Wake Forest Athletics News
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Sarge Retires After Almost 30 Years As Wake's Equipment Supervisor
June 25, 2002
By Sam Walker When former Wake Forest student-athletes come back to visit their alma mater, they always first go to the bottom floor of the Reynolds Gymnasium complex to the equipment room to see "Sarge." David "Sarge" Tinga has served as Wake Forest's equipment supervisor since 1973 but will officially end a career that took place in four different decades when he retires at the end of June. Tinga has talked of retirement for several years but always kept finding a reason to come back just one more year. When the university's fiscal year is complete at the end of June, Tinga, the male employee in the athletic department with the longest record of continuous service, will be officially retired. "There are people here who still don't believe he's actually retiring," Roxann Moody said. Moody, Wake Forest's supervisor of equipment for Olympic sports, first worked under Tinga as a student equipment manager and now has worked for and with him professionally for the last 22 years. Colleagues and student-athletes find it difficult to imagine Wake Forest without Sarge because he hasn't been just an employee at Wake Forest: he's become a fixture. Tinga has been there through four head basketball coaches and worked through six head football coaching changes. When he began, Wake Forest had just seven sports. He's adjusted to the expansion of women's programs as directed by Title IX, changing equipment and facility needs, and new athletic administrators. Tinga came to Wake Forest in 1968 by way of the United States Army when he was assigned as the sergeant major over the ROTC detachment at the university. Before that, Tinga had served 18 years in the military, including one combat tour in Korea and one tour in Vietnam. He met former Director of Athletics Gene Hooks when Hooks asked him to organize the color guard to raise the flags at the opening of Groves Stadium on Sept. 14, 1968. In 1970, Tinga left Wake Forest when he volunteered to serve one more combat tour in Vietnam. On March 22, 1971 Tinga was on a truck delivering ammunition, food, and water to his unit, which was engaged in fighting neat Saigon. The truck ran over a mine that exploded, killing two passengers. Tinga's left leg was severely injured in the blast, was amputated below the knee and replaced with a prosthesis. Tinga was transported back to Fort Bragg, where he was a patient. One year later the call from Wake Forest, and Hooks arrived, asking Tinga to come serve as the football team's equipment manager. At the time there was no equipment manager. Tinga was hired to define the job and create a system of organization that remains in place even today. "In 1973 Dr. Hooks, Jesse Haddock and I talked it out, and they hired me the same day I got there, so I started working the 23rd of April 1973," Tinga said. And from that day forward Tinga brought order to a section of the athletic department that previously had little. And almost from the very beginning, David Tinga was called Sarge, which refers to the rank with which he retired from the Army. "Sarge is a common terminology in the Army, but the kids just called me Sarge. I told them to call me Mr. Tinga, but the kids called me Sarge, and the name just stuck." He didn't mind. Perhaps the name stuck because Tinga ran such a tight ship. There was no playing around the equipment room. Athletes were fitted correctly with equipment, and they did it Tinga's way or got "fussed at" military style. "In order to get an athlete's attention, you have to go through a system where you break them down a little bit," Tinga said. "I haven't done anything like that in probably five years, but you have to do that to make sure they would pay attention and do things my way, because I did things differently from everybody else. This goes back to my Army days, but it always worked." "He's really a teddy bear in gorilla's clothing," Moody said of Tinga's style. "He has a gruff exterior, but he does that by design. He's the kind of person who believes you earn your respect. He wants to make sure that when kids come in here as freshmen they realize there's a sense of responsibility... But he will take care of you to the nth degree, he's loyal to you, he'll go to bat for you, but he expects that in return." And that's why former student-athletes come back to see Sarge first. He requires a measure of discipline, a modicum of respect, and he gives that back and more to all whom know and work with him. For example, when Ricky Proehl, who plays with the St. Louis Rams of the NFL, was inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame, he asked Tinga to sit at his table at the awards banquet. "There are a lot of name athletes around here that come back to see Sarge," said Moody. "It's the first place they come (the equipment room), he's the first person they call, and then they go see everybody else. He's been the constant for over 30 years. And he likes you because you're you and treats you fairly whether you're a big name athlete or a student manager. He doesn't show preferential treatment, and that's what they come back for. I think kids appreciate that." "Things have changed so much of the years, but these days I want them to understand mutual respect for each other," Tinga said. "I've always told my students to do the job right the first time and that way they won't have to do it again." Tinga said when he took the job back in 1973 he envisioned he might work at it 20 years. After all, his military career spanned 21 years. But he says the kids have kept him young over the years, and Tinga will turn a spry 70 this August. Never did he think he would become a fixture nor have the impact he has on the overall athletic program. "Sarge is an institution within an institution," Wake Forest Director of Athletics Ron Wellman said. "He's one of those people who has touched every student-athlete that goes through our program and he's been a very welcome fixture. His roughness is just a veneer because there's a heart of gold in that man. The first few times I met him I thought I was in the military, but that's just his background. He's run that department with an iron hand, and we deeply appreciate it." The equipment room in Reynolds Gymnasium was named for Tinga a few years ago, a fitting tribute to a man who spent so much of his life working 15-hour days in what was once known as "the cage." Although he has had offices in two newer athletic facilities, the bottom floor of Reynolds Gym will always be Sarge's place. Tinga plans to spend more time with his wife, Mary, his son and daughter and two grandchildren, but he won't just disappear. He has too much of an investment in Wake Forest and its people. "We're going to be making some trips to the Cayman's, Florida, whatever the wife says she wants to do," Tinga said. "There is no hard part (about retiring) for me. I've never thought about it as being hard. Right now I have no problem with it. I'm still going to be coming around (campus) because I want to keep up with the people I know. But my wife says I'm going to have to slow down. I've got about 20 years of honey-dos to catch up on." There is a place on the wall in the equipment room where the paint is worn down to the wood. It's the place where the back of Tinga's desk chair would hit when he leaned back. Above that line of worn paint, and on the wall beside it, are pictures signed with well wishes from former student-athletes and clippings from newspapers that have accumulated over the years. The wall shows snapshots of moments from Tinga's career, but furthermore it shows what he truly valued about his job - the people. Tinga has undoubtedly left his mark at Wake Forest; and it's not the line of worn paint on the wall. |