Tayla Jackson and Sarah Chase always wanted to be in Head of the Class. Today’s the day
AND THEY DID: Star student-athletes inspired by previous newspaper features
In the not-too-distant future, we will unveil an edition of Head of the Class student-athletes who weren’t even born when our firstever special section was published back in June of 2000.
That day is still a few years away, yet through the months of work our team has invested in the publication of today’s 2015 edition, one that marks our 16th birthday, we have been humbled by the words of our own honourees, words that begin to suggest a level of instilled tradition we could have only hoped for when we embarked on this project so many years ago.
In the fall, Tayla Jackson of Brookswood Secondary in Langley, and Sarah Chase of Timberline Secondary in Campbell River will become California girls, Jackson as a basketball player just west of Los Angeles at the University of Cal-Irvine, and Chase as a volleyball player in San Francisco’s Bay Area at St. Mary’s College.
It has been through their thousands of hours of perseverance, both in the gym and the classrooms, that their collegiate dreams came true. Yet we here at The Province couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride when each, during interviews for their HOC section stories, volunteered the fact that seeing and reading Head of the Class at a young age proved a powerful form of inspiration in their lives.
“I think I might have been 13,” laughs the 6-foot Chase. “I can remember where I was. I was waiting in a car to go to beach volleyball practice and my mom had a copy of The Province with Head of the Class. I read all the articles. I saw all those athletes, going to places like UCLA. Being from a small town, I started to think to myself. ‘You know, I could do this; there is nothing stopping me from going to the NCAA and playing volleyball at the highest level. It kind of made an image for me, a goal that seemed so far away at the time. Grade 12 seemed like a million light years away that day. But from that day I had a timeline to get to that point.”
Adds the 6-foot-2 Jackson: “When I got to Grade 8, I found that I was playing with or against a lot of the girls that were in Head of the Class and I saw the pride they all had in it. It just really sent me over the edge, that it would be super cool if I was ever in Head of the Class. It’s being recognized for your accomplishments. And the other part I liked is that you got to look pretty. It wasn’t a basketball picture. I would see the girls in their dresses and just go. ‘Oh, that’s what she actually looks like.’ ”
Dressed for success
Formal wear has become the constant for each edition of Head of the Class.
For the entire nine-month competitive season in B.C. high school sports, as we report the stories of our athletes, they are photographed in competition, wearing their respective high school jerseys. But for Head of the Class, it’s the grad dresses, the gowns, the suits and tuxedos that best reflect the transition in their lives from high school to the next phase of their lives as university student-athletes.
Affirmation of that growing tradition? Chase and Jackson provided that.
“I had a volleyball practice earlier in the day,” remembers Chase, who had relocated to North Vancouver’s Sutherland Secondary for the second-half of her senior year so that she would be able to train with the nearby BCO club team. “(Before the photo shoot) I was thinking, ‘I get to wear a dress, and do my hair.’ I wasn’t very experienced with that stuff and going to it, I felt like I was on America’s Next Top Model.”
In fact, in order to be ready in early May for photographers Gerry Kahvrmann and Ric Ernst, who captured her at her statuesque best perched atop a stone in the middle of North Vancouver’s Lynn Creek, Chase had actually made an emergency trip all the way back to Campbell River for her final dress fitting. Jackson? Of our 20 HOC athletes this season, perhaps no one had more fun matching personality with outfit more than the Brookswood grad.
“First of all, I picked my dress as a joke,” begins Jackson, who possesses a level of maturity that allows her to celebrate the quirkiest parts of her nature. “I probably tried 40 dresses, but when I put that (pink) one on, I immediately fell in love with it. My room was pink until I was 13 and I had pink in my hair for a long time. It was just me: The punker, the rocker girl.”
Her professed love for Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne, the drum kit she rocked all through high school, it all fit perfectly, especially when she added the matching pink Converse sneakers before meeting Ernst and Kahrmann three weeks ago at the outdoor courts at New Westminster’s Pier Park for her photo shoot.
“I wanted to pick out something that would really bring out my personality.”
A chance to represent
All of our Head of the Class athletes have not only excelled in the classroom, but finished their senior varsity careers with outstanding accomplishments. Jackson and Chase are no different.
In fact you could say they really were head of the class in their respective sports.
In December, Chase was named The Province’s B.C. girls volleyball Player of the Year by a vote of B.C.’s CIS and NCAA coaches.
In April, Jackson was named the provincial girls basketball Player of the Year by Basketball B.C.
But beyond getting the chance to don a grad dress and attend a photo shoot, both Jackson and Chase say that for them, Head of the Class represents an even bigger picture.
For Chase, it’s about the journey she has embarked upon since being handed a copy of Head of the Class by her mom at just the right age.
“Right now I feel like I am living the dream,” says Chase, who has been living in Winnipeg the past number of weeks, training with Canada’s senior national women’s B volleyball team. “I had a lot of role models growing up and now, being able to inspire others, especially being from a small town, is so important. I hope I can show younger girls that if they work hard, they can be successful.” Jackson’s message? It’s indelibly marked just below her left shoulder blade in the form of a tattoo that reads ‘with pain comes strength’ and is accompanied by both the images of a blip from an electrocardiogram machine and a heart.
“I had heart surgery as a baby at 10 weeks,” says Jackson, who had her tattoo placed just above the scar that still remains from the operation, one that reminds her of the distance she has travelled to reach her goals. “I had a hole in my heart.”
The baby Tayla has certainly grown since that day, as have the rest of our 2015 Head of the Class. Next year, when we turn 17? We’re going to be the same age as a lot of our Class of 2016 honourees. And we hope, that much more ingrained in the lives of our studentathletes as a place to draw some early inspiration, because Head of the Class represents more than a once-a-year keepsake.
As you’ve read today, it can be the start of a daily attitude, and one that can begin by simply reading the paper as you head off to your next practice.