Chasing Mascots: The Early Journey of Caleb Garner

In this episode of the Lifework Podcast, President Stan Norman sits down with Caleb Garner, Chair of the Department of Health and Physical Education and Assistant Professor of Sports Management at Williams Baptist University. Caleb shares how growing up in the “boondocks” of Brooksville, Mississippi, in a close-knit, church-centered community and a hardworking family shaped his view of vocation and calling.

He reflects on watching his parents persevere through job loss and tough seasons, early experiences working in his grandfather’s feed store, and the formative influence of camp work that taught him to see even unseen tasks as service to Christ. Along the way, Caleb talks about his lifelong love of athletics—right down to his quirky gift for “chasing mascots,” memorizing college teams and stats—and how God used that passion, together with key mentors and campus jobs, to begin steering him toward a future in sports management.

Learn more about the health & physical education department at WBU: https://williamsbu.edu/physicaleducation/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the LifeWork Podcast. Today we are joined by Caleb Gardner. We're excited to have you on the podcast. Welcome. Excited to be here. You are finishing up your second year here at Williams? First. First year. Wow, it seems like two, but just one.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Seems like two. It's definitely year one. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Well, you made it.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Congratulations, you survived. That was the theme of the year, survive in advance.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

You know, I remember my first year of full-time faculty appointment. My goal was to stay one lesson ahead of my students. And most of the time, not always, but most of the time, I was able to pull it off. Just, oh, I'm ready for today. Tomorrow's a no day. I was drinking out of a fire hose. Yeah. Well, we're glad to have you on board here at Williams. And again, as I did previously, welcome to the university. Glad to have you here. You are already a rock star status, and we'll talk a little bit more about your program and the way it's growing and things. But before we do that, tell our listeners what you actually do here.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

So uh I am the department chair for the health and physical education department, assistant professor of sports management. So I oversee our health and PE program as well as our sports management program, which is uh one of our younger programs on campus, but one of our more um It's one.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Well, I'll I'll go ahead and say what I was wanting to say, but uh it's it's one of, if not the fastest growing academic program on campus right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

But um and I also serve as our faculty athletic rep. So get to have a hand in the athletic department a little bit and work with some eligibility and kind of be the voice between our athletes and their their professors.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So you're finishing your first year here, but you're not an Arkansas native, are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

I'm not. I'm from a little bit a little state further south down in Mississippi. Is it a state? Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

It at one time it didn't want to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

At one point it didn't, but we won't go there.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Oh, we won't. Okay. So you are from the great state of Mississippi.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Is that where you were born and raised? I was born in Startville, Mississippi and grew up about 20 miles southeast in uh the boondocks of Brooksville, Mississippi, where I was related to about a quarter of the population. So Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Wow. The Boondocks of Mississippi. I'll walk away from that one so much I could do with that. I'll leave it alone so I won't get myself in any more trouble than I apparently already am. Uh you grew up an Ole Miss fan? No, no, that's fighting words.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Mississippi State.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Sorry. Oh, he hit me, folks. He hit me. No, he no he didn't.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I grew up a Mississippi State fan and went to school there for seven years, got two degrees out of it, and you know, then worked my worked my way up to Arkansas.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Well, let's let's talk a little bit about the growing up part of your life. So uh what was the actual name of the community where you grew up? So the community is Lynn Creek.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Okay. Um it's named after an old Cumberland Presbyterian church. Okay. In that area where we go to um dinner on the grounds every every about this time every year, and it'd be 95 degrees and humid and fighting bugs and eating lunch. It's Mississippi. And uh, but I grew up in a small church, small town, about 1,200 people. Um, and it was it was home. It was a cozy little town, cozy county, everybody knew everybody, uh, which was it was a good thing and also a bad thing sometimes where you knew everybody and um but it was it was a good upbringing, it was good to kind of have those connections.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

You still have family there?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

