Graphing New Lines on the Roads

Upper School Math Teacher Scott Eagen Shares His Passion for Driving and a Plan for His Future Career

Photo by Sander Yigin on Unsplash

A lion enters Tropical Smoothie and asks the server, “Can I have a Jetty… Punch?” The server asks the lion, “What’s with the big pause?” The lion answers, “I’m a lion.”

If you have had upper school math teacher Scott Eagen in your class, you have no doubt heard him making funny dad jokes. Besides making jokes, Eagen is not only a friendly face on campus but also a skillful teacher. Ever since Eagen was in high school, he enjoyed math and was good at teaching. When he was on his high school basketball team, he taught math to his teammates, which eventually inspired him to become a math teacher. At school, Eagen loves building relationships with his students. Outside of school, he is a passionate driver. Even though Eagen has been a part of Maclay for a long time, it is time for Maclay to say goodbye to him and follow his new passion.

“I’ve always wanted to drive a truck, so over the years I’ve started giving my responsibilities back, knowing this day was coming,” Eagen said. “It’s just harder and harder to have relationships with the kids especially after COVID and all the social media, vaping and artificial intelligence.”

Eagen has worked in various fields, such as the restaurant business, education and food delivery. Outside of his career, he has also designed an entire house for his parents. While Eagen was at Maclay, he was Athletic Director for the first four years but later became Facilities Director for five years while teaching math at the same time. Since he has been in many distinct professional fields and expanded his career, he has great problem solving skills, embraces challenges and is always aware of his surroundings. As a driver, he applies all of these attributes on the roads as there are many things that can go wrong especially with large vehicles.

“My wife and I have a joke: she is called the finder in the house and I'm the fixer, so I’m looking forward to fixing things that are broken,” Eagen said. “I think I’m a good driver as far as defensive driving. I’m just trying to look ahead and take two or three steps ahead, so hopefully when I have an emergency situation, I’ll be able to handle that.”

In fact, Eagen has already been pursuing his passion for driving. Not only does he travel every weekend with his family in a recreational vehicle, but he also drives for Florida State University football games one or two Friday nights a month. A few years ago, he also worked for Uber delivery service. Just like he loves interacting with his students, he loves interacting with new people that he meets driving around different places.

“[Driving for Uber] is really neat,” Eagen said. “I meet people that have daddy’s credit card, and they’re going literally a quarter mile; they could walk that far. And I meet a guy that’s working two jobs because he can’t afford a car and he’s got a family to feed. So it’s anything between those two extremes.”

In order to get a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to be a real truck driver, Eagen will take a truck driving course in Jacksonville in upcoming July. After training 50 hours a week for four weeks, he will take a CDL test and potentially get hired by one of many companies there, which are in high demand for truck drivers. His specific plans for the future have not been completely decided, but he hopes to start his path traveling between the same locations.

“As far as plans after I get my license, there are a lot of variables,” Eagen said. “I would prefer to get what’s called a dedicated route, which may be something like driving to Orlando and back to Tallahassee daily. However, I’m also fascinated with driving long-haul, which would include sleeping in the back of the rig a couple nights a week. So there are still several unknowns.”

Going from a math teacher to a truck driver will certainly bring a variety of changes to Eagen’s life, and Eagen is looking forward to every single one of them. A few of the things he is excited about are listening to music while driving on the roads, looking at views around the country with his dog Max, meeting other drivers at truck stops and having more freedom than before.

“I would say that Mr. Eagen is a pretty fun guy who is always really excited about helping all the kids around him,” junior Louis Dearman said. “I’m obviously going to be kind of sad. I think a lot of people will remember him as a cool math teacher.”