Jim Paschal Athletics are about facing and surpassing new challenges everyday. Athletes constantly achieve new standards. They toil tirelessly to do it higher, faster, stronger. It’s in their blood. Jim Paschal, former athletic director, now professor of movement and sports science, has faced obstacles his entire life. As an athlete and coach, he has sought and overcome the challenges inherit to a life in sports. And now, semi-retired, he has taken on one more, arguably the cruelest of them all: golf. “Golf is the largest challenge I’ve ever come across,” he said in his twangy, retained Southern drawl. “The game is very challenging,” he said of the pursuit to match par. “That’s pretty far out of reach for most of us. And you’re always battling against your own score.” About six years ago, Paschal decided to pick up the game, mainly because he wanted to forge a closer relationship with his brother and the people he works with at ULV. But why did it take a consummate athlete so long to pick one of the world’s most popular games? “I didn’t have the opportunity to play when I was growing up,” he said. “I was never involved with a group that were golf people. I just had other kinds of things to do. (Once you start working), if you don’t have these golf friends, you don’t need to play. It was only when I got to La Verne that I saw the need to play golf from a social and business viewpoint. I said, ‘I need to learn this game.’” But Paschal admitted that there was one other reason behind his delay in learning the game, one of self-preservation – not physical self-preservation, but emotional. “The real underlying reason is you don’t want to expose yourself when you don’t have any skills,” he said. “I work very hard at not embarrassing myself.” Paschal said embracing this new obstacle has enhanced his emotional well-being. “When you take on a new challenge and you start to develop skills, you gain more self-confidence,” he said. Now, Paschal hits balls at the driving range two times a week, but admits to not playing as much as he would like, mainly because of the 4-5 hours it takes to complete a round. When he can get in 18 holes, Paschal loves to play with his friends and colleagues, saying, “It makes a difficult game fun most of the time.” But most of all, golf simply provides the opportunity to be outside, a welcome aspect in the seemingly perpetually-sunny Mediterranean Chaparral climate of Southern California. “Golf has the most beautiful court of all,” he said. Back inside, within the confines of his newly-added office in what used to be the graphics department, Paschal sits in his chair, half-surrounded by a few piles of paper along the floor. The walls are relatively bare and the medium-sized office rather open. From a stereo on Paschal’s desk – one of the most noticeable pieces in his office – Barry White’s seductive, sonorous timbre fills the background. Paschal points to music as one of his reigning interests. Generally, he listens to blues and jazz, “old-timey stuff,” he called it; things like Billie Holiday, in addition to a chunk of contemporary jazz, country and classical, among others. “I like all kinds of music, except the hard stuff,” he said. His interest in the art began before he can remember. However, he can pinpoint when his interest broadened into what is now a healthy breadth of genres. Where he grew up, people only listened to R&B and country, he said. “Once I got out of the South, my interests expanded to other music.” Now, he comfortably throws out names such as Etta James, Luther Vandross and Elton John as some of his favorites. “But I don’t like everything everyone does,” he said. “I like some stuff from everyone.” His expanded tastes in music extend to his reading habits as well. Although the last two books he read were by the same author – Dan Brown – that is definitely not par for the course for Paschal. “That’s the last two books I’ve read,” he said, admitting to enjoying authors like Tony Hillerman and Anita Shreve, among many others. “I read a lot of authors. It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy.” THE PROFESSOR As for what his students have said about him, Paschal is not quite sure: “They’d have mixed responses. I think they will about anybody. I think they’d say that I’m passionate about the subject matter.” And this idea of passion seems to be a recurrent theme for the professor: “If you don’t have passion or reason or purpose about what you’re doing in life, then it’s going to be pretty difficult.” RETURN TO FACULTY LISTmailto:paschalj@ulv.edu?subject=HELLOHome.htmlshapeimage_1_link_1
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