A giant leap ahead of the competition
St. Mary’s-Berkeley girls track and field coach Jeff Rogers invariably is looking for someone with hops on campus.
Still Cal’s high-jump record holder (7 feet, 5¾ inches), the 21-year coach has an eye for the leapers, bounders and sprinters.
Someone like Kali Hatcher, when she entered as a freshman.
“There are a few who have a bounce in their step like Kali,” Rogers said. “People always say that someone runs like a deer. Kali truly does.”
The 17-year-old senior hopes to finish off a stellar career by finally bounding to the top of the state-meet podium.
Hatcher finished second in the triple jump last season (a wind-aided 41-1¼) after placing third (39-8¾) as a sophomore. She was also sixth last year in the long jump (a wind-aided 18-11¼).
This season, she beat all of the state’s best triple jumpers at the Arcadia Invitational in a personal-best 42-3¼ and has long jumped 19-6, fourth best in the state.
But you won’t hear the versatile and analytical Columbiabound
athlete talk so much about personal glory, but as simply being “the best I can be” and “making sure everything is technically in order.”
Beyond that, she’s hoping to lead the Panthers to possible team titles, starting Friday and Saturday at the North Coast Meet of Champions, and then possibly even at the state meet in Clovis (Fresno County) the following weekend.
Most of the points St. Mary’s collects will come courtesy of Hatcher. She’s also the top seed and defending MOC 300-meter hurdles champion and certainly will be a part of one of the Panthers’ top-rated 400 or 1,600 relay teams.
By rule, she can compete in only four events.
“We wish we could run her in five events,” Rogers joked. “We’re definitely going to ride her as much as we can. But the head scratcher is you don’t want to run the kid who could win two state titles into the ground the week before the meet. If we weren’t in the team title picture, it would be a different story. Kali is a great team type of athlete and just a super kid.”
Said Hatcher: “It sounds weird, but my teammates are extensions of me. St. Mary’s is a family. I wouldn’t have done as well as I have if it wasn’t for my teammates. We’re a true team.”
She’s a straight-A student who takes AP physics and calculus courses. Rogers describes her as an “extrovert, gregarious and very sweet.
“But you can’t let that sweetness fool you. In competition, she’s not only competitive, but very introspective, analytical, curious. All those academic traits come out.”
She was born to run and jump.
Her father, Michael, was a 47-foot triple jumper at St. Mary’s and Merritt College, and her paternal grandmother, Christine, was a sprinter at then-Presentation-Berkeley.
The key to unleash all that athleticism and to “run like a deer,” she said, was taught through her training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Her dad, who competed in mixed martial arts, got her involved in the sport at 8. She reached the pinnacle for her age, a green belt, when she was 15. But competing at both sports — combined with her academic work load — was too much, so she dropped jiu-jitsu at 16. That doesn’t mean she has forgotten what she learned.
“It’s about getting through something that is painful,” she said. “Running the 400 is just painful. You want to stop running but you can’t.
“Beyond that, I loved it because it’s so technical. I think that is why I enjoy triple jump best. It’s more like chess. I can focus on the things I need to fix.”