Proctor's Tamiah Washington signs National Letter of Intent to Texas Tech

Surrounded by friends, family, coaches and teammates Wednesday, Proctor's Tamiah Washington signed her National Letter of Intent to join Texas Tech. Washington will head to Lubbock, Texas, to join the track and field team next fall.

"It felt really like a second home to me," Washington said of Texas Tech. "The coaches were nice, the athletes themselves were nice, students were nice. It's a small town, but school itself is really big. So it just felt like the whole town was just surrounded by the college itself, which felt really nice."

Washington will join the Red Raiders with plenty of accolades already under her belt.

Recently, she broke the Section III long jump record with a distance of 19 feet, 4 inches. At a junior Olympics qualifier in New Jersey over the summer, Washington had a distance of 39 feet, 5 inches in the triple jump. That would have been good enough for the record in Section III, but being that it was not a Section III event, it did not count against the record. She currently is ranked fourth in the country for long jump and fifth in the country for triple jump.

Although these ranking come with pressure, Washington uses it to fuel her.

"It's kind of a lot of pressure being number four because you want to keep moving up in that ranking and you want to keep doing better and just being better than the next person," Washington said. "But just to be in like the top 10 at all, it's like a really big privilege, and I'm happy that all the work I've put in is paying off."

Coaches and her mom had high praise for the amount of work Washington has put in over the years to get to where she is now.

"She works hard and she does whatever she's asked to do," mom Nadja Okanovic said. "She doesn't take any time off. Unfortunately, COVID happened and she had no choice, but other than that, she works hard."

Washington's AAU track coach Jim Peterson noted that Washington's ability to set a goal and reach that goal is something that separates her from other athletes.

All the coaches in attendance echoed that they knew Tamiah would one day be here.

"We have the elementary track and field events that we do, and I was a phys ed teacher at Columbus and I was bringing her - I think it was a fifth- and sixth-grade meet - I was bringing her in third grade, she was so good," Utica athletic manager Vin Perrotta said.

For Washington, she had the realization that track could be part of her future when she reached high school.

"I kind of woke up, you know, like 'I have to start thinking about the future,'" Washington said. "Doing track and seeing how I was winning meets and I was doing really good and just kept getting better, that's when I realized, like I can really bring it further and potentially to the Division I level."

Aside from having spectacular athletic ability, everyone said she is equally as impressive as a person.

"Tamiah is the ideal athlete," Peterson said. "She did everything I asked her to do. She always was positive, never got down on herself ... She's a great student. She's just a great all around person."

Washington joins Brandon Peterson, Daniel Santiago, Todd Abraham and Damoy Allen as the most recent students with Proctor ties to commit to continue their athletic careers at the Division I level.

"I think it says a lot of these kids really," Perrotta said of the amount of Division I athletes coming out of Utica. "We have a lot of talent walking these halls, but they need guidance. They have to invest in something, believe in themselves and really work hard and sky's the limit."

Now that Washington has made her college decision, she is ready to work on accomplishing one more goal before graduation.

"My mindset is to just keep improving, keep being better than what you did the last time and hopefully come out with a national championship."

Kenny Lacy is a sports reporter for the Observer-Dispatch. Email Kenny Lacy at klacy@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Utica's Tamiah Washington signs with Texas Tech