By Sam Goodykoontz

You think you have a lot on your plate? Try teaching two high school subjects -both of them some of the hardest subjects in the curriculum – coaching two sports, and being the longest standing teacher at Tempe Prep. Sounds impossible, right?

Wrong.

Doc Hickernell continues to balance all of these tasks and more. Doc currently teaches Physics II and Calculus II, and he coaches both high school cross country and the long distance runners in high school track and field.

Ask any former students who their favorite teachers were and they will always include Doc. He has built quite the reputation at our school for being energetic during class, getting his students excited to learn, and being helpful and easy-going.

However, it wasn’t always this way. Doc’s TPA journey started in 1999 when his previous employer, Motorola, “sold my division to another company. They said ‘You need to move to Albuquerque to work,’ and I said, ‘Well my family is here.’ They then said, ‘Well, if you don’t report then we will consider you to have resigned.’ So, I decided to write my letter of resignation because I wanted to stay in Phoenix with my family.”

This left Doc with a family and no job, so he had to figure out his future. “I was trying to decide what to do, and I went to ASU to the computer engineering department to talk to professors,” he said. “I was thinking of taking computer engineering classes. The professor, though, said ‘No, you don’t want to take computer engineering classes.’

“I then went to the physics department, and while I was waiting to see the professor, I saw on the poster board that some school in Tempe needed a pre-calculus and physics teacher. My first thought was, ‘Ew, that’s high school. I am not comfortable with high school.’ However, I said ‘whatever’ and I sent out a resumé. Within two days, I got a letter back saying, ‘Can you fill out an application?’ I filled out an application, and put it in the mail. One day later, they called saying, ‘Can you come in for an interview?’”

Doc came in for the interview. “They asked, ‘what makes you feel called to teach high school students?’” He responded, “‘I don’t. High school students scare me.’ They laughed, and they hired me.”

Thus, his TPA career began. “They started me off with an Algebra II/Pre-calculus summer school class during the summer of 2000,” he said. “It was very overwhelming, because I hadn’t learned how to manage all the things of teaching. I started teaching physics and pre-calculus that fall. It was completely different from what I’d been doing, and it was scary because high schoolers scare me. I remember on the day of my first curriculum night, I walked into the headmaster’s office and said, ‘I want to let you know, I am so overwhelmed I feel like quitting, but I won’t do it.’”

Luckily, that feeling didn’t last. “I knew that I mellowed out with it one day on my way to school,” he said. “There would be this overpass on the 101, and when I was on the overpass, I was nervous and scared. One day, however, I told myself that I am going to tense up and get nervous, but because I told myself that, I was not nervous. Eventually, it became the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had.”

This year is also Doc’s 20th season as cross country coach, and he just celebrated his 20th season as a track coach. “During my first year here, teaching was so new to me that I did not coach cross country that year,” he said. “However, during the spring, I was the assistant coach for track and field. The next fall I was the cross country coach.”

Doc is just as encouraging as a coach as he is as a teacher. Senior Anna Melis, for example, first met Doc when “I was in 9th grade during summer running,” she said. “It was really hot and terrible, but he and the seniors made it fun and interesting. At first, he seemed intimidating, but that quickly went away within the first practice. He has very much inspired me. If he was not such a good coach, I definitely would not have done cross country in high school. In fact, the only reason I am not doing it is because of COVID. He would always motivate us and push us, but never in a mean way.”