Fame is on the way. You can bet riches and records will probably follow.
Sneaker companies will be fighting to sign her, networks will be following her, and competitors likely will be chasing her.
She is a few years removed from the halls of East Lake High School in Tarpon Springs, Fla., so time is running out to plausibly claim that you followed Parker Valby back in the day. Whether it happens in the upcoming Paris Olympics, or comes sometime later, eventually her story will belong to the world.
And if you aren’t sold on that idea, just put a stopwatch on the past 13 months.
• Coming off her redshirt sophomore season at the University of Florida last summer, Valby was the first female track and field athlete to sign a name, image and likeness deal with Nike.
• She won the NCAA title in cross country last fall and then won two more in indoor track (the 3,000 and 5,000 meter races) and two in outdoor track (the 5,000 and 10,000) to become the first female distance runner in NCAA history to win five national titles in one season.
• She was named the SEC’s Female Athlete of the Year.
• After her first Olympic trials late last month, she was offered spots in both the 5,000 and 10,000, although she has bowed out of the shorter race.
Mind you, that’s all by age 21 in a discipline where athletes usually don’t peak until their late 20s. The other four American qualifiers in the 5,000 and 10,000 are 26, 27, 28 and 28.
“I don’t really know if it’s necessarily hit me yet,” Valby said on a recent conference call. “I walk into stores in Gainesville — like this morning I was at Whole Foods — and the cashier was like, ‘Bring home the gold!’ I was like, ‘Uh, sir, I’m not going for the gold, I’m just happy to be here.’ I’m going to be lapped.”
You shouldn’t believe that because Valby certainly doesn’t. If there is a baby-faced innocence to her outward appearance, there is hard-wired resolve buried in her heart. She may not know what to do with compliments, but she’s got a thirst when it comes to challenges.
Britt Taylor came to understand that pretty quickly. He was coaching cross country at East Lake when Valby showed up as a freshman. At the time, she was a competitive swimmer and lacrosse player and wanted to run cross country to keep in shape during the fall.
By the time the season had ended, Taylor was badgering her between classes to give up lacrosse and run track during the spring. Two years later, he already was talking to her parents about the possibility of Valby turning pro after college.
“We were joking around in one of her last practices her junior year and I said, ‘I bet you can’t win state.’ She was like, ‘Really, how much?’ I said, ‘Well you don’t have to pay me, but I’ll bet you $100 you can’t do it,’ ” Taylor said. “So she goes out and wins state and literally the first thing she says when she crosses the finish line is, ‘Where’s my $100?’
“I knew right then that you can never tell her that she can’t do something because she will do whatever it takes to prove you wrong. She is fearless that way.”
While she was mostly unknown before winning the state title in record time, the college scholarship offers came flooding in afterward. Valby dealt with some foot injuries during her early days at UF, but the past year has cemented her place as the future of distance running in the United States.
And everyone seems to recognize it.
With her name, image and likeness deal with Nike expiring soon — she has a year of eligibility remaining but has already graduated cum laude with a degree in sports management — Valby is expected to set off a bidding war between sneaker companies when she turns pro. Runner’s World called her the “biggest prize” in distance running this year and speculated Valby could command a base salary between $650,000 and $800,000 per year.
Valby’s unique training methods (she does more cross training than a lot of runners because of her previous foot injuries) and breezy persona (she has a joking fascination with cows) have made her something of a sensation even before her first taste of international racing.
Her father, Kyle Valby, recently was contacted by Robin Phillips, who heads up Maxon SpaceLab in Switzerland, a company designing equipment for Mars exploration.
“He said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some creeper.’ He said he could give us a tour of SpaceLab if we wanted but mostly he said, ‘We have a dairy farm here and I know your daughter likes cows and Switzerland so I’m offering you a chance to come visit,’ ” Kyle Valby said. “I literally have people I don’t even know from these amazing companies that are reaching out to say, ‘We’ll show you cows.’ That’s how crazy it’s gotten.”
Right now, Valby is in a strange place between expectation and accomplishment. She’s an undisputed star at the collegiate level, but is still only ranked No. 35 in the world in the 10,000. That undoubtedly will change in the coming years, it’s just a question of how quickly Valby gets there.
Maybe she contends in the Paris games, maybe she doesn’t. The larger point is there is a finish line far beyond the next 10,000 meters and Parker Valby is racing toward it as fast as anyone in the world.
“There’s something about the past year that I don’t think she understands at this point. I joked with her that it’s one thing to have the weight of Gator Nation on your back, but it’s another thing to have the U S of A,” Kyle said. “I don’t think she’s grasped that because she’s so young. She didn’t grow up watching the Olympics. She doesn’t understand the pride. She’s excited and so proud to represent the USA, which is really cool, but I don’t think she understands the gravity of what this means.
“Don’t get me wrong, by 2028 (Olympic Games) on home soil in L.A., she’ll get it. But I think right now, because this was such a surprise, it’s more about just being happy to be there.”
©2024 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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