By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Brooke Hardister said connections made through high school sports could be valuable for a lifetime and some of those stemmed from her two years as a member of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s Student-Athlete Advisory Council.
“We learned from Day 1 about networking,” said Hardister, who just completed her senior year at Southeast Alamance.
Hardister was a three-sport athlete with the Stallions, most recently the first baseman for the Class 5-A East Region softball runner-up.
She was a part of Southeast’s first volleyball and swimming teams.
Hardister began high school at Eastern Alamance. When there was redistricting and Southeast opened in the summer of 2023, she ended up at the new school.
As a sophomore, Hardister was among a few Southeast students to go to a leadership conference at North Carolina State. After that, she said she was encouraged by Southeast athletics director B.J. Condron to apply for a spot on the NCHSAA council. That opened new avenues for her to pursue.
“We hit the ground running ever since,” she said.
Through the NCHSAA council, Hardister joined a group that attended the National Student Leadership Summit last summer in Indianapolis as part of the National Federation of State High School Associations.
That involved students from around the country and from outside the country.
“We got to learn how leadership looks different in different places,” Hardister said. “The problems in other states aren’t necessarily the same as ours.”
She said she has remained in contact with several of the participants she met in Indianapolis.
“I wish I could go back,” she said.
On the state level, there was a leadership summit last year in Greensboro. Again, those were opportunities to meet new people and discuss a variety of topics.
Hardister said those discussions often gravitated to officiating topics, something that she said chuckled about when remembering those sessions months later. However, she said there were game officials from some sports on hand to offer that perspective.
Students on the NCHSAA council also assisted at state championship events. She attended two days of the football finals in December at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill and one day of the basketball championships at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem.
At Southeast, Hardister had roles with the student council, Aspire Leadership Group, and Dream Team.
Hardister, who was part of Southeast’s third graduating class Saturday, said she’s finished with athletics as far as a formal participant. She’s heading to the University of South Carolina, where she intends on majoring in political science and broadcast journalism with the goal of becoming a news anchor.
