SuburbanOneSports.com recognizes a male and female featured athlete each week. The awards, sponsored by Univest, are given to seniors of good character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete for week of Feb. 16, 2022.
To understand what makes Ehliyah Wade so special and beloved inside the William Tennent community, one must visit the greatest source of her strength. Ebony Lacy was Wade’s best friend. She and Wade did everything and went everywhere together. Like Wade, everybody knew and loved Lacy, with their infectious social butterfly personas making them magnetic forces that the masses gravitated toward. Ebony Lacy died on October 29, 2020, in Memphis, Tennessee. She was Ehliyah Wade’s best friend. She was also her mother. The death of a loved one, especially a parent, is bound to hit anybody like an uppercut. As a child, it’s even more impossible to comprehend. So when Lacy passed suddenly and tragically, it would’ve been understandable if the trauma sent Wade to her knees. And while she has certainly had moments of pain and anguish in private, something beautiful came out of the biggest loss of Wade’s life: she used her mother’s spirit to uplift the lives of everybody around her.
The results have been staggering and profound. But first, Wade would like to say some things about her best friend, who she keeps close to her in the forms of a necklace around her neck and a tattoo on her bicep that reads My mom is my strength. “She was the grown version of me,” said Wade, a senior thrower on Tennent’s indoor and outdoor track teams, as well as a captain of the school marching band’s Color Guard. Once you start talking to those in the Tennent community who are close to Wade, it becomes quickly evident how much of a shining star she is inside the school building. Several of her coaches spoke of Wade’s natural motherly instinct, and it’s easy to decipher who that came from. Wade was born and raised in Memphis. She also spent some time living in Minnesota, and ultimately came to Pennsylvania in eighth grade to live with her grandparents, as her parents in Memphis saw it as an opportunity for Wade to be more financially stable and have better educational opportunities than the city’s public schools offered.
Originally a cheerleader, Wade found her activities instantly at Tennent, joining the marching band in the fall before making both the indoor and outdoor varsity track teams as a freshman. Despite waiting behind upperclassmen at first, she acclimated quickly. It wasn’t long before coaches, teammates and administrators at Tennent discovered that Wade wasn’t like any other student. She was something much, much more. “She is one of the most humble kids I have ever met,” said Nicole Rich, Wade’s assistant indoor coach and a longtime family friend. “By that I mean with everything she’s gone through with her mom passing, a lot of kids would take that energy and put it into a million other negative places. With Ehliyah, she used it to her advantage. It was tragic, and she did have a hard time understanding why. But she’s using it more as ‘My mom empowers me.’ She’s a ray of sunshine. She’s the type of person who makes you step back and say this is the reason why I do this. Her aura and glow make you so comfortable.”
Wade is the kind of kid who breaks down cliques and barriers, no easy feat inside a high school in 2022. She is as friendly with the athletes as she is any other group, and none of it is forced. Being a leader simply comes naturally, and the empathy she holds has been passed down to her by her late mother and her surviving family members. “She has this ability to be an old soul,” Tennent indoor track coach Vinnie Murphy said. “She is wise beyond her years. She’s able to have a deep and powerful conversation with me as an adult, but also flip the switch and go read to kindergartners. There’s such a range there to be able to deal with little kids on their level, calm her best friend down during the biggest meet of her life and also teach every adult she comes into contact with a lesson on life as well. She bridges every single gap, and really is a light whenever you see her.”
Wade never lets on publicly if she is struggling, so much so that her coaches doubted that most of the students in the school know Wade’s story. Murphy said that the biggest role model in the Tennent community is not a teacher, a coach, a principal or star quarterback. “It’s Ehliyah Wade,” he said. “I don’t know if people here knew her full story, but they need to.” The prevailing theme seems to be that Wade – who will continue her throwing career for the track and field team at Allegheny College - is so universally loved at Tennent because she is authentically herself. “She’s been able to stay Ehliyah,” Tennent spring track head coach Eric Reynolds said. “For kids, using a popcorn analogy: every kernel pops at a different time. Ehliyah’s popped early and she matured as an individual and human being. She is enthusiastic and puts her all into whatever activity she’s involved in. She really is the mother of the group — very grounded, mature and intelligent.”
