Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 19, 1990 TAG: 9005180247
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Medium
The Floyd County High sprinter will defend her Group A Region C running crowns at VMI today. She is the regional and state 100- and 200-meter champion.
As such, she has a reputation to uphold.
"I feel a little more pressure now, " she said. "Everybody knows me now. Because they know me, they want to beat me."
Attack from ambush is an option no longer open to her. Defending state champions like her have torched that crossing.
Yet she feels strangely at ease. The major anxiety attacks came before the All American Relays, a multi-team affair at Radford High at midseason. She won her events there, against some of the best competition from all classifications in this part of the state.
Looks nice on the resume, but such performances have little merit aside that accorded by doting grandparents and loving parents. Regional and state meets are another matter.
Lemons found that out when she went to her first state championship, as a slightly built but speedy freshman.
"I psyched myself out," she said. "I'd never seen that kind of competition before. . . . I didn't know what to do."
"Knowing what to do" means this: to run like a rabbit being pursued by a wolf.
She hasn't forgotten that trick since.
As a sophomore, she was a state runner-up in both the 100 and 200. As a junior, she was the champion in those events.
This season, no girl in any Timesland classification has been any swifter at the short distances. She crushed the opposition at the Mountain Empire District meet last week. Those poor young ladies might as well have been trying to outrun sunset.
Lemons will be favored at regionals today, which is expected of somebody with a 12.2 100 (an 11.9 earlier this year was erased by a thunderstorm) and a 25.4 200.
Come and get her.
Lemons has fast in her background. Mom Lois was always said to be the most athletic of eight children. Running, jumping, softball - Lois Lemons could do it all.
"She's real competitive, just like me," Pam said.
Mother and daughter used to race when Pam was a sixth- and seventh-grader. That just sealed in the lessons Pam learned earlier trying to keep up with big sister Paula.
"Paula is eight years older than me and when she used to run here at the high school, that's when I got into track. I used to come up here when she came to practice. I was just facinated watching them run. I'd run with them and think that was just the greatest."
An early start and native ability have served Pam Lemons well. By the halfway point of her senior year, she was the target of a recruiting war involving Maryland, Penn State and Virginia.
Maryland was an enthusiastic suitor. Lemons met a Penn State assistant coach at a wedding and he subsequently initiated a series of Nittany Lion overtures.
But she wanted to go to Virginia all along. She loved The Grounds, as campus is known in Charlottesville, and people were so nice.
And Virginia has that medical school. Fit right in with Lemons' plans to go into health care for children. She has particular interest in doctoring to premature babies. A background of work in a local doctor's office gave her a taste for the profession.
Virginia sounded like the perfect place.
Plus, Cavaliers recruiters told her she could specialize in her favorite, the 100. That's all she needed to hear.
"I like track because it allows me to express myself," she said. "People tell me that I'm quiet. I talk a lot, but I never really express myself. I can do that when I run."
In other words, when those slender legs are churning, we're getting close to the real Pam.
"I like the competition. I like the people. I like the sense of self-confidence it gives me.
"I like a challenge."
She certainly has found ways to meet one.
by CNB