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 (Week of Sept. 10, 2013)
Kylie Howe has been faced with her share of speed bumps in her young life. The Pennsbury senior is spending her final high school soccer season watching from the sidelines as she rehabs from surgery to repair a torn ACL. Instead of occupying her familiar forward spot, she is the team manager. It’s not exactly what Howe had in mind for her senior year. “I’m glad I can still participate and help the soccer team, but it stinks,” she said. “I wish I was back on the field.” So does her coach. “She’s small, but she’s feisty, and she’s going to get herself involved in the play in any way she can,” Pennsbury coach Kim Voorhees said. “She’s a player we like to think of as one of our sparkplugs. It doesn’t matter where we put her – we know she will give us energy. She has played just about every position for us. It didn’t matter where I put her on the field, she was always going to make an impact.”
Howe, a rare three-sport athlete, tore her ACL playing basketball last winter. In March, she underwent surgery and missed her entire spring track and field season. As devastating as the torn ACL has been, that injury paled in comparison to the loss Howe experienced when her mother, Margaret Howe, lost her battle with uterine cancer on April 17, 2012. Part of Howe’s enjoyment competing in sports came from sharing it with her mother, her biggest fan. “Even the days she wouldn’t feel well, she would bring her beach chair, sit on the sidelines and watch me play,” Howe said. “She’s been my motivation through a lot of things, especially with this whole knee surgery. I saw her go through tests, and she went through chemotherapy, and she had surgery for her cancer. I knew if she could get through all of that and still manage to smile, I could definitely get through my knee surgery.”
When it came time for Pennsbury’s soccer team to decide on a fundraiser for its ‘Kick Out Cancer’ night last fall, the team opted to give all the proceeds to benefit uterine cancer research. A highlight of the night was the release of butterflies, a symbol that has been important in Howe’s family for several generations. “Butterflies were special between Kylie and her mom,” Voorhees said. “When we did the butterfly release, the butterfly wouldn’t fly off Kylie’s finger. We were all crying. It was such a good moment. It was really special.”
Howe also excels in the classroom and takes a course load of honors classes. She plans to pursue a career in health sciences or pre-med with her sights set on one day becoming a doctor. At the top of her college list are JMU, Pitt and Scranton.
To read Howe’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/kylie-howe-0037165
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of Sept. 10, 2013)
Jonathan Gross did not grow up a runner. In fact, the Upper Merion senior was hardly what anyone would call an athlete as he developed during his childhood. Sure, he tried basketball and baseball and soccer, but nothing lit a fire under him. Nothing made him want to come out each day and get better. When he arrived at Upper Merion as a freshman, he went out for the cross country team. Again, though, this was not high on his priority list entering ninth grade. “I only signed up because a couple of my friends were going to be on the team,” Gross said. “They talked me into it.”
To say his freshman season did not go well, that would be understating it just a bit. Having barely broken a sweat in his cross country career, one day he arrived at practice on crutches. He would not run again for more than nine months. “One week into the season, I got a stress fracture in my right tibia,” Gross said. “I had a vitamin D deficiency. I was done.” The Vitamin D deficiency affected the level of strength in his bones and also meant the fracture would not recover as quickly as with the average injury. Even though he couldn’t run, Gross still came to practices and helped out with the team. He was determined to make the cross country team as a sophomore and excel at it.
At the start of his sophomore year, Gross was putting in 5K times of about 26 minutes. By the end of his junior year, Gross posted a district time of 17:16. This year, he is the captain of the Vikings cross country team. “And he does it all with a smile on his face,” coach Lynda Newhart said. “He is the go-to man on the team now. The other kids know he did not start out as a fast runner, and he worked real hard to turn himself into one. You see the effort. Every time he runs, you can see his heart is so into it. As a freshman, I didn’t get that sense that this was the kind of kid he was.”
Newhart selects her team captains in a nontraditional way. She makes the runners apply for the role and interview for it. Gross seemed like a natural fit. “Jon has been the slow guy on the team, the new guy on the team,” Newhart said. “He knows what that’s like. Some say leaders are born. I think leaders are developed. I saw Jon develop into one.”
Gross is not only the cross country captain, he is also an honor student and takes part in several school clubs. His desire is to go to college for engineering, preferably a more physical specialty like aerospace or mechanical engineering. He will run at college if the opportunity presents itself, but it will not be a determining factor in his college selection.
To view Gross’ complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/jonathan-gross-0037240
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