THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080448
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 225 lines
The blond ponytail, white shirt and gray boxers whizzed past Kendall Tata in a blur.
It was 1993 and Tata, track coach at Kempsville High, was conditioning the field hockey team at Mount Trashmore.
``Who are you?'' she asked the girl.
``Adrienne Parker,'' the freshman answered.
They had never met, but Tata recognized something familiar in Parker. She was so fast. Tata wondered out loud if Parker could run the next three intervals of 200 meters faster than the ones she'd just completed.
She'd try, Parker told her, dashing off to fly up the incline as she had before. Her first 200 was faster than any of her previous. Then came the second, which was better than her first. And the third, faster than her second.
``Adrienne, what do you do in the spring? Do you run track?'' Tata asked.
Parker shot back a perplexed stare. ``Track? No, ma'am. I play softball.''
For now, Tata thought silently, realizing what it was about Parker that she recognized. Her round face with those hungry blue eyes showed off an eagerness that reminded the coach of the fastest female miler in Hampton Roads history. Her name was Kendall Tata, and it is all over the Kempsville High School record books.
A few years later, Parker's name is in there, too.
Parker, now a senior, is the premier female distance runner in Hampton Roads and has been since her sophomore year. This fall, on the heels of an invitational in Australia for elite cross country runners, she holds the top spot in the weekly Virginian-Pilot poll. The Eastern Region champion in the 1,600 and 3,200 last spring, Parker eclipsed the meet's 16-year-old record of 5 minutes, 4.2 seconds in the 1,600, winning in 5:02.1 The record she broke had belonged to Tata.
``We share it; we share that record, right, A?'' Tata says to Parker, who agrees with a smile.
Tata, now the boys and girls track and cross country coach at Kempsville, and Parker share more than that. Theirs is a special relationship; if not unique in high school, it is most unusual. Athletes and coaches often become almost kin because of the daily teamwork essential to success. But Tata and Parker are Team Adrienne within Team Kempsville. They are buddies, confidants and, sometimes, traveling companions, as Tata accompanied Parker to Australia and to last year's prep nationals in San Diego.
Tata lives barely five minutes away from the Parkers, and the two are frequent guests in each other's homes. When Parker received a telephone in her room for her 17th birthday last month, her first call was to Tata - at 5:30 a.m. Tata's gift to her was the original metal plate of the newspaper story and accompanying photograph of Adrienne breaking Tata's regional mile record. Neatly mounted, it hangs in the Parker foyer.
``She was my confirmation sponsor; we go to the same church,'' Parker says. ``She's someone I can trust and respect, and that goes both ways. She's a great coach. Whether it's training or other stuff, I always know she knows what she's talking about.''
Parker is not a reincarnation of Tata, the most accomplished female distance runner in Hampton Roads history, who never lost a district or regional race en route to earning three state titles. Yes, both favor the mile and also excel in field hockey. But Tata, now 34 - Hampton Roads' only state cross country champion, male or female - was on the cutting edge of female distance running, says her former coach George Piccillo, now coaching at Ocean Lakes.
``She ran at a time when there were few female athletes,'' he says. The depth and quality of competition is better today, Piccillo says, one reason why Parker is still chasing her first state title.
Parker is the more muscular of the two, taller and less tomboyish - a mainstay on the Chiefs' homecoming court and dating the school's star soccer player. She is a neatnik and sentimentalist. The antique oak furniture in her bedroom is adorned with snapshots, postcards, tin foil crowns, her first pair of running shoes and ticket stubs from the circus, soccer games and a James Taylor concert.
``I'm a saver,'' Parker confesses.
And a competitor, Tata says, much like herself as a teenager.
``We click,'' Tata says. ``I could tell in her eyes when I met her that there was so much. She was eager. I knew that running would be her sport before she did.''
Parker admits it took a while for her to realize that.
``At Arrowhead, my elementary school, we had field day and we'd have to run sprints,'' she says. ``My P.E. coach would make me wait until the other girls got almost all the way around the track before he let me go to try and catch them.''
Still, running was something she did in her front yard, playing chase with brother Mark, 16 months her junior. In high school she planned to play field hockey, and in the spring, softball. Then she met Tata, who urged her to try track. As long as she could still play softball, Parker agreed. That meant softball practice from 2:30 to 5 after school, followed by two hours of conditioning with Tata at Mount Trashmore.
If a game interfered with that routine, Parker still carried her running shoes and ran afterward at Trashmore.
``Sometimes my mom would be out there with a flashlight, or we'd use the tennis court lights because it was getting dark,'' she recalls.
Parker liked how her body felt after a hard workout and the mental toughness she gained from constantly pushing herself to better each performance. Running was growing on her. Enjoying races - that took more time. Try just one, Tata urged.
Parker's first cross country race was the ``C'' division of the William and Mary Invitational as a sophomore.
Tata's instructions: `` `Go out with the lead pack and hang off them. By the time you get out of the woods, be in the lead and find your way back.' ''
Parker aced the plan by winning the race and afterward told Tata, ``I like cross country. I like it a lot.''
