‘Ultimate competitor’

Generally, when coaches talk about the quality of the leadership on their teams, they’re talking about the quality of their seniors. On the Mead High School girls’ basketball team, however, one of the most influential leaders is junior co-captain Megan Thigpen, a three-sport athlete who’s already been a member of two state championship teams at Mead.

The other co-captain is also a junior, Chelsea Mykines.

Second-year coach Regan Freuen raves about Thigpen, the youngest member of a family that has produced three varsity athletes in the last few years at Mead. Dan, the oldest, pitched at Mead, Lower Columbia College and Linfield while Ben lettered in three sports and is currently in his second year at the Air Force Academy.

“To me,” Freuen said, “Megan is the ultimate competitor. She has an inner drive that’s not matched by many athletes. Her character and who she is are what draw others to her.

“She doesn’t whine or complain or get caught up in the wrong things, and she’s a friend to everyone. The kids respect the things she does on the floor, but her character goes beyond what she does athletically. You see the same things around school and in the classroom with her.

“The other thing is that there’s not another basketball player in the GSL who’s won two state championships. That sets a tone for the other girls—they know that Megan knows what it takes to get to the top, and they respect that. I consider myself fortunate that she’s stayed with basketball.”

Thigpen, who measures 5-foot-9 (“make that 5-10 with my shoes on,” she pointed out), has been a varsity middle blocker for the past two years on the Panthers two-time 4A state championship volleyball team, and she’s a jack-of-all-trades in track and field, where she has at various times competed in the high jump, javelin, 200 meters, sprint relays and hurdles.

She’s more comfortable as a captain than she was earlier in the season when, she says, she was concerned that she might be stepping on the seniors’ toes.

“Over time, I’ve kind of grown into that role,” she said. “Being a good captain means knowing when to help raise someone’s spirits or when to get after them a little bit and being able to find the line between the two.

“I’m hoping for more success down the stretch. We’ve played some awesome quarters, but we need to play a whole game like that.”

She’s still getting used to being the only Thigpen kid left at home.

When she and her brothers were younger, she says, they couldn’t help but become involved in sports.

“My parents were always throwing a football, basketball or baseball to us. As we got older, we played with each other, and we’d have some kind of game going on every day. Over the years, I guess, we all just became more and more athletic.”

On the basketball court now, her role is to do the dirty work, Freuen says, and she does it well.

“The things she does are all related to effort,” said the coach. “Rebounding, steals, deflections, guarding the opposition’s toughest player. She gets beat up all the time but she pushes through it. Our coaches and players have tremendous respect for her, for the example she sets and the consistency she shows every single day.”

Freuen closes with a comment about Thigpen’s willingness to pursue more than one sport.

“Playing different sports helps athletes, I believe. Megan gets something out of basketball that will help her in volleyball, and vice versa. It’s sad that more athletes don’t do that any more. Playing more than one gives you a different perspective, because you have different teammates and different levels of success. That whole experience molds you into the athlete and the person that you are.”