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Palmer Trinity School senior Zachary Rodriguez loves to bowl. Knocking down the pins gives him great joy and even better, he is good enough to earn money from his sport. He plays competitively outside Miami.
His freshman year, he started a bowling club at school to share his love of the sport and help students with his expertise.
“I wanted to bring that community and aura around the school,” he says. “I brought in a coach (a teacher), but I was a coach myself. We had events, we had practices. It was fun.”
The club had 10-15 members and practiced at Bird Bowl but disbanded by junior year. His original goal was to create a bowling team to compete against other schools but that didn’t work out.
“It was fun while it lasted,” he says. ‘It showed the team about balancing life and sports in general. They formed new friendships with their teammates. In my heart, that was really special.”
Now, he concentrates on bowling at tournaments around the state. His earnings are in the $6,000 range thus far. He started bowling when he was 13 and began competing around 15. His next competition is April 25 in Tallahassee.
He played many different sports throughout his childhood. However, bowling is the one that he will continue with.
“The story is that we went to Gainesville, and I wanted to do something fun,” he says. “We were in the car and saw a bowling alley.”
They bowled that day, and he liked it so much that when they returned to Miami, he wanted to do it right away.
“And for the next birthday, I got my bowling ball,” he says. “I went to my first tournament at 15. I did horrible. But then I went on and did more tournaments and started making money.”
His future also includes weather prediction. He’s going to the University of Oklahoma where he’s majoring in meteorology.
“I love the weather,” he says. “My family survived Hurricane Andrew. I survived Irma, I’ve seen wildfires in the Everglades, I’ve seen waterspouts while on cruise ships and because Florida is the lightning capital of world.”
At school, he’s taken Chinese since his freshman year and has participated in a statewide competition for students. He is also fluent in Spanish and has dabbled in Portuguese, German and Turkish.
He’s a past member of the Environmental Action Club, which sent students to do beach clean-ups, and worked to protect wildlife areas. They also collaborated with Zoo Miami to learn about endangered animals and endangered plants.
Rodriguez was also a member of the Round Square Club, an international community made up of 260 plus schools that collaborate on education and character.
“It builds character,” he says. “We discover each other’s capabilities and character. It’s in 50 countries and six continents.”
His community service includes being the vice president of the Service Through Christ Club that participates in events at Vous Church.
“When we have any charities or food drives, we help the church with the food, we give donations, and we assist in sermons,” he says. “One of my friends helps with the lights and the captions. We help with the editing for the broadcasting.”
While Service Through Christ is his main form of community service, he also donates his time and energy to helping his mom, who is a teacher at Holy Rosary/St. Richards Catholic School.
He drops by her classroom to help drop off supplies, and has provided challenging ideas for student projects.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
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