OVIEDO, Fla.  - Kirby Rients has been described as a "pinball wizard" from time to time. He kindly disagrees with the title.

• Rients is currently an English teacher at Lennard High School
• Has battled lymphoma three times
• Competed in 2019 IFPA Florida State Pinball Championship Jan. 19

“Everybody says, 'oh Pinball Wizard.' I’m no wizard, but I love coming and just playing and having fun and making the most out of it,” he said. 

By profession, Rients is an English teacher at Lennard High School in Ruskin. But on the side, he's dabbled on and off in professional pinball for the last three decades, building a niche that is perfect for the Minnesota-native. 

“When Kirby walks into a room, the room lights up," Oviedo Pinball Lounge co-owner Kurt van Zyl said. "Even if it’s a room full of pinball machines that are already all lit up, the room just lights up.”

These days, his personality is electric. He's animated when he plays, and vocal when he's not. But it's been quite the road to this point.

“I’d have treatments that would last, my chemotherapy, I’d sit there for six hours, and then I’d have to go in the next day and have another five hour treatment," he said. "And I’d have to do this every two weeks.”

Three times Rients has gone face to face with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. But every time, what was once his hobby turned into his distraction.

“I could go through all the chemotherapy that I had. I could go through all the radiation treatments that I had. But the pinball therapy was what really did it for me and helped me through it,” Rients said. 

Pinball turned out to be a remedy not even a doctor could recommend.

“Your focus is inside of that machine and what’s going on in that little world under the glass," van Zyl said. "So when you’re playing pinball, you kind of forget about everything going on around you. “

During recovery, Rients would be surrounded by support from those in the pinball community, and it helped will him to the point where his lymphoma is now in remission once again.

“Pinball was my escape," he said. "It was my solace. And i was really happy that it helped me through with the mental type of therapy."

And his friends couldn't be happier to have him around.

“Kirby’s just always a really friendly guy, and really cares about everybody he knows and cares about pinball, and is a great representative of our sport if you will," van Zyl said. "And he also has some sweet jean shorts.”