Hunter swing
Brian Tannehill

#MotivationalMonday: Keona's Biggest Fight

By Ed Bailey
... it’s like God gave me all of these trials because He knew I needed to overcome them to be the person I am ...
Keona Hunter, PVAMU Alumna and former softball star
Hunter fielding
Keona Hunter took the long route toward a memorable college softball career, overcoming injuries and personal struggles to become a key member of PVAMU's 2018 SWAC Championship Team

On the surface, it was a simple question. 

Upon arriving to college, generally a student-athlete is given a questionnaire by their coaches or sports information director to fill out for website publishing. Usually, it’s a “fun facts” sort of endeavor that serves as the first glimpse as to who an athlete is beyond the realm of play. 

The topics– favorite food, hobbies, favorite place, greatest influences, best advice, etc. – aren’t designed to pry too much. Still, it’s a chance to show some personality and spotlight the person within the uniform. 

When former Prairie View A&M softball player Keona Hunter sat down to fill out her questionnaire, at first her answers were as innocuous and commonplace as most others. 

Favorite Food? Tacos. Who doesn’t love those? 

Hobbies? Laughing, doing puzzles, sleeping and eating. Nothing too atypical. 

Favorite place to visit? Disneyland. You know, “the happiest place on earth.” A popular answer, perhaps. 

Greatest influences? Family of course; her mother and grandfather, the latter of whom is affectionately known as ‘Ta-Ta,’ in particular. More on them in a bit. 

Then the question of the best advice she’s ever received came up. Again, a seemingly simple query. What resulted was a rewarding bout of introspection that caused her to look back on what was, at times, a tumultuous journey from Tucson, Arizona to Prairie View, Texas. From it, Hunter – the first of three girls, a natural athlete and a very quick study from a young age, on and off the field – realized the common denominator in each of her tribulations. 

What resulted was a five-word answer – straight-forward in delivery, multi-layered in meaning – that has since gone to define Hunter’s collegiate career and more: You are your biggest fight. 

“I’ve always noticed that the only person I’m trying to be better than is myself, because I can beat everybody else. It’s always been me,” Hunter said. “I’ve always been the first one to count myself out or talk down about myself about something. No one can say anything to me that I haven’t already said about myself. Softball is such a mental game … once my mind starts going, it doesn’t matter how good I am physically. I realized that when they asked the question. I’ve always been my biggest fight, because I’m the only person who has ever given myself real trouble.” 

Still, despite all the highs, lows, detours and roundabouts the junior college transfer took in order to don the purple and gold, what became apparent was that in some ways, Hunter’s biggest fight had only just begun. 

Hunter batting
KH Huddle

To say that the game of softball was in Hunter’s blood isn’t hyperbole. Nothing could be closer to the truth. Her mother was a standout on the diamond and poised to continue building her legacy at the Division I level. 

Plans changed. As a result, softball became the family sport and strength would become the family’s defining trait. 

“My mom was set to play softball at New Mexico State, but then she got pregnant with me,” Hunter said. “Growing up, softball was the sport my mom put us in. She started me out when I was about four, but at that age you don’t really know what you’re doing. I’d say I’ve been legitimately playing since I was six, and I played because of her. Everybody has to live their life and grow in their own way, and my mom had to do it very differently in a way I know I couldn’t have done. 

“She’d tell me stories about how she had to catch the bus with myself and my sisters … and all she’s been through sounds like a nightmare. I know the strength I do have, I got it from her. My mom has been a driving force, because if I could do half the things I’ve done with no kids, it’s looking good for me.” 

While her mother introduced her to the game, it was Ta-Ta (Hunter’s grandfather) who saw to it that she’d excel. He knew Hunter had it in her before she saw it for herself, and once he came to that realization, he made sure his granddaughter would feel that greatness, too. 

“He’s my hero, man. He’s almost 70, and he’s super fit … he’s such a peaceful man, and he’s the one who recognized I could be as good as my mom, though I think I’m better than her but that’s neither here nor there,” Hunter said with a chortle. “He’s always seen greatness in me before I saw it in myself. He took me glove-shopping – and those are expensive – and for my high school graduation he got me my first expensive bat. He’s always seen that light in me from a young age, and he’s always been my biggest fan.” 

Not only did Hunter play softball, she played well. Hunter hit over .500 her junior year at Santa Rita High School, and was an Honorable Mention to the Arizona Daily Star’s All-Star team as a senior. From there, Hunter began her college career a couple of hours northeast of her hometown at Eastern Arizona College. She was an immediate difference maker, hitting .406 with 48 runs scored, 32 stolen bases and 25 RBI.  

Hunter’s efforts resulted in a spot on the National Fastpitch Coaches’ Association NJCAA West Region Second Team. The stage was set for the start of a promising journey. She had already gotten farther than she originally expected. What was set to follow would just be cherries on top. 

“My family didn’t have the best financial stability, so I never thought I’d even end up at college,” Hunter said. “I would never dream that big for myself. I took JUCO for what it was, but it was definitely an experience.” 

