Highlands places 3rd in Eastbay’s ‘Never Not An Athlete’ promotion

By: Greg Macafee
Friday, May 22, 2020 | 1:34 PM

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The Highlands Golden Rams are making the most of their quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic.

On Thursday, Eastbay announced the winners of its “Never Not An Athlete” promotion. It challenged schools and their athletes to take photos or videos that described how they are never not an athlete and share them on social media with the hashtags #NeverNotAnAthlete and #ChampsXEastbay.

Athletes, parents, coaches and fans from across the country responded, competing for a cash reward to the Eastbay Team Sales Store, which could be used to buy sports equipment for the school.

Highlands finished third and earned $5,000. Guyer (Texas) took first, and Orange (Calif.) was second.

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Dear athletes, THANK YOU. We’ve crowned our winning schools, and with your help #ChampxXEastbay donated over $10,000 to Athletes for COVID-19 Relief. Special shoutout to the #GuyerWildcats, all the schools, and people that participated to make this possible! The challenge may be over, but being an athlete NEVER stops. #NeverNotAnAthlete

A post shared by Eastbay (@officialeastbay) on May 20, 2020 at 5:30pm PDT

Highlands athletic director Drew Karpen heard about the contest through the school’s Eastbay rep about six weeks ago, so he spread the word to his coaches, and the trend caught on with the athletes, parents and staff.

About two weeks into the contest, he found out the Golden Rams were third, and they even jumped to second at one point.

“I wasn’t really expecting that because we’re not the biggest school, and you would think that the big schools would probably lead it,” Karpen said. “But to start off, our girls soccer team and our girls volleyball team pretty much led us to the national ranking, and from there, we started pushing it to all the teams. Then, parents joined in, coaches joined in, and everyone was able to keep us at that national ranking, which was awesome.”

With all of the negativity recently, Karpen said it was great to see how the community responded when there was something on the line for the school.

“We’re not getting a lot of good news around the world, so a lot of credit to the students, who really pulled through with their posts for this,” he said.

#nevernotanathlete #ChampsXEastbay #highlandsgoldenrams
All that hard work, for moments like this!!! pic.twitter.com/Ydfgk2bkcC

— Corey Dotchin (@Coach_Dot_) May 11, 2020

Missing this more than anything rn #nevernotanathlete #ChampsXEastbay #highlandsgoldenrams pic.twitter.com/w8fEDDeUo3

— Korry Myers (@KorryMyers) May 11, 2020

Can’t wait for my girls to get this feeling back. 93 days until preseason. ⚽️???? @HighlandsAthl #NeverNotAnAthlete#ChampsXEastbay#HighlandsGoldenRams pic.twitter.com/UaKqkQ8hfP

— Coach Jenna (@jennaplummer19) May 9, 2020

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Better together. 187. #nevernotanathlete #highlandsgoldenrams #champsxeastbay

A post shared by Highlands Lady Rams Basketball (@highlandsgirlsbasketball) on May 11, 2020 at 6:03pm PDT

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#highlandsgoldenrams #nevernotanathlete #champsxeastbay

A post shared by Mark Slepak (@slepakmark) on May 11, 2020 at 8:33am PDT

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So many of our student athletes support one another ???? Rams supporting Rams ???? ????⚽️????????????????⛳️ That’s RAM PRIDE ???? #NeverNotAnAthlete #ChampsXEastbay #HighlandsGoldenRams

A post shared by Highlands Athletics (@highlandsathl) on May 9, 2020 at 5:51pm PDT

Greg Macafee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Greg by email at gmacafee@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Tags: Highlands