But she enjoyed field hockey, too, and the night before tryouts her junior year, Parker sat stewing. Field hockey tryouts were at 8 the next morning, cross country at 9. It wasn't until her mother, Michelle, woke her shortly after 7 that Parker became definitive.
``No, Mom,'' she said. ``I don't have to be there until 9.''
``I never thought I wouldn't play field hockey before. I always thought I could do both,'' Parker says. ``I decided I wanted to be totally dedicated to running. And if it was going to make me a better or stronger runner, then I was willing to give it up.''
Along the way her friendship with Tata blossomed. They often jog together the day before a meet and then run warmdowns to rehash it. Parker says they're talkers as they run, nonstop, ``about anything and everything. It usually starts with `How was your day?' and goes from there.''
Tata requires each runner on the Kempsville team to keep a journal that she reads weekly, writing back with thoughts of her own.
``Adrienne and I have a couple of books now,'' she says.
While their bond is unique, it is not so consuming that Tata forgets the rest of her team. The kind of energy she used to reserve for running, she now utilizes as a coach.
Tata is weaker then she'd like, weight loss attributed to a mysterious jaw problem that makes it all but impossible for her to eat much more than soup and soft foods. Adrienne and her mom have helped - Michelle has driven Tata to doctors' appointments in Blacksburg; Adrienne frequently drops off egg drop soup and salad. Despite almost chronic fatigue, if a team member needs her, Tata is there, often hoarsely cheering on the rest of her kids in other athletic endeavors.
``She's every parent's dream as a coach; she tells your kid what you'd tell your kid, only they listen to her,'' says Suzy Seidel, whose son and daughter run cross country. ``She's in it for two reasons: the love of the sport and the betterment of a child.''
Parker, who universally calls her coach ``Miss Tata,'' endures the same drills as her teammates in practice - including 350 sit-ups - and Tata says she almost goes out of her way to assure no special treatment is perceived.
``If anything, I talk less to Adrienne at practice,'' she says. ``I'm very conscientious about that because at practice, we're all equal.''
These days, practices focus on districts later this month and regionals, but outside of practice, Tata and Parker have talked college, a sobering subject for Tata. Her own career at the University of Virginia was cut short when she suffered four compound stress fractures in her left tibia as a freshman. Tata was unhappy with her treatment there and eventually transferred to James Madison to play field hockey.
She and Parker have created a list of questions for Parker to ask interested coaches.
``I am protective. For me, I need to have a good feeling about the coach,'' Tata says. ``But I want Adrienne to go where she wants to go, and I'm not going to say anything positive or negative about a school.'' But she adds, ``We have such a relationship that she could probably tell if I was withholding information.''
Parker, who holds a 3.7 GPA, is receiving all kinds of mail, but she hasn't narrowed any choices down, although she mentions U.Va., William and Mary, and North Carolina. She plans to study sports medicine and sports psychology. And while running under a coach who is not Tata will be an adjustment, Parker is determined to continue the friendship.
``Letters, phone calls, whatever it takes,'' she says.
Tata nods. ``We have many miles left to run together.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color] Photos by HUY NGUYEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Kendall Tata encourages Adrienne Parker. ``She's someone I can trust
and respect. . . . She's a great coach,'' Parker says.
Adrienne Parker leads teammates in a cheer. The area's top-ranked
cross country runner, she also is the region champion in the 1,600
and 3,200 meters.
Among the family photos is a picture of the two hugging after Parker
broke Tata's Eastern Region record in the 1,600.
HUY NGUYEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Adrienne Parker and her Kempsville teammates take five before a race
at Mount Trashmore. Parker endures the same drills as her teammates
in practice - including 350 sit-ups - and coach Kendall Tata says
she almost goes out of her way to assure that no special treatment
is perceived.
Coach Kendall Tata, left, and Adrienne Parker look over college
brochures. Parker, who has a 3.7 GPA, has not narrowed her choices
but lists Virginia, William and Mary and North Carolina as
possibilities.
Kendall Tata, left, shouts encouragement to Adrienne Parker and her
teammates. The coach and pupil often jog together. Parker says
they're talkers as they run, nonstop, ``about anything and
everything.
GRAPHIC
TATA VS. PARKER
KENDALL TATA
State titles: 3
Regional titles: 8
District titles: 8
Holds school records in the 1,600 (4:57); the 3,200 (10:42.1) and
the 800 (2:12.8).
Winner of John Tucker Award for excellence in women's athletics from
Virginia Beach Sports Club
ADRIENNE PARKER
State titles: 0
Regional titles: 4
District titles: 6
Holds regional meet record in the mile (5:02.1), broke Tata's record
of 5:04.2. Holds school record in cross country (18:18).
Finished 8th in the Footlocker Classic and 28th in high school
national meet. Winner of John Tucker Award for excellence in women's
athletics from Virginia Beach Sports Club.
Named cross country runner of the year past two years by Norfolk
Sports Club.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB