Cave City man gives up business to pursue hoop dream

By Julie M. Fidler
A Cave City man who owned a business for over 20 years gave it up to share his love for basketball with children.

Tim Palmer, former owner of Batesville Radiator, said he “lived and breathed” basketball as a Cave City High School student. His son, Dalton, 17, is a senior at CCHS.

“Mark Johnson was president of the booster club at Cave City,” Palmer said. “He asked me to be a volunteer coach for the Pee Wee program, starting with baseball and then basketball.”

It was while he was coaching basketball that he realized how much he enjoyed working with kids.

“Tracey Bustos (a student information officer at University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville) recommended that I complete a non-traditional scholarship application,” said Palmer. “She told me one time, ‘People are crazy if they don’t think you need to be doing this (working with children).’ … About the time I was ready to give up, not think about it any more and keep on doing what I was doing, I got a letter in the mail saying I’d gotten the scholarship. That changed everything.”

Palmer and his father, Gerald, worked in the same building before Tim Palmer became a full-time college student. “I was able to work beside my father, who was also self-employed in the same building but in a different business, for 22 years. I would not have traded those years for anything,” he said.

Palmer starting working with the Pee Wee basketball teams while they were in the third grade and continued working with the same group until they were in sixth grade. This year, they are seniors.

“These boys were my inspiration and incentive to keep going to UACCB to accomplish my goals,” he said.

After he graduated high school, Palmer had an offer to try out for the Lyon College basketball team, but turned it down. “In high school I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do,” he said. “I did well enough to play basketball. It was all I thought about.” However, he said he was “burnt out” on school and couldn’t imagine attending college at that time.

That changed when Palmer decided to go back to school. “I knew I wanted to be a coach and teacher those four years,” he said. “I felt that was the direction I needed to go and wanted to go.”

He said he was “scared to death” when he first started classes and felt he was the “oldest one on campus.” Soon, though, he was accepted by the other students and worked his way through math classes with the help of study groups.

“The kids accepted me out there after awhile, and I got along good with them,” he said. “It worked out great.”

While in his last semester at UACCB, Palmer applied for a scholarship from the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges Academic All-Stars and won. It paid complete tuition. Palmer completed his bachelor’s degree in December 2009 and graduated cum laude from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

He continued to coach while working on his degree. “I was asked by a parent and friend to coach their daughter’s Mid-America Youth Basketball team,” he said. The team consists of girls from Southside and Batesville, grades 7-11.

“This was a blessing because it took the place of the twenty-plus boys I coached while at UACCB,” he said. “These girls have been an inspiration to me, just as the boys had, and helped me make it through ASU. I still coach this team, and they will always have a place in my heart, along with the boys I coached.”

He completed practice teaching at Batesville junior and senior high schools, and is currently a teacher’s aide at Sulphur Rock Elementary in the Batesville School District. There, he works in the school’s “success center,” helping disadvantaged students.

Meanwhile, Palmer says he’s “waiting for the opportunity for another door to open” so that he can continue coaching.

“Starting college was one of the best decisions I have made,” he said. “I just wish I would have done it 20 years ago.”

Palmer is the son of Gerald and Sharon Palmer of Cave City and has been married to Karen Palmer for 28 years.