This past week at our Winter Signing Day — we had our 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th student athletes sign to play their sport at the college level since last Spring. That’s pretty amazing for a small hybrid school like CEC. I have attended a lot of college signings over the past 7-8 years since I’ve been coaching, and they are always a special moment. It’s a culmination of so much hard work, effort and logistics to get to the finish line. A small percentage (3-7%) of high school athletes actually go on to play at the collegiate level.
As I say at these signings it’s a uncommon thing, that is becoming quite common at CEC. This last week, Seniors Paige White, Saoirse Palmer, Jaelynn Kemper and Mayson Raley all made their verbal commitments official at our Winter College Signing Day. White and Palmer both signed to play Archery at Midway University, Kemper signed to play soccer at Berea College and Raley signed to play softball at Taylor University alongside her older sister Madison. Another noteworthy accomplishment that was recognized was Jewel Cockerel, who signed to play softball at Spalding earlier at our Fall signing day, also committed to play soccer at Spalding University. This to my knowledge is CEC’s first multi-sport signee, a fitting honor for a 5 year 3 sport athlete. Coach Darren Collins from Midway was in attendance, along with multiple CEC head coaches and about 70 friends, family and CEC students to commemorate the day.
Our Fall College signing day this past November featured two good friends and multisport athletes Jewel Cockerel and Jade Hartlage. Jewel, signing with Spalding University to play softball and Jade Hartlage signing with the University of Kentucky for Track and Field. Jade became CEC’s first D1 signee! Coach Gina Renfro, CEC’s girls and boys varsity Basketball coach, Track and Field coach, and Jade’s mother shared the special day with friends and family, CEC students and coaches from the Louisville Track Club.
This winter an individual signing took place at CEC in December to honor Jenna “JB” Wyndham who signed with Welch College, a Christian college just north of Nashville. Jenna, a 1500 point scorer at CEC and all-conference/region performer in the homeschool/hybrid school world. Jenna has been a loyal leader of the girls program at CEC for 7 years and is nearing 2000 points in her career. Over 75 folks filled the room to celebrate Jenna and the Wyndham family.
Other signings since last Spring were Alexis Cole for Dive at University of Cumberlands, Javi Manon for Track and Field at Spalding University, Devin Moore for basketball at St. Mary of the Woods, and Hunter Fleming for basketball at Franklin College.
We’re excited about our signing days at CEC and we’re already looking forward to a few more baseball players and potentially archers at our April signing day.
