Horton up for the challenge of leading Red Fox nation
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
If anyone knows the benefits of athletics, it is Jamie Horton. She started playing softball at four-years-old; last month she was named the Athletics Director at Hartsville High School.
“Darlington County School District has been really big the last few years on what we call ‘The Four C’s” and it is basically soft skills,” Horton said. “Sports and extracurricular activities are some of the best ways in high school to hone and learn those skills like cooperation, communication, collaboration and critical thinking. It puts you in a scenario where you have to do that on a daily basis with other people.”
Horton is a native of McBee who first came to Hartsville to study at Coker College; the city stuck with her.
“I played three sports in high school and I got a softball scholarship to Coker,” Horton said. “I went through the teaching program there and then did my student teaching at Hartsville High.”
Horton said that athletics was a passion of hers very early on.
“I started playing recreation league t-ball when I was four and it just became a passion of mine,” Horton said. “I have a very competitive spirit. McBee has a junior high and high school all in one. Once I got to that age, I started playing volleyball, basketball and softball. It is a lot easier for someone at a smaller school to participate in athletics because the numbers are lower. Somewhere like Hartsville or Darlington, it is easier for a student to be able to specialize because you don’t need to go out and recruit more kids to make sure you’ve got enough for a team to be able to play.”
Horton credits her family and the skills she learned playing sports for preparing her for life after graduation.
“I had some influential family members who coached me and I had influential coaches in junior high and high school,” Horton said. “Sports really helped shape me and give me confidence in moving forward after high school.”
After graduating from Coker, Horton took her skills to the classroom but never left that softball glove far behind. After a few years of teaching, Horton returned to the classroom as a student.
“A few years after I first started teaching, I decided I wanted to go back to school to get my masters degree in educational leadership,” Horton said. “I just combined that with my love of sports and it brought me to wanting to be an athletic director. I knew when I started my masters that my end game was something in higher education; it just worked out perfectly that my first path to that is athletic directing.”
Coming on the heels of retiring athletic director Phyllis Griggs, Horton said that she is up for the challenge.
“Phyllis Griggs is a legend and I have big shoes to fill from her,” Horton said. “I was very fortunate to be able to work with her in a kind of apprenticeship last year. I worked with her through the summer and all of last year trying to soak up as much knowledge as I could. She taught me a lot and she has been a huge supporter and a huge help as I’ve transitioned into the main role.”
Horton served as coach for the softball team and believes that coupling that with her apprenticeship she has a good handle on the athletics at Hartsville and where she wants to take them.
“I learned a lot of what I know from coaching under Phyllis and just being around the other programs,” Horton said. “Even though I was the assistant softball coach and then the head softball coach, I attended the basketball games, football games, volleyball games; I was very present in other aspects of the sports programs.”
In a community full of Red Foxes, Horton said it is important to her that her student-athletes give back.
“We have a lot of young coaches on staff and I am trying to get them into promoting good things that happen through their teams,” Horton said. “Our football team had camp and they went to the Boys and Girls Club of Hartsville and spent several hours there holding a mini camp for the boys and girls, playing games with them. The community needs to know that our athletes are giving back to the people that are so supportive of them.”
One aspect of that community support has come through the Byerly Foundation.
“The beginning of June I wrote a grant to the Byerly Foundation for four AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators) and lock boxes to put them at our different facilities,” Horton said. “We only have two on campus and we have 30 sports teams. I just found out that we received the grant. Now, more of our athletes are covered during games and practices.”