Time Sprints

Talking with Coach Kenny Parker about his Port St. Joe High School girls’ track team it was astonishing to remember that this is the last month in the scholastic track and field career of one of the finest athletes this county has ever seen.

Or in the case of track and field, never seen.

For it is a shame that Kayla Parker will graduate from Port St. Joe High next month having never run a race, leaped a hurdle, jumped 18 feet toward a sand pit in her home town.

And that is too bad.

For the argument could be made the Kayla Parker is one of the most under-appreciated athletes I have ever covered or encountered.

One of the great aspects of this job, at least for this reporter, has been the opportunity, no matter how rare they sometimes become, to come in contact with fine young people.

Having started a career long ago in sports there is a special affinity for athletes, and watching them progress is so often a source of outright joy.

Zac Norris was a fine young man, a member of a state football championship team, a state champion in the discus, a top student and a gracious and humble young adult.

To read now that in his final season of college eligibility he will be anchoring the starting offensive line for the University of Central Florida – after walking on to the team two years removed from playing competitive football while he pursued his education at Gulf Coast Community College and helped coach the Port St. Joe Middle School football team – provides a sense of pride.

Here is a young man who took full advantage of good parenting and growing up in a nurturing community to fashion something for which he will be able to point with pride for the rest of his life.

At the same time, it almost seems like yesterday that Zac was helping the Tiger Sharks fight their way to the state Class 1A football title. Seems almost like last night I saw him coaching and mentoring younger kids.

That is how it feels with Kayla Parker.

It seems like almost yesterday that she was setting a national age-group record in the 100 meter hurdles – while in middle school.

Today, as a senior, she ranks fourth nationally this season among high school girls in the same event. Fourth in the country. Not the district, region or state, but the nation.

That is an astonishing arc of growth and honing of athletic skills.

That she is headed to the University of Kentucky next year to compete in what might be the toughest track and field conference in the nation, the Southeastern Conference, is well-known and deserved.

But in four, five, 10 years those who are witnessing what Parker has accomplished will fully understand just what we are witnessing.

Hindsight is like that.

Too often the rearview mirror offers the clearest visions and the guess here is that full appreciation for what we have been blessed to watch the past five years or so won’t come until down the road.

That doesn’t mean it is not worth the effort.

In three years at the state track and field meet Parker has earned 11 medals, including nine gold medals. If only her points were calculated, she would have finished in the top 5 in the team competition each year – by herself.

She has also led the Lady Tiger Sharks to consecutive appearances in the Region 1-2A basketball title game, the team racking up 20 wins each of the past two seasons.

Kayla is also among the most well-rounded students one could find, a student government leader, a top student.

And despite her prodigious talents and athletic ability, she is also well-grounded, pleasant to talk to her, an individual who thinks of team and does not place herself above others even though she has more than earned the right to do so.

That is good parenting, good coaching and again, a nurturing community.

But, to this mind, Kayla Parker has never really received her proper due.

Maybe, in part, it is because she is female. Even after more than two decades of Title IX, even after the support in recent years from the Women Athletes Supporting Women Athletes (WASWA) there is still not sufficient attention paid to girls sports.

And, unfortunately, because of the state of the track surface at Port St. Joe High School, among other factors, Kayla has never appeared before a hometown crowd on the track.

The community is lesser for that.

But in this final month, with her team and she on a mission to win another state title before a larger stage beckons, Kayla Parker should be appreciated for what she represents, who she is and what she has accomplished, on and off tracks and basketball courts.

This is a special young lady who has been sprinting through our midst the past several years.

The time too short to fully comprehend just how special Kayla Parker has been in representing Port St. Joe and Gulf County.