Larry Rogal’s love for sports and coffee were just some of the things his students remembered about him as he set off for Michigan to retire.
Rogal has over 20 years of teaching experience in Washington, Montana, Michigan, Ohio and New Mexico, he said. He has taught at Zuni Pueblo, Jemez Mountain Schools, in Gallina, and most recently San Juan Elementary.
On the last week of school this spring, three fifth grade classes worked together to surprise him with a poster with pictures of a U-Haul truck, a map with a route from New Mexico to Michigan, a coffee mug, the school mascot, a basketball and a football, along with the words, “Michigan or Bust,” he said. They also gave him a $25 gift certificate to his favorite hamburger place, White Castle Hamburger, and a Tim Hortons coffee mug.
“I’ve still got that poster,” Rogal said. “I’m going to keep that poster. It was cool, and they did this completely without me even knowing about it. It came as a complete surprise, and that made me feel good. I definitely will be using my White Castle Hamburger gift card pretty soon up here. I haven’t had one of those in quite a while. I’ve got to break in my Tim Horton’s mug.”
The students weren’t the only ones to notice his love for coffee.
Babbie Cortez retired in 2017 after teaching at San Juan for 18 years, she said. She knew Rogal for one of those years. Her class would spend a 30-minute PE session with Rogal two days each week.
Cortez remembered one morning, there was no coffee in the teacher’s lounge, and she heard him mumbling to himself about it, she said. So she told him he was welcome to use the coffee pot in her classroom — he joked with her, “Did the coffee people send you?”
He went into her class for about three or four cups of coffee that day, joking with the students each time he entered the classroom, she said.
“He was such a jokester with the kids, and that was the best part about him,” she said.
Value of academics
and athletics
Rogal grew up in Michigan and played basketball and football in high school, then baseball in college, he said. He has three children and 10 grandchildren.
He received his bachelor’s degree in education at the University of Detroit in 1975. He majored in physical education and minored in health, he said. He later was certified in New Mexico to teach social studies.
He taught P.E., health and social studies during his career, he said. Although he has taught students from kindergarten to 12th grade, his favorite age group is high school, and his second favorite is elementary school.
“Middle school is just a special breed, and sometimes I’m not that,” Rogal said. “Sometimes there’s just a little too much drama.”
Rogal has experience coaching volleyball, track, baseball, basketball and football. He said he enjoys football most, because he has over 20 years of experience coaching that sport.
He most recently coached football at Española Middle School, he said.
He has had other odd jobs in areas like factory work and security, he said. He would work jobs like these as a college student and then later as a teacher, as many schools do not pay teachers over the summer.
“A lot of people don’t understand how much we do during the summer and how much of our own funds we spend during the school year to help with the kids,” Rogal said. “They seem to think, ‘Oh, what are you complaining about? You’ve got all your summers off.’ I’m sorry, pal. If you knew all the stuff we did over the summer, you wouldn’t be saying that. You don’t seem to have a clue. A lot of them think we make more money than we actually do, (but) we’re not in it just for the money, because if we are that’s the wrong reason.”
He said people can also be unaware of teachers’ lack of supplies, like books.
“Most of the time we do supply our own (classroom supplies),” he said.
Some of Rogal’s family members were teachers, but he decided to pursue both teaching and coaching.
“I just enjoy sports,” he said. “I’ve always liked it, in high school, I liked it in college, and I watch a lot of it, and I follow a lot of it, and I just wanted to get into coaching, because I enjoyed playing, and I want to take the skills and knowledge that I have and give it to kids that want to learn certain sports. I try to make them better athletes for it, and also better students. One of the main things I pushed for as a coach is: you’ve got to try to keep your grades up, you don’t keep your grades up, you’re not going to play. End of discussion.”
He said it is important to excel at both athletics and academics, because “that makes you a better whole person, that helps you be able to be a better contributing person to society. If you’re good, and your grades are up, it teaches you responsibility. If you’re a pretty decent athlete, if you just play in sports, that also teaches you things like teamwork and responsibility and the ability to get along with people, no matter what their background might be.”
Aside from teaching and coaching, he also enjoys watching TV, movies and music videos, as well as playing the drums. After only taking lessons for one year in 8th grade, he played the drums for a couple of bands in high school and still fills in when a band member is missing.
