Shirley O’Day

etirement poses a whole new set of problems for former Health and P.E. Professor Shirley O’Day, such as which piece of wood to carve next and whether to bake or broil the fish she catches off the city pier in Tampa Bay. But one thing she never has to worry about is her commute to work—her “office” is a carving shed she had built in her backyard so she wouldn’t drag sawdust into the house.

O’Day, who worked at Rowan from 1963 to 1990, coached tennis, basketball and lacrosse and was the director of graduate studies her last 12 years. In 1976, she fell in love with Ana Maria, Fla. and built her retirement home a block from the Gulf of Mexico five years later.

Today she fishes for sheephead November through mid-April and catches enough to supply herself and many friends with cleaned and packaged fish. And when she’s not fishing, she’s carving waterfowl (like Ibis below). Throughout the year she travels to shows to sell her carvings, but O’Day prefers to soak up the Florida sunshine year round.

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