MILL CREEK — It had all the aspects of a typical birthday party: dozens of friends and relatives, thoughtful words and a big cake.
But instead of celebrating another year of life, the three guests of honor at this gathering celebrated their equally bright opportunities.
Kristi Kingma, Danny Oh and Ashley Todd on Wednesday all officially accepted full college athletic scholarships. During an afternoon ceremony in the Jackson High School library, the three Jackson seniors each signed a NCAA National Letter of Intent on the first day of the early signing period.
Kingma signed with the University of Washington women’s basketball program, Oh with University of California baseball and Todd with Penn State University softball.
Jackson baseball coach Kirk Nicholson introduced the senior trio to a crowd of nearly 100. Kingma, Oh and Todd set a great example for aspiring student-athletes, Nicholson said. In addition to their athletic prowess, the three Division-I recruits excel in academics.
“If that’s not a showcase for all you athletes out there of how to do things right, I don’t know what is. They make it easy for the colleges to say, ‘We want you,’” Nicholson said.
The respective grade-point averages of Kingma, Oh and Todd are 3.89, 3.6 and 3.7.
The weeklong NCAA early signing period for several sports started 7 a.m. Wednesday and goes through Nov. 21. Many other local student-athletes also signed Wednesday. (See chart at right.)
Kingma, The Herald’s 2006-2007 All-Area Girls Basketball Player of the Year, is also a soccer and track standout. But being a great athlete has never been her lone goal.
“To be a good athlete you need to be good at academics,” she said, “because you’re not gonna get anywhere unless you’re good at that.”
Todd, a softball shortstop who also plays on Jackson’s girls basketball team with Kingma, said it was “awesome” to have so many friends, coaches and relatives attend the afternoon ceremony. The achievement meant even more, Todd said, because she shared it with Kingma, her longtime friend. Kingma and Todd started playing sports together in kindergarten.
The three Jackson seniors all wore apparel covered with logos of their future college teams and listened to their prep coaches reel off an impressive collective list of honors.
“Because of her God-given talent and her relentless pursuit of being the best player she can be, she’s gotten where she is today,” Jackson softball coach Mike Moran said of Todd, who helped the Timberwolves win the past three Western Conference South Division championships.
Baseball America named Oh the No. 1 Class of 2008 prospect in Washington, coach Nicholson said. With a special mix of classiness and talent, the center fielder “truly deserves to move on and play at the next level,” said Nicholson.
Jackson girls basketball coach Jeannie Thompson met Kingma when the future Husky guard was an eighth-grader. Even then, Kingma made a powerful impression, Thompson said: “She just had this incredible fire and competitiveness, drive — everything about her. She wants to win and she’ll do whatever she can to win.”
As the ceremony wrapped up and the three recruits enjoyed cake, coach Nicholson reflected: “This is an easy group to say nice things about. They are wonderful kids.”
Contact Herald Writer Mike Cane at mcane@heraldnet.com. For more high school sports news, check out the prep sports blog Double Team at www.heraldnet.com/doubleteam.
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