His favorite band is Rush, and he also likes AC/DC, he said. He listens to alternative, rock, classic rock and some meta.
Once he played a drum solo during a pep rally at Lovington, he said.
“Everyone said, ‘Wow, is there anything you can’t do?’ and I said, ‘Well, I can’t play the bag pipes,’” he said. “They said, ‘I didn’t know you played the drums.’ Well, nobody asked. It was just a surprise.”
A helping hand
Rogal said his high school basketball coach and driver’s education teacher piqued his interest in education.
“He was probably the biggest influence in high school,” he said.
The coach treated all the students fairly, and they knew what consequences there were and what was expected of them, he said.
Athletics teaches students responsibility, leadership, teamwork, problem solving, how to set examples and accept criticism and more, Rogal said.
Cortez said she remembered that Rogal would take bus duty for others if they needed him. He was well-liked by staff and students.
She called him funny, nice and happy-go-lucky.
“They always knew that if they needed someone to volunteer, cover a class, I would just take the classes for the day, no problem,” he said. “If they needed help in the cafeteria for lunch duty, I would do that. I directed traffic outside the school. Anything. All they had to do was ask, and I said, ‘No problem.’”
He was willing to do “anything to keep the school running.” He participated in talent shows, other programs, after-school programs and whatever was asked of him.
“All you had to do was please just ask,” he said.
Rogal said he always wanted to be available for students if they needed someone to be there for them.
“I told (the students) if they ever had any problems or concerns that they could always come talk to me,” he said. “I said, ‘If you have any problems, it doesn’t have to be sports, it doesn’t have to be school, home, whatever. If there’s anything you’ve got on your mind, you need someone to talk to, listen to you, just come and see me, and I’ll make time for you.’”
He said his students have taught him how to be open to them, so they can communicate with him.
“If they need(ed) someone, I would always be there for them,” he said. “Doesn’t matter. Day or night. At t2 o’clock in the morning and you’ve got a problem, call me at 2 o’clock in the morning. Just know that you will always have somebody you can have someone to talk to.”
Rogal said some of the students seemed to be grateful for his efforts.
“Some of my kids have come up and told me, ‘Thank you for taking the time to talk,’” he said. “I would give them some encouragement that they could pursue what they were going to do, and they would thank me for it.”
A lasting impact
Rogal said he tried to teach his students with his own experiences and also by using trivia questions.
He would ask trivia questions during class and have the students try to answer it within a certain amount of time to create some light competition, he said.
He said he would tell the students that if they remembered one thing he taught them, he did his job.
Rogal taught students in his health class about smoking by relaying his own experiences with it. One day he calculated that his over 30 years of smoking would have cost over $42,000.
He said he had a good rapport with the Española community, and got along with both students and parents. The San Juan Elementary staff was wonderful and the principal was good. He remembers that his students were excited when they saw him at Wal-Mart.
He said his favorite coaching memory was when his team at Cooley High School in Detroit went to the playoffs in 1999, adding that anything can happen with a little luck.
Cortez said Rogal seemed to enjoy teaching.
“The joy is always having the kids buying into whatever you’re teaching them,” she said. “For teachers it’s not money, it’s a light bulb turning on.”
Then the teachers receive invitations to high school graduations, college graduations, marriages and baby showers, she said.
“They keep remembering you, and I think Larry probably had a lot of those,” Cortez said.
Rogal said people would see him years after they graduated from high school and thank him for taking the time to talk with them when no one else could be around for them.
“That makes me feel like I picked the right profession, like I did something that honestly made a difference,” he said. “And that made me feel good that I did something right for people, I made people a better person than what they were.”
Home Again
Cortez said she wishes Rogal happiness, good health and fun in his retirement.
He said he decided to go back home to Michigan to see his family. The longest time he spent away from his family was 12 years.
“I’m not waiting that long again before I get to see anybody,” he said.
He said he plans on coaching at Hazel Park High School in Michigan this fall.
Rogal advises anyone interested in teaching or coaching to do it because they enjoy it, not for the paycheck, he said.
He said he is going to miss interacting with the community, staff and students most when he retires, but he’s happy to be back in Michigan.
“It’s good to be back home,” he said. “That about sums it up. I didn’t know this day was ever gonna come, and I’m glad that it did.”