My my parents still live there. So we moved three times in my childhood. Okay, and they were within about eight miles apart, the houses were. And so my parents have been living in their current house since I was about five years old. Wow. And they've they've stayed rooted there, that's where they are. My grand my grandmother lives right across the road from them, and then other relatives live within about ten minutes or so.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Wow. So tell me about your family. Your what'd your parents do for a living?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, so my my dad had a series of he's had a series of jobs, but the most the the most consistent one he had when I was growing up, he worked for a cement plant. He worked as a dairy farmer for a while, went and worked for the cement plant. Um, and then when he got laid off from there, he went and had he was kind of job hopping a little bit, just trying to make make ends meet. He uh he sold cheese he at the Mississippi cheese store. We make really good cheese there.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Um he did not know Mississippi was the producer of cheese.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yes, it is. Um, but sold cheese, he sold tractors. Um now he's doing some economic development stuff with small towns, and he really loves that. Good for him. Um and my mom, she worked as a business manager for Mississippi University Department of uh or continuing education, distance education. They kind of changed names all uh a lot, but she worked there for I think 28 years or something and recently retired from the state and is now doing some business management for uh Barge Lumber Company, which is one of the largest lumber producers in the world, um, also owned by an incredible family. Um, that they've had a little bit of a hand that family's kind of had a an indirect impact in my walk with Christ, and we can kind of get that, get, get there in just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Oh, well, I want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

So any siblings? I have one sister. Uh she's a couple years younger than me. She lives uh in Port Allen, Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

So when your parents look at where their two children are living, is there one that they're saying, I can't believe you're living in that state. Don't you know where you were raised? Don't you know who we are? Don't you know our people? No. Is it the Louisiana or the Arkansas?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Not really. They like it in a way because it it's almost the like equal distance between the two. Okay. So both are about four hours apart.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Is your sister younger or older?

SPEAKER_01 5:49

She's two years younger. Okay. All right. So we we grew up, I mean, our our rooms were ten feet from each other. So we we we got close, but we also, you know, had this typical sibling fights here.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Sure, sure. So growing up in a very small town, uh, your parents are hardworking people, your mother's working for uh uh Mississippi State, your father is in all kinds of industries and opportunities in the marketplace. When you look back, and of course this is the Life Work podcast, and we talk about work and we talk about vocation and calling. And I often ask my guests when you look back on your growing up years, what are some things that you remember about the way your parents worked, how they worked, their ethic, that really sticks in your mind that made an indelible impression upon you today?

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Uh, I really think uh I was I was when I was going through and preparing for this, I was reflecting on it was a good exercise. But like one thing I noticed from my dad, especially after he was laid off from a job that he had for almost 20 years. That'd have been tough. You know, even there were some some of those jobs in there he hindsight, he hated. He absolutely hated, but he showed me the importance of working hard regardless of not liking that job. He also worked for a meat processing company one time and he hated it, but he worked hard as if working for the Lord. My mom, the same thing, you know, there were hard times whenever she was working. I mean, you you you just deal with people when you're working. Um, and she just really showed me the importance of you know, keeping that focus on working hard because other people are watching, it's also your your witness and things like that. Um, and you know, sometimes God puts us in situations, experiences that we may not necessarily like at the time, yeah, but they're they're part of that path that He wants um for us.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

You know, uh last year when Dr. Brian Putman was my co-host, we talked, we had a whole session devoted to working in a world that is cursed under the fall, thorns and thistles. And I I don't think we often appreciate that living in a fallen world, there will be thorns and thistles in our work. And our parents had to deal with that too. And so what I'm hearing you say is one impression your father made was as he wrestled with the thorns and thistles of losing uh a job he had for a long time, probably enjoyed that job, but knowing he had a family to care for and responsibility for their provision, and sometimes you just gotta work, and and the joy of that hard work that you may not have picked is well, at least I'm caring for my family, providing for them. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, and hard work, that's a that's a theme that I that I've kind of noticed just kind of looking back at not just my parents, but my grandparents. I mean, my great-grandfather had dairy cows for a long time until I was about four. He had catfish ponds, he was a county supervisor. My grandfather, so my dad's dad, uh, was an immigrant immigrated from Canada when he was in a teenager and um built a he had a local feed store, and I remember working for him as a as a young kid for $20 in a hamburger. I mean, just loading feed sacks.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Listen, if I'd known that you could work for that when we were negotiating your salary here, I hey buddy.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

