RSS | 
Twitter
| 
Be a fan!
Observer-Reporter Girls Athlete of the Year
Amanda Kennedy, Bentworth
Find one of Amanda Kennedy's coaches from Bentworth High School, ask for a description of her and chances are these superlatives pour out.
"Team player."
Rate This Story:
1 the lowest - 5 the highest
Current rating:
"Hard worker."
"Powerful."
"Role model."
Then, the talk turns historical.
"I think she's probably the best female athlete to ever come out of Bentworth," Bearcats track and field coach Jerome Nixon said. "I can't see anybody else that compares to her."
Volleyball coach Greg Spridik has spent decades around Bentworth athletics. Even he can't refute Nixon's complement.
"I use her as an example all the time," Spridik said. "When it comes to three-sport athletes, there aren't that many. ... Amanda is, without question, the best all-around athlete to come through Bentworth."
For Kennedy, it's in the genes.
Her father Bob is Bentworth's boys basketball coach and a 1,000-point scorer during his playing days at Beth-Center High School. Her mother Nancy played college basketball. Her brother Jon plays basketball at California University and her other brother Joe might join the basketball team at Slippery Rock.
"In my house, it was kind of church, sports, school and work," Kennedy said. "My dad was a really good athlete and he loves to coach. Joe and Jon pushed me to be better and my mom is a tri-athlete. My dad has a joke that I'm the best athlete in the house and Joe and Jon are the reason why."
Kennedy, who excelled at volleyball, basketball and track, might be the best athlete in her household and at Bentworth. The future Marshall University scholarship athlete also is the Observer-Reporter's Girls Athlete of the Year.
A two-time WPIAL Class AA javelin champion, Kennedy will concentrate on the event for the Thundering Herd.
"She could have been exceptional in other events if she hadn't focused on the javelin," said Nixon, who put Kennedy on the 1,600-meter relay team. "If we trained her as a 400-meter runner, she would have been great at that."
Name the sport and Kennedy was great at it.
In volleyball, the four-year letterwinner and three-year starter earned WPIAL Class A all-star distinction.
"She was the ultimate team player. She could play any position and do anything you asked of her," Spridik said. "By the time she was a senior, she hit the ball harder than anyone I've ever seen, including college players. She would hit the ball so hard, it would change shape."
Kennedy displayed similar toughness in basketball, where she became he first player in Bentworth history to score 1,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds.
"I had so much fun in basketball because of all the crazy people on the team," Kennedy said. "It was fun just being part of the team."
As Kennedy, who sat out four games with a concussion, neared 1,000 rebounds, her teammates showed her how crazy they could get.
"We scrimmaged Jeannette early in the year and they had these massive posters of all their players and I said, 'That's so cool. I want one of those,'" Kennedy said. "On senior night, I went out in the hall and there was this massive picture of me on the wall."
Massive aptly describes her talents in the javelin.
As a junior, Kennedy became the first Bentworth track and field athlete to win a WPIAL gold medal in a field event when she won the javelin. At states that year, she placed eighth.
This year, she repeated as WPIAL champion and placed fifth. She caught the attention of Marshall University and several other Division I programs along the way.
Kennedy signed with Marshall earlier this month. The trouble is focusing on one sport.
"I get bored if I sit. I feel like I need to do something," Kennedy said. "It will be weird. My mom thinks I'm going to miss volleyball."
There's no doubt Bentworth will miss Kennedy.
"It's a great family, one of the best families I've ever known," Spridik said. "The question we're all asking is why didn't the Kennedys have more kids."
