Girls track: Grayslake North triple-threat Kicklighter ignites inspiration
Time for a hyperlocal version of the game show "Jeopardy!"
Ready?
Thumb on buzzer, everybody.
Category: Famous three-sport athletes in Lake County, Illinois.
Answer: She helped Grayslake North's competitive cheerleading squad place 10th (Medium Schools division) at state in January, earned Best Female Lifter (Junior division) at the Illinois State Weightlifting Championships in early April and secured a Class 3A state berth in the discus in early May at the Antioch girls track and field sectional.
Question: Who is Abby Kicklighter?
The 5-foot-9¾ senior has lifted barbells in weight rooms and cheerleaders on sidelines and spirits everywhere. She has also caught descending cheerleaders - and the rapt attention of weightlifting officials and track and field coaches and peers.
"She's one of four or five girls, along with maybe 25 guys, in my eighth-period strength class at school," says Grayslake North throws coach Tyler Hansen, who doubles as Kicklighter's weightlifting coach. "There have been several times, while she's either dead lifting or clean and jerking 200 pounds above her head, when everybody else in the class stops what they're doing to watch Abby. They're amazed. They stare.
"They're all in awe," he adds.
What astonishes and delights Hansen is Kicklighter's boxer-before-a-big-bout work ethic. It's a daily trait. If it's 6 a.m. on a weekday, and Kicklighter has not entered the Grayslake North weight room to begin another rigorous workout, Hansen doesn't panic, but he probably wonders if he had erroneously arrived at the school on a Sunday.
"Hardest-working athlete I've ever coached," says Hansen, a Knights throws coach for 12 years, including the last four seasons under Grayslake North girls track and field head coach Jesse Wolter.
Kicklighter was a Knights freshman cheerleader when she came out for track and field in the spring of 2016. She did a little hurdling, a little jumping, a little throwing. She was a dabbler.
"I remember thinking, 'Why throw an eight-pound ball around?' " Kicklighter says of the shot put event. "But I was willing to give it a try."
She chose not to compete in track and field as a sophomore.
"Asking her to hurdle and jump and throw in one season hampered her, because all three are technical events," Hansen says.
The turning point in Kicklighter's athletic career occurred in late 2017, in the middle of her junior year. She had taken her first strength and conditioning class, with Hansen serving as the instructor, in her sophomore year. Hansen wasn't wowed, summing up Kicklighter's effort as "decent."
Kicklighter then kicked it up a few 100 notches as an upperclassman, after deciding to regularly hit the GNHS weight room hours before most teens bopped a snooze button for the first time on a school day.
"Abby," Hansen says, "preferred working out without having so many people in the room. That's when she got into it and started to develop a passion for weightlifting. It was also around that time when she got promoted to varsity cheerleading."
Kicklighter, an oh-so-reliable backspot on Grayslake North cheerleading crews, didn't just get stronger with each hour-plus lifting session; her confidence grew, too. Hansen saw it.
Kicklighter felt it.
"I was feeling good, feeling strong, feeling better about … life," says Kicklighter, who drives her training partner, appreciative and promising Grayslake North freshman Emily Larrivee (also a weightlifter, also a track and field thrower), to those early-morning workout sessions. "Before making the commitment to lifting, I was tired most of the time, and my diet was a poor one. Too much pizza."
Hansen then delivered his plea to the formerly shy Kicklighter: "Come out for track and field again."
She did. Kicklighter heaved the shot 29 feet at the start of her junior season and achieved a personal-best 35-7 in the event at an indoor meet this year. She became a first-time state qualifier with her personal-best effort of 123-05 (fourth place) in the discus at the Antioch sectional on May 9.
The Knights' lone state qualifier - and first Grayslake North female thrower to advance since then-senior Kennedy Krieg placed eighth (127-01) at state in 2016 - competes at this weekend's Class 3A state meet at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Her sectional result ranks No. 15 among state qualifiers in the discus (Grayslake Central sophomore Julia Reglewski ranks No. 3 in the event, with a distance of 135-0).
Kicklighter's other impressive "first" this year took place in April at the Bloomington-Normal Barbell Club, site of the Illinois State Weightlifting Championships. Competing in the Junior Women's division as a 76-kilogram entrant, she snatched a personal-best 143 pounds and hoisted 175 pounds in the clean-and-jerk segment to collect first-place hardware - at her first weightlifting competition.
"I contacted a major player [Lake County resident Mike Gattone] in USA Weightlifting because I was curious about how Abby compared to other weightlifters her age and in her weight class," Hansen says. "This guy, who lives right in our backyard, works with Olympians. How cool is that? I shared some of Abby's numbers with Mike before the state championships, and he told me, 'I have to meet this girl.' I later found out from him that Abby would rank ninth in the country based on how much she's able to lift.
"It thrilled me, hearing that. I knew I had a strong young lady in Abby, but that strong? No."
Kicklighter's ego is about as heavy as a small feather, maybe lighter.
"So humble, so modest," Wolter says of Kicklighter, who plans to attend the College of Lake County in the fall and stick with weightlifting as her major athletic commitment during and beyond her college years. "When she does something well, in anything, you'll never see her jump for joy or draw attention to herself in any way. Never. Incredibly hardworking; I don't know an athlete who works harder than Abby does. And she'll never rest, never rest on her laurels.
"Abby," he adds, "is always itching to get better."