But like just $20 a day in a hamburger. You know, I just had those fond, those fond memories of working. That's when a lot of those memories came with my extended family, not just my parents, but my extended family was, you know, working with them or being with them while they work, right? Was kind of the um the big thing and just working hard and just doing your best.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I I was thinking about your mother's job and having to deal with some uh people that are not always kind in return and thinking that probably there's probably some lessons there that prepared you for what you're doing today in your teaching and service in the faculty. I probably want to come back to that one, but before we leave the childhood of Caleb behind, grew up, and you mentioned a moment ago, in a family of faith, strong family commitment, growing up in church. Tell our listeners about that part of your life.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

So I grew up in I grew up in a small town where every kind of everybody went to church. Um I my mom was a VBS director for a long time. So I was there every summer. Uh I was even though I was participating in VBS, I was also helping set up and take down. And I was there early, I was there late. Um, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings, those were dedicated to church time. Yeah. Like that was what we did. Um, and as I got older, Sunday nights became youth group nights and things like that. There was a um my church didn't really have a bustling youth group, but the a church in the our county seat did. It was kind of first Baptist making, had everybody just kind of flocked there, regardless of if you were a Baptist or if you were Methodist or even Pentecostal. Everybody just kind of showed up and it was a good, you know, we all went to school together, so it was just another time to hang out. But yeah, I just grew up, my dad was a deacon and still is. Um, and I came to Christ early, about seven or eight, because I just kind of was saturated with you know, knowing, you know, with a Christ-honoring family that they early on told me, you know, this is what it looks like to follow Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

So hardworking family, growing up in a small community, growing up uh involved in church, have a relationship with the Lord. You know, for a lot of our listeners, that is a very similar growing up experience, especially those of my generation, and maybe a little bit younger than that. That is very reflective of how many of us grew up. And somewhere along the way, in a family of hardworking people, in a great community, those small but a supportive community, uh involved in church, walking with the Lord, somewhere in this, the love of sport surely had to come on uh the radar because you are now involved, immersed in that in a professional way. Where did the love of athletics of competition come in?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

So it it started really early. I kind of go back to those Saturday mornings working for my grandfather at these store where I had to read the newspaper first because he had because the sports section was also the crossword section. So I had to get it. I had to get it before he got to it. Yeah, because he'd fold it up into 18 different, you know, folds, and then I just wouldn't be able to. But I just loved, you know, the stats, reading and all, you know, reading the different um the different stories and just kind of keeping up, especially with local sports. And um, that was just one of those things that I just always loved. I have this fun talent of knowing a ton a ton, an obscene amount of college mascots. Like that was that's well, that is a hidden talent. That um I my wife kind of discovered it recently, like about maybe about a year ago.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

All right, we'll put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Oh, this is fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

St. Louis University. Billicans. Okay. You're legit.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

You're legit. If you know that. But yeah, so I mean, road trips, that's my road trip uh trick. Like if we get bored instead of the license plate game, we just start shouting off colleges and I see and try to stump me. That's usually how it works. So did you play sports? I played sports. I was definitely one of the ones picked last a lot of times. Um but uh you know, I I played, you know, I played baseball a little bit, I played basketball a little bit, played football mostly. That was kind of that was kind of where I played a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

It is the South.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

It is the South. Um, but I just really loved the other side of it. You know, the I was a PA announcer for the teams that I didn't play for, or I was, you know, just I kept stats.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

When you were a kid, you did that?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

I kept stats for my sister's uh summer league softball team. Like that was part, that was my way of of contributing and being a part of a team. And um, I didn't realize until I got to college that you know you could do that as a job. Um, and so uh I a few couple of major changes after I started started school uh got me into that. But because I originally went to college to be a coach. Thought it was like, you know what, I'm gonna coach one semester in, was like, nope, this ain't for me. Uh then was pre-physical therapy for a couple years, got kind of bogged down. I didn't really feel fall in love with it, and then just had some conversations with some people at the athletic department at Mississippi State, and boom.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

