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Foster becomes a juggling master

 
Published May 8, 2003|Updated Sept. 1, 2005

(ran PC edition)

Alison Foster has an Advanced Placement U.S. History test 8 a.m. Friday.

She also has to compete in the shot put and discus in the Class 3A, Region 3 track meet at the University of South Florida in Tampa at 1 p.m.

Whatever is an honor student to do?

"You have to be there at 8, and it starts at 9 and it will go until around noon, hopefully," Foster said. "But all my tests have gone an hour late this week.

"I'm not supposed to, but I will probably be speeding."

When has she not had to give it a little more gas this year? The Land O'Lakes junior has had to balance athletics, volleyball and track against the toughest academic load in the county, the international baccalaureate program.

"She's a hard worker, a great kid, a smart kid," coach Harold "Rock" Ridgeway said. "She has so much academics it keeps from practicing all the time, but once she gets here she's a hard worker."

To Foster, athletics always have been a release from academics. Never was that more true than this year, when the 6-foot-1 Foster took basketball season off. She had to study for her SAT the week of tryouts, but she still regrets it.

"Basketball kept me sane," she said. "I kept on saying to myself, "I have tomorrow night off, I'll do my homework tomorrow night.'

"It wasn't working."

Yet of all her sports, track is her favorite.

"I had no problem coming out for track," she said. "I think Coach Rock and Coach (Al) Claggett support me the most. I enjoy track the most of any school sport. I love volleyball to death and basketball is just a religion in my household.

"But track, I just love everybody out there. I was eager to do something while I was in the slug stage."

Foster showed few signs of her inactivity at the Sunshine Athletic Conference meet, where she was the runnerup in the shot with a toss of 34 feet, 1 inch, and fifth in the discus (90-5). At the 3A-9 meet she won the district title in the shot (34-2) and was third in the discus (99-8{) to qualify for both events in Friday's region meet.

A return trip to state would be nice, but all Foster is concentrating on is finishing her season without taking a step back from last year's career-best and school-record 36-8\.

"I want to get out of my 34-even rut," she said. "I want to be where I was at the end of last year. I have a tough region this year than last year, so it's not so much about beating the others, it's about beating what I had last year."

It would help, Foster said, if she hadn't given up basketball.

"I've still got a lot of catching up to do; missing basketball hurt," she said. "Every day I was running up and down the court, and that takes muscle. Playing at the Y two times a week isn't the same.

"Coach has me on a harder regimen now. I feel stronger now. I've been kind of lax this season."

Even if Foster makes it to next week's state meet, she'll still have the same problems.

Her English oral commentary exam is the morning of state, and that's in Gainesville.

"Oh is it?" she said. "I'm going to have to change that."