James Zarick

What has your career path been like?
It has been almost thirty five years since I first graduated from Slippery Rock State College with my BS so to say that my career path has taken some twists and turns over the years would be an understatement. As a member of the undergraduate class of May 1981 I found the job market at that time to be not that dissimilar to today’s job market. Teaching jobs were hard to come by.
I landed my first teaching job in October of 1981, two months after the school year had begun. I taught and coached at Hampton Township HS in Allison Park, PA for two years before losing my job to budget cuts. From there I worked as an Aquatic Director at the Lancaster YMCA for one year, while still looking for a teaching job. I did finally find a teaching and coaching job at Cathedral Prep in Erie, PA. I taught and coached there for three years while continuing to work on my MS. I graduate from Slippery Rock University with an MS in December 1985. That advanced degree allowed me to pursue a wider variety of career options.
In August of 1987 I became the resident exercise physiologist at the Guilford Tech Wellness Center in Jamestown, NC. I stayed at this position for almost 14 years. During my final 4 years at Guilford Tech I studied at the United States Sports Academy in a doctoral program. I graduated with an Ed.D in July of 2000. Once again this advanced degree allowed me to pursue an even wider variety of career options.
In August of 2001 I became the director of the undergraduate program in Sport Management at High Point University in High Point, NC. About a year later I also became the director of the graduate program in Sports Studies. I stayed at High Point University for about eight and one half years until January of 2010. It was at that time that I decided to slow down just a bit and took a teaching job with no administrative responsibilities at Forsyth Tech Community College in Winston-Salem, NC.
I have been teaching at Forsyth Tech for almost six years now and I expect to be teaching there for at least 4 more. I anticipate that when I retire from education it will be from Forsyth Tech.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Over the years I have held a variety of positions and each one of them has been satisfying in its own unique way. In my current position I am teaching community college students. For the most part these are adults who are trying to make their lives better by becoming more educated. It is a sincere pleasure to know that I am making a difference in the quality of someone’s life.

What types of recognition, awards, honors or activities have you been involved in?
While at Slippery Rock as an undergrad I was a swimmer and made NCAA All America in 1979. After graduating I continued to stay athletically active and pursue new interests. I have since run 26 marathons and hundreds of triathlons including three Ironman races. I qualified for the Boston Marathon about a dozen times, but competed in it only 4 times. Each of the four times that I competed I finished in the top 5% of the field.
As a coach I have had multiple winning seasons in a variety of sports. These sports have included swimming, diving, water polo, track and field, cross country and lacrosse. Probably my most impressive coaching feat on paper occurred in my last five years of coaching track. In a five year period I had ten athletes who were state champions.

How did your experience at Slippery Rock University help you find your first position after graduation?
Slippery Rock provided a wide range of both social and professional opportunities and I took advantage of them. It was only after graduation and spending some time in the real world that I discovered how important those social opportunities were. To over simplify the state of today’s job market I would have to say that who you know is equally important to what you know. Take advantage of both professional and social occasions to expand your ever growing network. Slippery Rock provides those types of opportunities, however, it is up to you to be active and take advantage of as many as you can. Forget about trying to prove to everyone that you can get that first job all on your own. Take advantage of whatever help anyone has to offer. My first several jobs came as a direct result of the network that I began building at Slippery Rock.

What is your advice for future graduates?
I have three very specific pieces of advice for future graduates:
1. Be VERY VERY careful what you post on social media. It WILL come back to haunt you eventually.
2. NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK
3. Follow your passion and your dream until YOU are satisfied.