STARKVILLE – This past weekend a seventh-grade athlete named Kate Mattox learned it’s okay to do nothing more than win her event.
Everybody around her from parents, coaches and teammates realize she’s got five more years to break the time records she wants to shatter every time she laces up her running shoes.
“I need to learn I’m not going to run my best time every time I run but that’s not what it’s about sometimes – sometimes it’s about doing my best and figuring out how to win for my team,” Mattox said.
This week’s Dispatch Prep Player of the Week, Mattox made the most of her two events at the Class 5A state championship track meet as a member of the Starkville High School squad Friday by winning both the 3200-meter race and the 1600-meter races. Despite being literally head and shoulders smaller than her high school competition at most five years older then her, the current Armstrong Middle School student had to be convinced her result was not only good enough but highly impressive.
“She wants the competition and to be honest I’ve never coached anybody as talented as her at that young of an age,” SHS coach Caroline Woomer said. “She’s not arrogant but she just loves to run. It’s what she was born to do right now.”
Seeing the older, bigger and stronger athletes in her events is not something that even fazes Mattox any longer in competition.
“I guess it’s something I’ve learned to get over by now,” Mattox said. “It doesn’t bother me. I know that doesn’t matter when the race starts.”
The individual state medal has been to Mattox’s trophy case to be included with the addition of the cross country championship she won back in the fall season.
“She makes her older high school teammates work harder but they take care of her on this team too,” Woomer said. “They come to me and say ‘We’ll watch her back’ and it’s a family atmosphere on my team.”
Woomer has sold Mattox and her parents a plan of slow progression for the young runner in the hopes that she can handle each and every step of Kate’s development as an athlete.
“When she gets into high school, I’ll let her go a little bit more but right now,” Woomer said. “My major concern with her is to protect her body and keep her from breaking down with injuries. It’s hard though because during practice she doesn’t even want to take my required break periods.”
With Mattox’s fiery passion for the sport and competition in general, holding back her young runner becomes an interesting task for Woomer and her coaching staff.
“It’s funny because when we put her out for the regional round during cross country season, she misfired three different times at the starting line,” Woomer said. “For me it’s kind of like watching a championship thoroughbred get in the starting gate. You’re more worried about getting her started and then when she gets in a rhythm.”
Mattox’s goals include following in the footsteps of University of Florida sophomore cross country runner Cory McGee.
“I know that everybody trying to do what’s best for me because they care about me and that’s a great feeling,” Mattox said.
Mattox began to follow the Pass Christian native through newspaper articles that would have her times as a middle school runner and wants to find a college program just like 2010 Mississippi Class 4A state champion in the 800-meter and 1,600-meter races.
“I finally got to meet her and she’s my idol because we just both love to run more than anything in the world,” Mattox said. “She was able to get a full-ride from Florida and I’d love to be able to have that happen for me when it’s time.”
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