Searcy woman’s lifelong accomplishments include table tennis

Searcy woman’s lifelong accomplishments include table tennis

Pat Rice, or ‘Pat Pat’ as she is known by her grandchildren, has stayed active in numerous ways, including taking her family on vacations, visiting villages in Uganda, supporting Harding University athletics, swimming and providing fierce pingpong competition for college students.

That’s right, the 77-year-old retired nurse plays pingpong daily, often dominating numerous students.

A friend named Gary taught Rice the game of table tennis back in her home state of Ohio. Two years after introducing Rice to the game, Gary was killed in an accident, she said.

Rice became close to Gary’s mother and father, leading to some significant life events. His mother was a nurse, influencing Rice to later go to nursing school. Rice said she also invited her to church, which would help her reignite her love for Christ.

Decades later, Rice has brought her pingpong prowess to the halls of Harding University.

“For the past three years, Milo, Sherrill and I have met in Keller Dorm on Mondays and Thursdays at 3 p.m.,” Rice said. “We play pingpong for two hours. I usually play three hours because some of the baseball players cannot play until about 5.”

“It’s not just fun to play pingpong; it’s the relational experience you have. Pingpong is good for your eye coordination and your balance. It gets oxygen to your brain and gives you beautiful relationships with people.”

— Pat Rice

Rice added that pingpong helps her, not only physically, but socially as well.

“It’s not just fun to play pingpong; it’s the relational experience you have,” she said. “Pingpong is good for your eye coordination and your balance. It gets oxygen to your brain and gives you beautiful relationships with people.”

Along with the daily routine of honing her table tennis skills, Rice has come away from the game with numerous stories and memories.

Rice recalled one pingpong player, Tristan, who has improved tremendously and has the ability to beat anyone, even though Tristan has cerebral palsy. She also mentioned a player named Milo, who she said is one of the best on campus. Milo won a silver medal in a pingpong tournament in Hot Springs. Rice said she has defeated Milo four times in three years. While Rice is one to fear with the paddle, she is also a good sport when she is defeated.

“When Easton beat me after trying for six years, so he said, he laughed, hollered, rolled over and yelled some more, happy,” she said. “I got him a T-shirt that read ‘Keller Dorm, Ping-Pong, Easton defeats Mrs. Rice 11-0. 1-29-2017. I may have to make my own shirt for defeating Milo.”

Rice’s competitive nature did not begin when she was introduced to table tennis. This will to win has been in her since she was a child.

“I was very good at marbles. In fact, one day, my dad was walking to work, which was about a mile from our house. He met this little boy crying and he stopped and asked him what was wrong. And he said Patsy Walters had won all of his marbles,” she said. “So my dad was talking with me about him and he said, ‘Well, maybe next time you ought to be a little easier and not take all his marbles,’ and I said, ‘Well Dad, I played him left-handed.’”

Along with pingpong, Rice also uses the pool to stay active. She said she does water aerobics, but typically swims laps in the deep end during the class. She said swimming provides her with social interaction as well as a mental challenge.

“It’s the relational experience. It’s not just the activity or exercise, but it’s the opportunity to know people. Like in the morning, I can tell you the names of the 25 people that are there, and I tell them that’s my brain test,” she said.

While beating college pingpong players at her age is impressive enough, Rice was also able to leave a legacy during her time at Harding and as a nurse. After graduating from Aultman School of Nursing in Canton, Ohio, Rice worked for four years in critical care in Akron, Ohio. She was a charge nurse, working nights at Akron City Hospital. Then she had the opportunity, while she was on the pre-med committee at David Lipscomb College, now Lipscomb University, in Nashville, Tennessee, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree, to help Harding’s nursing program get started.

Rice said she was trying to place prenursing students at David Lipscomb in the new Harding program, but Harding only had three nursing instructors for 60 students. The criteria were to have one teacher for every 10 students. Rice was asked if she would come help start the program, so she did, and she also recruited two friends, Anna Chambliss and Janice Bingham, to help. Rice ended up as the head of student-health services at Harding for 23 years.

While at Harding, Rice grew close to many international athletes. These relationships blossomed due to Rice’s ties to Uganda. Rice and her husband of 46 years, Guilford, were able to visit their daughter Laura and sonin-law Phillip, who lived in Uganda for 15 years as missionaries. Rice’s first grandchild was even born in Nairobi, Kenya.

While in Uganda, Rice said that she was able to go to the village and bond with people, as well as teach them things, such as how to swim. She said she taught a girl named Rysper how to swim, and Rysper was happy when she finally learned, because then she could be baptized.

Rice met future Harding athletes while she was in Africa, and she and her husband were asked to serve in the role of a girl’s parents during her wedding.

Since moving to Searcy in 1975, Rice said she has been proud to call Harding her home. She said the community is close-knit no matter who you are.

“We’ve lived in the same house for 42 years and we thought so much of our neighbors across the street that we asked them to be guardians of our daughter if something happened to both of us in an accident,” she said. “Could you imagine living in a neighborhood where you could choose your neighbor? They were like family, extended family. I think this is a good town; we have a lot of entertainment with the university.”

She added that she and her husband have gone to the same church in Searcy for 42 years. She also said everything is within almost a mile of her house.

“Everything is close, even the people are close,” Rice said. “Close in relationships.”