tayla jackson

basketball school: Brookswood (Langley) freshman’s future: California-Irvine

Tayla Jackson remembers her first high school basketball experience, back in the fall of 2010, when she anxiously strode into the gym at Langley’s Brookswood Secondary.

“It was the day of senior tryouts,” Jackson remembers. “I was only in Grade 8, I was sick, and I thought that I would just watch.”

Turns out head coach Neil Brown had other ideas.

“He came up to me and he asked, ‘Do you like No. 44? It’s Todd Bertuzzi’s number,’” Jackson recalls. “He said that it was the only number he had left for the senior girls’ team. He asked me if it was OK if I played for him. I was lanky, 14, had braces and couldn’t make a layup. Who would take a chance like that?”

Well, not only did Jackson become the first player within her high school’s legendary girls basketball program to play all five of her seasons at the senior varsity level, she capped it off by winning back-to-back B.C. Triple A championships as her team’s athletic 6-foot-2 post. In late April she was selected Basketball B.C.’s high school player of the year.

“The excitement is setting in,” admits Jackson, who in the fall embarks on her collegiate career at NCAA Div. 1 California-Irvine. “But it’s also becoming more realistic that I am leaving home. I know it can’t be all rainbows and butterflies. I know how great it is going to be down there, but I also know I might get homesick. I am thankful I am going to have a great support system down there.”

Yet as a decidedly non-typical student-athlete through her years at Brookswood, it’s a safe bet that Jackson will grow into the kind of teammate who helps others find their post-secondary stride.

“I’ve have been told that I have a very mature way to deal with the conflicts in my life,” she admits.

It’s a skill set that she has put to good use in the hallways of her school, volunteering as both a peer mentor for Brookswood’s annual incoming class of Grade 8’s, and sitting as the school’s rep for its planning council, where she acts as a voice for her student body.

“It makes me feel good to know that we all have more than one purpose here,” she explains.

It wasn’t too soon after her first tryout that Tayla Jackson’s size and athleticism came to the fore for all to see.

And while she had expectations placed on her that day, which may have seemed larger than her size 12 sneakers, she pulled the laces tight and put her best foot forward. Now, she leaves behind an awfully big pair of shoes to fill.