Anyia Cole is a senior on the North Side girls’ soccer team as well as the cross country team.
She also performs in the band. And later in the year, she’ll be playing basketball for the Lady Indians.
On top of all that, she’s currently ranked second in her class rankings.
“She definitely has figured out how to manage her time,” said North Side girls’ soccer coach Julie Zbozien.
Zobozien, Cole and other members of the Lady Indians’ soccer team traveled to Thelma Barker Elementary School last week to talk to the students there about what it takes to be a successful student-athlete.
“Student-athlete means I’m a student first, so I need to make sure to take care of my work in my classes before I take care of my extracurricular activities,” Cole said.
Cole and the other Lady Indians were at Thelma Barker to essentially give the students there that very message.
They talked to a couple hundred students there in the school’s backyard, where a couple of soccer goals were set up.
They discussed how much they enjoy playing sports at North Side and other things high school students get to do outside the classroom.
But they also talked about the requirements to be able to take part in those extra-curricular activities – the main one being showing up to school and doing well in class.
“Showing up is important because it’s hard to learn in class if you’re not in class,” Cole said. “But then you’ve got to pay attention and you’ve got to do the work.
“But it all starts with showing up to school being ready to learn.”
The appearance was one of the first done by a high school sports team in Jackson-Madison County Schools, and it’s part of a new initiative where older students will provide messages like this one to younger students in a nearby school.
“I wish we had something like this when I was here,” Cole said about her time at Thelma Barker. “I think it would’ve had an impact on a lot of students if someone had come back for us and told us about things like this that you’re not thinking about when you are in school.”
After the high school students were finished talking, they did an exhibition soccer match with some of the better players from Thelma Barker.
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
