take care of my mom but she said to still go to school so then I went to school and probably was a pretty lazy student academically because I was spending more time dealing with my parents, my mom. Then my mom got better, my sophomore year she got better, and then things started to do well for me academically because I wasn’t having to commute as much and could spend more time on my academics, but then my mom got sick my junior year again and then she ended up passing away my junior year. So that was pretty big struggle there because then I was deciding whether I was going to stay in school or leave school at that point but I decided to stay and then I just flourished, I just pushed myself through and the rest is the rest… Those things happen, but you know, we move on, you have to push through those kinds of things. Can’t let those things get you down.”
Kush's Connection:
Dr. Boling has experienced pains that I would never have otherwise thought he had gone through. Loss will never be easy, and for him it came at a time that defined his life. Although I have never come close to what he has had happen to him, my grandmother’s death impacted me deeply. She heavily shaped me but had to leave me too soon, she won’t see what I have become nor what I will be.
