Wednesday’s signing ceremony at Northeastern High School was as much of a celebration of life for Junior Payton-Kimble as it was a moment to honor the student-athlete for earning the chance to continue his sport at the college level.
Payton-Kimble, 18, a recent NHS graduate, announced Wednesday he will be continuing his award-winning track and field career at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The two-time All American and several-times-over state champion in discus and shot put graduated from NHS with honors in June.
He will attend UNC-Charlotte on an academic scholarship, he announced Wednesday before an audience of nearly 50 family, friends, fellow student-athletes and school coaches and staff. Also attending the 45-minute ceremony were the two Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies and a paramedic who responded the night that Payton-Kimble suffered a heart attack.
On April 14th, Payton-Kimble suffered a heart attack at his home after he had been working out. Pasquotank Deputy T. Mercer was the first to arrive at the scene and began CPR, and he was joined shortly after by Deputy D. Shelton and Pasquotank-Camden Emergency Medical Services Paramedic Jessica Houdek.
Payton-Kimble was hospitalized in Virginia and underwent recovery and rehabilitation before returning home. According to his mother, Enid Kimble, her son underwent a cardiac ablation and had a pacemaker installed on Wednesday, April 24.
He returned to school that following Monday and on Friday competed in the Northeastern Coastal Conference track and field championships, where he won the discus event.
“I’m very grateful that God has given him a second chance,” his mother said following Wednesday’s ceremony. “It’s not easy to see your child die and then come back. I just wish the best for my son. I pray that every day that he wakes up he puts the body of armor of God on and he takes his sword and he slays.”
Enid Kimble said that while he was in the hospital, doctors determined that her son’s heart attack was due to a condition known as Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, which is characterized by an abnormality in the heart’s ability process electrical currents properly.
“They are 98% sure that that was the reason he had a heart attack,” she said.
Payton-Kimble said he is excited about the opportunity to compete in track and field and to study computer science at UNC-Charlotte. He said he will be joined on the 49ers’ roster by Fuquay-Varina track and field standout Gates Hinton.
“I’ve got some good training partners,” he said. “I’ve got No. 2 all time going there now, Gates Hinton.”
He said a conversation he had with Hinton at a nationals competition helped him decide on UNC-Charlotte.
Payton-Kimble said he has broad support from his family in Elizabeth City, but he is also looking forward to forming another family of friends and relationships while studying at UNC-Charlotte.
He’s already preparing mentally for the possibility of continuing his track and field career beyond his college experience, including a potential shot at the 2028 Olympic Games.
“Depending on how these four years go, I’ll probably extend it a little more,” he said.
It would be either his junior or senior season that he would begin preparing for the Olympic trials, he said.
In the few weeks leading up to the heart attack, Payton-Kimble was exhibiting signs that something was wrong, such as weakness and fatigue while practicing.
“We knew something was wrong because he could only throw really good for two or three throws and then he was exhausted,” Enid Kimble said. “There were signs but we didn’t know.”
WPW Syndrome doesn’t show up on regular physicals or other routine exams, she said.
Payton-Kimble graduated sixth in his class with a grade-point average of 4.2, the mother said. After he suffered his heart attack, college programs backed off on their interest in recruiting him on athletic scholarships. UNC-Charlotte offered him the opportunity to attend and compete based on his academics.
“They see his greatness, his potential,” Kimble said of UNC-Charlotte officials. “If you know anything about Junior, he took every loss and made it a win the next year.”
He son now wears a bracelet to alert people and first-responders about the “state-of-art” pacemaker that is embedded under his skin, Kimble said. She said she reminds her son that he has to be a testimony to his student-athlete friends.
“When they feel their heart racing and it’s racing too much or too often and they’re exhausted, you know, those are all signs of an issue,” she said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, but your heart is really, really important.”
She said she encourages parents of actively athletic children to pay attention for signs they may be experiencing heart problems.
“When your child is resting more than 10-12 hours a day, after very little exercise or what they would normally do, those are signs that maybe, just maybe, you might want an extra checkup,” she said.
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