At the time, she had it figured out: Crush it at Eastern Arizona – which she was doing – and eventually transfer to the University of Arizona. It was all going to work out swimmingly for the multi-faceted, dynamic and ultra-competitive utility player. 

Then it didn’t. Hunter’s biggest enemy came to the surface during one wrong decision that manifested into a violation of team rules alongside a pair of teammates. Just like that, she was kicked off the team. 

Left to scramble together a contingency plan to salvage her aspirations, Hunter ultimately enrolled at Pima Community College. She continued to play well, hitting .356 for a team that went 46-14. On the surface, it seems like a nice rebound. 

It wasn’t. 

“I hated every minute of it. I messed it up for myself and was in a situation I didn’t want to be in, so I was really unhappy,” Hunter recalled. “Arizona was off the table, as I was just one less person to worry about. That sophomore season from August to December, I didn’t have anything lined up for myself and I was super down in the dumps. I didn’t want anyone to know the predicament I was in.” 

While athletics kept her afloat initially, more pressing matters started falling by the wayside. One of the first things to go was her self-confidence, a constant struggle through her formative years. 

Next came her academic standing. A good student for as long as she could remember, Hunter just didn’t have it in her to try for anything beyond the game of softball, as she had resigned herself to the idea the longest chapter of her life was set to have the most ignominious of epilogues.  

“I was more disappointed in myself. I still loved softball, but at the time it felt like it was my last hurrah,” she said. “I kept playing because if I didn’t, I was already going to look like a failure. I think if anything, my passion for the game kept me hanging on by a string. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t have done any of this. I was in classes but honestly I wasn’t taking them seriously. I didn’t want to be there and I was miserable, so I got really bad grades because I didn’t care anymore. I thought my softball career was over … I really thought I had ruined my own life.”  

At the midnight hour, a lifeline emerged for Hunter in the form of a lifelong friend and future teammate in fellow Tucson native Destinee Williams, who had chosen to attend Prairie View A&M of her own volition. The two had played together growing up, and Hunter considers her more of a sister than a best friend. Around her birthday in 2015, Hunter let the walls down and confided in Williams of her harrowing situation. 

Williams and her father reached out to PVAMU Head Softball Coach Vernon Bland on Hunter’s behalf. The rest was history. 

“I laid everything out for (Bland) and told him the truth,” Hunter said. I sent over my awful GPA, and I mean it was awful. I have never had a GPA that low. I’m a very intelligent woman, but honestly I had given up on myself and my GPA reflected that. It was so bad. After I laid everything out he said ‘If you want to come, you can do it. We’ll take you.’ So I bought a one-way ticket to Prairie View, so to speak, and never looked back.” 

Hunter had her second chance and was determined to make the most of it, but as the saying goes, nothing worth having comes easy. 

In order to once again become a student-athlete, Hunter had to take the student aspect to another level. With out-of-state tuition staring her in the face and the only relief from that resting on her effort and intelligence, Hunter attacked her studies full-bore.  

She only had one rule: Failure was not an option.  

“Because my GPA was so low, I couldn’t get any assistance from the school. Coach Bland told me that if I got the grades, he could help,” she said. “I took every credit possible. I got to Prairie View A&M in January of 2016 and I took the maximum hours I could for the spring semester. During the summer I maxed out again along with some classes at Lone Star College. The fall, I took the maximum credit load again. I just grinded it out. It’s crazy to think about, but I definitely did that.  

“The thing is, I don’t think about it in a stressful sense. At the time, I didn’t give myself an alternative option. I wasn’t putting myself through anything I wasn’t capable of doing. It was a matter of knowing this was what I was going to do, this was the plan, and I didn’t have any others to follow. It wasn’t anything I saw as impossible.” 

Finally in the spring of 2017, Hunter was academically eligible to play with two years left to flourish for the Lady Panthers. Though she started slow offensively, she flashed as an impressive defender and was on her way to becoming an integral part of the team’s competitive aspirations. 

Then 10 games into the season, Hunter’s knee figuratively – and literally – buckled. What was left was a torn ACL.  

“That bad boy went down on me, and that was another test of my character,” Hunter said with a chuckle. “It was almost like God was saying, ‘Let’s see what else you can take.’ That’s exactly what that was.” 

While she can laugh about it now, there’s nothing particularly funny about an injury of that sort. It’s a virtual season-ender and for some, it places a grim sense of finality on an athletic career. 

Initially, Hunter thought it was just another bump in a long road less traveled. She thought she’d be back in no time – that is, if she had to miss time at all. 

In laymen’s terms, she had a strong case of denial. 

“No lie – and you can ask Coach Bland – for a good two weeks I was convinced I was going to put on a knee brace and just keep playing,” Hunter said. “I was still trying to jog at practice with everyone, and I was trying to take ground balls. My head wasn’t out of the game, but my knee was like ‘Girl, we can’t do this.’ When surgery time came around, it hit me.” 

As Hunter started coming to grips with her junior season being over, there was no panic in her eyes, no doubt in her heart. She had seen her best friend go through this same process. Hunter knew she had an exceptional trainer at the ready for rehab.  

