Record details
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Tyler Junior College will always own a big part of my heart. TJC gave me the life chances that someone from a family of modest means like mine doesn’t normally get.
When I was a senior in high school, I knew one thing for certain: I loved to play basketball, and I thought I was pretty good at it. When Tyler Junior College basketball coach Floyd Wagstaff offered me a scholarship to play with the TJC Apaches, I dreamed that someday I’d be playing professionally.
During my first semester, I realized that there were many better athletes, and I wasn’t going to make a living on the basketball court. Coach Wag and my teachers encouraged me to study hard and give my best, both on the courts and in the classrooms.
College was a big adjustment by itself but when my father died unexpectedly during my first semester at TJC, I was devastated. I still vividly remember that day. My English teacher, Mr. Will Jennings (who would go on to win two academy awards for his songwriting), got a note during class that I had a personal emergency and needed to leave his class. Coach Wagstaff was very understanding in the following weeks and provided the kind of encouragement and support I needed at that critical time in my life.
I was lucky to be surrounded by caring teachers, great teammates and a legendary coach, all of whom wanted me to succeed. At TJC, I had experiences that helped shape the person that I would become, and I discovered a bigger world. Not everything I learned at college was in the classroom.
TJC has always had a vibrant student life, and it was one of the first of area colleges to recruit African American athletes. Diversity helps make for a stronger team and we had great teams at TJC.
I’ll never forget the friendships I made or the experiences I had as a young athlete on a competitive team. Our team played in the Astrodome just after it opened as the first of its kind in the world. In fact, it was nicknamed “the eighth wonder of the world.” We were the preliminary game for the UCLA versus University of Houston matchup, and I got to be there to watch Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and Elvin Hayes take the floor right after our game. It was an incredible time.
Times were changing socially too. When Larry Faust and I became roommates on road trips, it was the first time either of us had roomed with a person of another race. We became good friends, and while all this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary now, it was back then.
After TJC, I transferred to the University of North Texas and soon realized that TJC had prepared me very well for advanced studies, better than most of my friends who had started at UNT or elsewhere. TJC was a life-changing experience for me.
Now as a member of TJC’s Board of Trustees, I do my best to make sure that TJC remains the college of opportunity that it was for me. We CPAs are a conservative group and don’t make many guarantees about the future, but I promise that TJC can do for you what it has done for thousands like me.
Nothing so close to home can take you so far.
- Biography
- TJC Hero and Friend Clint R. Roxburgh, MBA and CPA, is President of Henry and Peters, one of the largest and most respected accounting firms in East Texas. He is a member of the AICPA and TSCPA and is active or has been involved with numerous community organizations, including his service on the TJC Board of Trustees since 2004. He has also served as President of the TJC Alumni Association, Treasurer and Board Member of the Camp Tyler Foundation, Board Member for the Green Acres Baptist Church Foundation, Treasurer for Green Acres Baptist Church, and past-president of the Mental Health Association and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tyler. Sunday, February 1, 2009 Volume 131, Number 23 By Clint Roxburgh
