South Greene’s Ava Clark isn’t finished with her high school track and field career. But when she is, she’ll take her athletic ability to Carson-Newman University after signing with the school on Monday.
“It’s amazing,” Clark said. “I’ve grown up around sports my entire life so it just makes sense to go and do it four more years.”
Clark has had a stellar four years on the South Greene track team, culminating in a senior year in which she has qualified in four events for the state meet, as well as helping the Lady Rebels to the Class A East Section championship.
She travels to compete in the state pentathlon on Tuesday and will also compete in the 100-meter hurdles, the 4x200 and 4x800 relay teams at next week’s state competition.
“Track has alway been really special to me,” Clark said. “Coach (Joe) Case has made it the best four years ever. Whenever I came to high school, coach Case found me in the hall and said, ‘Hey, I think you’d be good at track. I think I want you on my track team.’”
At first, Clark didn’t want to try out, but she finally gave it a try and it turned out to be a great idea. Now she holds four school records, two being the 100-meter hurdle record of 16.12 and the pentathlon points record of 2,455. She is also part of the school’s 4x100 and 4x200 relay records.
“When I went there, I knew,” Clark said of why she chose Carson Newman. “It kind of felt like home. The coaches there are great and I just felt really welcomed.”
While at Carson-Newman, Clark said she’ll focus on long jump and hurdling, which was funny to her as she hated running the hurdles when she first started.
“My freshman and sophomore years, I was like, ‘I do not want to do this, coach Case,’” she said with a laugh. “Because I had to practice for the pentathlon. I was like ‘Coach Case, this is so hard. I’m not even going to hit the 16s.’ And this year, I’ve made an incredible improvement and I’m really proud of myself and I’m happy that I have had such a great coach to help me improve like that.”
While at Carson-Newman, Clark said she plans on studying biology with the goal of going into the the medical field.
“My mom has always been really interested in the medical field,” she said. “She has biology books in the basement and I’ve always been interested in our human anatomy. I really just want to help people at the end of the day.
Clark added, “These last four years have been the most amazing four years of my life. I’ve met so many people that I’ve built memories with. They are my family now. Coach Case, I could call him up right now and he’d be there for me. It’s just really special having people to run track with and really special to win victories like the ones we just won (at sections).”
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