STARKVILLE — Jaquarius Wilson knows better than most that Kaelin Kersh was someone people went out of their way to get to know.
Wilson entered the Mississippi State track and field program with Kersh as a freshman in the fall of 2013. The two bonded immediately and built a friendship that began in the halls of the dormitory they shared and stayed strong through their graduations last weekend.
Wilson, the MSU track and field team, the MSU athletic department, and others remembered and mourned Kersh at a prayer group Monday afternoon. Kersh, 22, was killed in a car accident just days after graduating from MSU.
“I thank God for putting her in my life,” Wilson said. “Anytime I saw her it would be something positive. I’m glad she was in my life. She was a good influence.”
Wilson and Kersh became friends as freshmen. They played basketball or had Nerf gun battles. Sometimes Wilson said he and other friends would go to Kersh’s apartment “just to mess with her.”
“Kaelin’s always been part of the squad,” Wilson said.
Kersh’s ability to make friends and build relationships are the same qualities MSU coach Steve Dudley hopes his athletes adopt in her memory.
“I’ve got to do better. We’ve got to do better. We have to approach life more like Kaelin did,” Dudley said. “She loved everybody. She faced the world and anything in her way with her smile and heart. So my challenge, especially to those of you and the team that were close with her, you take that love for Kaelin, you take every bit of it, you put it in your heart and you leave it there the rest of your days.”
In doing so, Dudley has seen a team that already was close come together for one another. He said his student-athletes are behaving like Kersh did.
“We live in a world where society and the universe wants us to continuously pick sides. Religion, society wants you to pick a side; politics, society wants you to pick a side,” Dudley said. “We’ve talked about this with our team. There’s either good or bad. There are no other teams.
“If we had more Kaelins in the world, with her smile and her heart, we wouldn’t have to be picking sides. She was on the good-person side.”
Many of the attendees stayed for several minutes following the prayer group to exchange hugs and encouraging words. A small group of track and field athletes did the same, but peeled away early and made their way to the track to begin stretching for practice for the Southeastern Conference meet, which begins at 9:15 a.m. Thursday at South Carolina’s Cregger Track in Columbia, South Carolina. Dudley said he has heard from South Carolina about having a moment of silence or other measures to honor Kersh at the meet.
“South Carolina was gracious enough to ask how that would affect our team” Kersh said, “but you’re not going to do anything that would affect our team. They’re too together.”
As for competing without Hersh, Dudley said there was never a doubt what the team would do. It will do as Kersh would have done.
“Kaelin never quit,” Dudley said. “We’re not going to quit, either.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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