Student-Athlete Of The Month: Nkechi Streete

Whatever Broadneck junior Nkechi Streete does, she attacks it with full vigor.

Whether it’s on the track, in the jumping pit, the classroom, or formerly in the gymnastics arena, she’s all go, all the time.

Streete owns a perfect GPA through five semesters, including four AP courses in progress. She devours weightlifting and personal training sessions in search of continuous improvement. She owns the school’s outdoor and indoor long and triple jump records and is part of three more relay records.

She prefers to talk about process rather than results.

“Absolute team player who puts in lots of time on her own to better herself,” said Broadneck track coach Josh Webster. “She’s a great student, fantastic representative of our program, and amazingly humble considering her accolades.”

Her best attribute? Leadership.

“I’ve been a captain since sophomore year and it’s kind of just leading warmups, leading group chats, team bonding and exercises when we can, going out to lunch,” Streete said. “One of the most important things is that everyone feels comfortable, especially coming in as a freshman or new athlete, it is difficult to blend in. For me, it just felt uncomfortable, so I try to incorporate more people into conversation and groups, to have fun with everyone.”

As part of the Broadneck Athletic Leadership Council, Streete works with student leaders from other athletic teams at Broadneck to guide the overall athletic program into connecting with the athletes, and the Broadneck and surrounding communities at large.

In last spring’s outdoor season, Streete finished third in both of her disciplines at the state meet. She’s currently the top-ranked public school jumper; perhaps the only thing preventing her from winning multiple indoor titles is that the state doesn’t sanction those two disciplines for the indoor championship meet.

That’s OK, though, because she’s got bigger things in sight. With her personal best of 39 feet, 4.25 inches, Streete qualified automatically for the New Balance National Indoor high school championships in Boston next month. She also has provisionally qualified for the long jump, though her mark of 18 feet, 6 inches is two inches shy of the automatic qualifying standard and leaves her place currently in question.

With that prowess, room to grow, and another year plus left to attack personal records, Streete hopes to continue her track career in college and parlay it into a career of working in athletics as an orthopedic specialist.

“As much as I enjoy athletics and all I put into it, I try to balance it with academics and be as well-rounded as I can,” Streete said. “I’ve always been interested in medicine because my dad was a surgeon, but I never really knew what I wanted to do. I’m really fascinated by orthopedics because I’ve been an athlete my whole life, and it would be cool work with other athletes.”