So did you have any jobs in high school? Or did you have any sports jobs in high school? Or what kind of jobs did you have while you were growing up? Uh what was your first job where you actually got paid money?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Uh so funny, I I I mean, uh you know, other than the feed store. The feed store, but other than like the first, you know, job where I brought in a paycheck, yeah. Actual paycheck, yeah, was really my sophomore year of college.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Really? You didn't work in high school?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

I didn't really work much in high school outside of weekends and stuff like that. Um odd jobs around the the community, but I was in school. Uh my freshman year, I stayed on campus. I had a lot of stuff was paid for. My semester, my half my tuition was covered because my mom worked there. I had a scholarship and a little bit else. But then I moved home my sophomore year to save some money. And my mom said, You've got to get a job. And so I worked for the MSU police department for two years.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Okay. Wait, wait a minute here. This is new information. So you actually have a law enforcement background on the college campus department. Oh, no, I don't. Um, you said you just worked for MSU's police department.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

I was the I was the parking ticket guy. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

I was I was the one who typed in the most unpopular guy on the college campus.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I didn't give the parking tickets though. Oh, okay. I'm the one who I they turned them into me. I type them in the system, and then that puts it on their bill.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

You were the anonymous enforcer of the I was.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Oh wow. I I took a lot of pride in that job.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Uh these things with the faculty this year is just I keep learning stuff I did not know. Um before we before we leave high school behind, were there any any significant moments maybe spiritually in high school? A lot of people that I have as guests on here talk about there was this moment in high school when the faith in which I early professed and which I was raised became really meaningful to me. Or maybe it was early college, somewhere along there. Was what was there one of those moments that you vividly remember?

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I don't think it was one particular moment. I think it was a collection of moments. Um so I came to Christ about seven or eight at a at a a men's wild game supper um hosted by my church. But, you know, I I went to church. I didn't really, you know, have any, you know, hardcore straying from the faith kind of story. It was just kind of, you know, going through the motions a lot. And um kind of the later years of high school, I started to really realize, you know, the importance of surrounding yourself with people who um who will challenge you in your faith, but also encourage you in your faith. Um and I found a group of people in high school that really helped me with that, and that kind of spilled over into college where I got involved with the Baptist Student Union there, really found a group of of people who I knew could, you know, that the Lord led me to to kind of encourage me in my faith. My roommate was really influential. I haven't talked to him in years, but he was really influential in that. Um, and just other people around there, but also the biggest one that I kind of kind of teased a little bit early on, the Barge family, they own a camp. They run a they own land for a camp uh in there called Lake Force Ranch. Okay. Um, it's a summer camp, and I worked there for two summers. Okay. Um and my end of my freshman year. So that was the first really paying job. But um legit. Yeah, but I worked two summers. Uh first year was on work staff, which was a lot of behind the scenes cleaning tables, serving food, you know, taking out trash, doing the stuff that nobody else wants to do. Um and, you know, those two summers were probably some of the most formative summers of my life, spiritually at least, just because for 12 weeks out of the summer, we were just in the word every single day. We were encouraging each other in our faith. We were doing life with with each other every single day. People that, you know, they went to Mississippi College, they went to Bryan College, they went all over the all over the place, but we were all there for one reason, and that was to serve. And so that that those two summers really were formed, were formative for me in learning how to serve as a follower of Christ. And also really just kind of, you know, bringing into that that work theme a little bit with being on work staff. That was where we really dove into a couple of books. Um, I wrote it down on my uh The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, Tim Keller. Um, and he's kind of a thing. And then uh Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence were two books that I've read multiple times over and over because it's just so powerful of you know, you know, serving the Lord in the mundane, yeah, in sweeping floors, cleaning tables, taking out trash. Like that's that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

You're preaching my song now, right? You preach my sermon. I like that. So, what I want to do is put a pin on this one. Okay, and then I want to pick this conversation up in our next episode. Are you good with that? Let's go. All right, thanks.