He was running 15 minutes late for an appointment, but he stayed. On a Friday at 5:30 p.m., he stayed.

While the rest of the school was empty, he led a room of five students with lots of energy.

After a three second count, he started juggling clubs with another student, standing side-by-side. It was only a matter of time before gravity would take over. Eventually, the first club fell. Then another. Then a third. Then the rest.

The man started to laugh—laugh at gravity, at failure and at himself.

“That’s part of practicing. That was my fault,” he said.

It clearly wasn’t.

“Ah, whatever. Let’s add another one.”

They clearly shouldn’t—five was hard enough. Though the clubs kept falling, the two kept juggling, their hands working with happy diligence for another thirty minutes.

He was now 45 minutes late for his appointment. At 6:15 p.m., he finally left.

For Mr. Greg Owsley, math instructor, teaching at Rockhurst is not just an eight o’clock to three o’clock job. It’s an eight o’clock to three o’clock livelihood plus overtime, minus breaks, plus weekends and, yes, sometimes plus Fridays until six.

“I don’t feel like I have a job. Every day I wake up to do something interesting with my time—teaching,” Mr. Owsley said.

He said the same thing in his job interview at Rockhurst.

“He looked at me and he said ‘I’ve taught students here (during the summer) and this is something I’m incredibly happy doing,’” Mr. David Laughlin, former principal who hired Mr. Owsley in 2005-2006, said.

It all began when Mr. Owsley returned to Rockhurst to casually chat with teachers, during his sophomore year in college. He informally walked into the weight room, where he knew he’d find his former math teacher Mr. Frank Lyngar.

“How you doing, Greg?” Mr. Lyngar greeted him with a smile.

And they talked—about sports, current events and life.

“So what’s up with you? What are you doing in college?” His teacher asked him.

“I’ve just switched my major to mathematics.”

“Well, what are you going to do with that?”

“I don’t know. I just know that I like it.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Who knows, maybe I’ll end up here teaching.”

Only Mr. Owsley started laughing at his joke.

Then, with complete seriousness and sincerity in his voice, Mr. Lyngar said, “If math actually interests you, I may be able to get you a job this summer teaching incoming freshmen.”

And he did. Mr. Lyngar met with Mr. Scott Duschen, assistant principal of academic affairs, and convinced him to hire Mr. Owsley, a person he had never met.

“I worked really, really hard to get him that summer job. When [Mr. Owsley] was a student, he had a real love for learning. That day we talked about his future, I saw all kinds of potential,” Mr. Lyngar said.

As a collegiate freshman, Mr. Owsley almost took this potential to the field of cognitive sciences, which includes: psychology, philosophy, linguistics, computer science and neuroscience.

He wanted to see how the brain worked. Only by chance did he continue taking a math course.

“I was doing well in cognitive science, but only B+/A- well. I knew that if this was for me, I should have been getting straight A’s,” Mr. Owsley said.

He was getting straight A’s in math. And, every day, he was becoming more and more interested in numbers.

Some nights, he and friends would break into the math department building; its door was easy to pull open.

“He always had to finish every assignment, even if it meant staying up till 4 a.m.,” Mrs. Beth Chandler, friend of Mr. Owsley, said.

“Math was always there. I always did well in it. But not until I explored academics did I realize how much I loved math,” Mr. Owsley said.

It was the second semester of his junior year at Rochester University. He sat near the front of the room, frantically scribbling down notes and intently listening to a lecture.

But then, Mr. Stephen Gonek, his professor, stopped. The class had just finished a very hard problem. A pause. A sigh of happiness. Another pause. Mr. Gonek turned to the board and wrote something Mr. Owsley would never forget: “A day without math is like a day without sunshine.”

Four years have passed since that moment, and Mr. Owsley has always brought a sunny optimism to class with him every day.

“Looking back on my freshman year, I just joined the juggling club because I really liked Mr. Owsley freshman year. Even after a couple months, I trusted him and wanted to be around him more,” senior Jacob Huffman, three-year math student of Mr. Owsley’s and juggling club member, said.

Not only do his students trust Mr. Owsley, but Mr. Owsley trusts his students.

It was his second semester of full-time teaching. The first few months had gone by fast. All he remembers is juggling ten minutes every Friday to reward students for their work.

Eventually, Garret Woodford and Chris Tate, freshmen at the time, came to Mr. Owsley to start up the juggling club.

“He told us, he wasn’t going to do anything to help us start the club. If the club was going to be successful, it was us students who would have had to do everything,” Mr. Woodford, class of 2007, said.

Mr. Owsley places responsibility in the hands of students because he believes that’s the only way his students will succeed. But he still does almost anything he can to teach students the value of responsibility.

“Knowledge is not something I can give to a student. Learning doesn’t work that way. The knowledge is out there somewhere. As a teacher, I can open up this metaphorical door and point to the knowledge,” Mr. Owsley said.

He’s so passionate about student accomplishment largely because not too long ago he himself was a student. In some ways, he’s re-fulfilling his Rockhurst student career.

“Probably my biggest regret is not participating in Math Club. I remember being invited to a meeting, but for some reason I didn’t go. I always wish I would have given the club a shot,” Mr. Owsley said.

In short, he’s a student at heart, always has been.

That’s why he wrote a letter to the administration his junior year of high school, arguing why chess players should receive a varsity letter. He became the first chess club member to receive that letter. I wanted chess players to feel pride and accomplishment like any other sport player felt.

That’s why he bought a Flip Video, so he could record his lectures and post them online. I have to do what it takes so students don’t fall behind.

That’s why he has his AP Calculus 2 class read the math-theory book “Godell Escher Bach.” I’ve loved that book since the time I read it my senior year of high school.

That’s why he spent eight hours every day for three summer weeks cranking through prep book after prep book, probability problem after probability problem. He says he was weak at probability and statistics. How could I teach my students this lesson if I haven’t mastered it.

That’s why he spends so much of his own time studying and emulating juggling professionals. I have to offer students something new every day.

That’s why he writes the following quote on the Smart Board every first day of summer school, the same quote Mr. Gonek taught him: A day without math is like a day without sunshine.

He always said he wanted to figure out how the brain works. Funny thing is, it’s the student brain he’s figuring out.

“And,” as Mr. Lyngar put it, “he’s doing a really good job of it.”