NW Now pages - Northwest Mississippi Community College

High Tech Success
Scholar-athlete finds teamwork
key to conquering IT challenges
By Sarah Sapp
Former Northwest basketball superstar
Calvin Madlock, a scholar-athlete during his
1979-81 tenure at Northwest, is now applying
the leadership skills and teamwork he
learned on the court to his job as director of
Information Technology Services at Antelope
Valley College District in Lancaster, Calif.—
providing administrative and instructional
technology services for approximately
20,000 students and 1,200 employees
annually—following a six-year stint as Los
Angeles Community College District information
technology project manager, where he
served over 130,000 students per year and
12,000 employees within a nine-campus district.
So how did this Northwest Ranger go
from shooting hoops in Howard Coliseum to
creating fully integrated campus-wide information
systems for the largest community
college district in the nation?
Madlock excelled on the basketball court
and sailed through his physical education curriculum
with straight A’s at Northwest. He
was voted Mr. NWJC and was named Who's
Who Among Students in American
Universities and Colleges. With both academic
and athletic scholarships in front of him,
Madlock accepted a full athletic scholarship
to Northwestern State University in
Natchitoches, La. Despite his athletic aptitude
to make it in professional sports regardless
of his academic performance in college,
Madlock challenged himself with a major in
computer and information systems and
earned the Academic All-American Award in
recognition of his athletic ability and his academic
accomplishments.
After earning his Bachelor of Science in
computer information systems, Madlock
moved to the west coast to pursue professional
basketball, but multiple injuries interfered
time and time again, beginning with
professional basketball camp tryouts and following
him through French Olympic Team and
Magic Johnson’s All-Stars tryouts. Madlock
decided to make the best out of his situation
and, at the age of 26, put all of his energy
into pursuing his career in information technology.
He began his ascent in IT with an
entry-level position as a computer operator at
Hughes Aircraft, but quickly moved up to
computer programmer. Feeling confident in
his programming skills after working as a
computer programmer for Hughes Aircraft,
Rockwell International and United Airlines,
Madlock set out on his own to start a computer
consulting company, Madlock Services,
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