To read Wade’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/ehliyah-wade-0099103
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of Feb. 16, 2022.
From the time basketball became a true passion—back in middle school—Bernie Parent devoted himself to putting in as much work and as much time as he could to improving his game. As a result, countless hours have been spent practicing on playground basketball courts until it was too dark to see … or inside gymnasiums after the doors locked. “Fortunately, my dad played at St. Andrews and they’d sometimes leave the gym open, so I’d stay and take shots for hours in an empty gym,” Parent said. “We lived across from George School and they’d sometimes lock up but there would be a window unlocked, so we would sneak in and take shots for hours. There were multiple times the security guards would find us, ‘You can’t be here.’ They were fun times, though. It’s a great memory to have.”
It’s the work done when no one else sees … the hours spent lifting in the weight room or taking shots in empty gymnasiums … that has made the Council Rock North senior captain, one of the top scorers in the area, what he is today. “Bernie is the guy who makes our team run, he really is our engine,” said North coach Jesse Krasna. “Whatever we need him to do, he does it and he does it well. He breaks pressure, sets his teammates up for easy shots, he’s a tremendous rebounding guard. On defense, he’s always in the right spot, he communicates with everyone on the court. He’s just as good on defense as he is on offense. A lot of times, your star players are not necessarily the best defenders, but that’s not the case with Bernie.”
Parent truly loves the Council Rock North community. He thoroughly enjoys playing in front of family, friends, and schoolmates, and loves being part of the team. He is quick to list off names of former captains, teammates, and friends who have helped him over the years. He is especially grateful for the seniors who ushered him in during his freshman year and took him under their wing. Now that he’s standing in their place, Parent believes that one of his most important responsibilities as a leader is to do the same for the current crop of youngsters. “Bernie has been great helping them acclimate to the varsity speed and physicality and also giving those guys confidence, which is the most important thing when you step on the floor,” Krasna said. “When a captain and your most experienced and best player is telling you he believes in you, you start to believe in yourself. He’s helped in that area for us, and we’re seeing it with the contributions the younger guys are making.”
With his play, his leadership, and his work ethic, there’s no doubt that Parent has made a name for himself during his tenure at Council Rock North. Doing so, however, was a more daunting task than most face. After all, when your grandfather is a legendary Philadelphia sports hero and an NHL Hall of Famer, you tend to carry some expectations with you simply by sharing his name. “People would expect a ton of things just because of my name,” said Parent, who tried floor hockey for a couple years when he was younger but didn’t take to the game the way he did to basketball. “As much as I love him, I didn’t want to be known as Bernie Parent’s grandson. I wanted to be known as Bernie Parent because I was a legitimate player. I wanted to create my own name here. I feel like I was able to use that pressure in a positive way. It was always extra motivation to live up to the name. But having been in so many big games in basketball, and also big games in baseball while I was pitching when I was younger, that’s taught me a lot about handling pressure. I’m very confident and comfortable putting in that extra work if that’s what I want to achieve.”
And when Council Rock North’s successful season comes to an end, Parent can walk away knowing that he has left a legacy that will affect others for years to come. “It’s been fun to coach Bernie and see his maturation, see the growth not just in his game but his confidence,” Krasna said. “When he came in, we knew he was special because of his work ethic and demeanor. But I think his secret weapon is how coachable he is. He picks up on things really quickly and adds them to his game really quickly. That’s a special player who can do that, and it’s allowed his game to grow really fast. Combine that with his work ethic … as a coach, I know that when I walk into the gym, he’ll already be there. When I leave, he’s still there shooting. That’s definitely something I’m going to miss. You get used to him always being around. Obviously, everything he does on the floor is special, but his leadership and his work ethic, those qualities are irreplaceable. Bernie is one of those guys who put a strong mark on this program, a kid that for years to come we’re going to talk about the intangibles that made him such a special player.”
To read Parent’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/bernie-parent-0099102
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