These things combined with Prairie View’s willingness to give her a chance, gave her all the support system she needed, with an opponent she was quite familiar with: herself. 

“It wasn’t like I felt I wouldn’t be in good hands. My trainer Nikki Briones – she’s amazing and I love her so much – made me feel like I was going to be OK,” Hunter said. “I never felt like my career was over because I had a lot of people that I knew would take care of me. I knew this wasn’t how I was going to go out. How could I after working this hard just to get here?” 

The 2018 season arrived and Hunter was 100 percent. Not many knew what would come for the Lady Panthers that season, but in Hunter’s case, she was happy to be back on the field and ready to close out her college career on a high note.  

Everything was looking good. So, as if right on schedule, Hunter got tested with a serious case of déjà vu. Around the 10th or 11th game of the 2018 campaign, a fly ball nearly cost Hunter everything once again.  

Hunter was a tad luckier this time around, only suffering a partial re-tear of her surgically repaired ACL. Her senior season was still in play, and it wasn’t without a couple of perks.  

“I stretched my graft when I ran into the shortstop going for a ball,” Hunter said. “When we hit, I cursed out loud and yelled ‘Are you kidding me?’ That put me down for a week or two. After that, I was getting pampered. I was the training room princess.” 

After some time off to heal, Hunter returned to the lineup and became one of the team’s elite defensive players. Meanwhile, Prairie View A&M had clawed into the Southwestern Athletic Conference Softball Tournament as the Western Division’s third-seed and dropped its opening game to Alabama A&M. 

Everyone at Prairie View knows how this story unfolded by now: placed in “win-or-go-home” mode the rest of the way, punctuated by the arduous task of winning three games in one day … the Lady Panthers didn’t go home. At least, not until the tournament championship was in tow. 

Hunter action
Hunter's clutch situational hitting and key defensive plays led to her becoming an unsung hero during the Lady Panthers' romp to history.

What some may not know is that without Hunter’s efforts in the Lady Panthers’ final three wins of the tournament, perhaps Prairie View doesn’t pull any of that off. In retrospect, the argument could be made that Hunter was the tournament’s MVP.  

Consider this: With PVAMU down 2-0 to arch-rival Texas Southern in the semifinals, Hunter got the team on the board with a RBI in the third inning. She went on to score the tying run. In the fifth inning, she delivered the game-winning RBI that punched the team’s ticket to the championship round.  

Hunter added another RBI in the first game of the championship – one PVAMU needed to win to force a winner-take-all contest versus Alabama State – and ensured there would be one more fight after she threw out Alabama State’s Aimee Felicies at home plate from left field to preserve a 5-3 victory and force the deciding third game. For her grand finale? She laid down the sacrifice bunt that moved PVAMU’s title-winning run into scoring position. 

“I don’t mean to toot my own horn but … There’s not many people that can do what I did,” she said with a hearty laugh. “I know it’s kind of a one of a million chance for someone to bounce back like that. Growing up as a woman with a single mother… I know my story is a source of inspiration I can give to somebody else because I know it’s very possible to see your dream through if you want to be something.” 

In some ways, Hunter was more ready for those moments than anyone else. The fact of the matter is that failure hadn’t been in her vocabulary since she arrived to The Hill and in a moment of poetic justice, all of her work paid off when the Lady Panthers needed it most.  

To this day, Hunter gets choked up when she relives those moments and retakes it all in. She thinks about her struggles with confidence and self-doubt as a youth. To that end, she views her journey as one of necessity.  

“If you can see it, no one can take it from you. You just have to be really, really strong, and the concept of strength was my backbone,” she said, fighting back tears. “My strength – mental, physical, everything-- was tested as soon as I got to Texas, but it’s like God gave me all of these trials because He knew I needed to overcome them to be the person I am, and I’m really proud of myself. ”  

All Hunter ever needed to see was her own resilience. Some may consider it bittersweet – or perhaps unfair – that it took so many personal setbacks for her to realize it. What matters is that Hunter won her biggest fight. Over and over again.   

At this point, she believes there isn’t any situation she can’t overcome.  

“Sometimes things are not as dark as they seem at that moment,” Hunter said. “The world brings enough doubt and stress on you, but the sooner you recognize the power you have over your own life, the easier it’ll be to pick yourself up out of the dirt. In a corny sense, it’s like saying believe in yourself, but you’ve got to recognize your own strength and don’t depend on anybody else to recognize it for you.”  

On the surface, Keona Hunter is a college graduate that won a conference championship as a student-athlete, albeit on roughly one-and-a-half ACLs. She isn’t the first and won’t be the last to do it.  

Dig a little deeper and think about the fact that Hunter never dreamt big enough to see college – and as a result, any of what she’s gone through – as a viable option, and it’s easy to see that things are a bit more complex than they seem, and all the more improbable. 

Fittingly, Hunter has her own way of describing it.  

“It’s like I told Destinee, you could make a movie about this, dude.” 

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