
By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
When describing Tamia Stricklin, a standout basketball player at Seattle Prep High School in Seattle, the one word that comes to mind is selfless.
Stricklin, who led her team to their first Metro League Girl’s basketball championship in twenty years, already has her sights on how she can influence people to do great things, impact the lives of others and help improve her community.
“I have my communities back”, says Stricklin, who will play basketball next year for Fresno State University.
“I have your back,” continued Stricklin. “I think through this COVID and a lot of things have happened beyond basketball, George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, I want everyone to know that I am there for them no matter what. As my years go on after basketball, I want to make a difference in the world.”
Despite the challenges of COVID, Stricklin had a strong senior season averaging 19.5 points, 10 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 assists per game. However, for Stricklin its not how you start but how you finish. During the post season, Stricklin picked her game up averaging 29 points and 16 rebounds per game and led her team to a 54-48 victory over Bishop Blanchet in the Metro League championship game.
Seattle Prep Girl’s Basketball Coach Brian Elsner says that Stricklin’s playoff push “was incredible.”
According to Elsner, one of the things that sets Stricklin apart from others is her selfless nature. Her ability to think of others before herself makes her a great leader both on the court and in the community.
“She is selfless,” says Elsner. “She will take a charge, she’ll rebound if needed to, score if she needs to. She just wants to do whatever her coaches ask as well as make her teammates successful and that’s what makes Tamia a fantastic young woman.”
According to her father, Kermit Stricklin, giving back through faith and community service is what truly drives the younger Stricklin. Involved in church, aware of the world’s current events and giving back by donating her time to different community service activities, Stricklin truly believes in “being your brother or sister keeper”.
“We couldn’t be more proud of Tamia,” says her father. “I think sometimes people see her athletic accolades and achievements and think that’s all she is. But she is active in the church and community and I just can’t say enough about her. Her mother and I are super proud of the young, well-rounded lady she has become, more so off the court with her faith in God and her commitment to the books.”
Winning Seattle Prep’s first women’s championship in twenty years brought excitement to an otherwise uncertain and weary past 13 months. Stricklin although takes her excitement about winning, if she gets excited at all, one game at a time. But for Stricklin this win definitely warranted an emotional response.
“I don’t feel to many emotions after games or winning but this one probably is the first time I really felt excited about winning,” says Stricklin about winning the Metro League title. “During this weird year everything was unknown but to walk away this year [with the championship], we did something special. It was all overwhelming but in a good way.”
Born and raised in Renton, Washington, Stricklin — the daughter of Kermit and Elaine Stricklin and the brother of Kalu Stricklin – comes from a family of perennial student athlete runs. Her father possessed baseball and football pedigree, but it is her mom who nurtured and nourished the basketball talent in both Tamia and her brother as she was a standout basketball player herself. Kalu is finishing his senior year playing basketball at George Fox University.
Despite her mother’s influence, Stricklin says her basketball inspiration came from watching her brother play.
“I have an older brother who obviously started playing basketball before me and my parents wanted me to get involved in every sport, so I tried everything, but basketball stuck with me,” says Stricklin. “But definitely my brother started it and he loved it, so I did it as well and fell in love with it.”
With the season starting in the fall of September 2020 and the uncertainty surrounding high school sports due to the pandemic, Stricklin attributes her team’s success to that early start.
With health department guidelines for Covid Coach Elsner took advantage of the restrictions to build on fundamentals rather than team play as team practices were restricted to small individual pods of 5 to 6 players at a time.
“We had the opportunity to do small pods,” says Elsner. “We couldn’t do a lot of team stuff so we did a lot of skill work so ballhandling, reading screens, catch and shoot, anything we could do to develop skills which I think was kind of a blessing.”
Stricklin took this challenge to rally her team and to strengthen her resolve to achieve utilizing her natural talents, hard work, family support and most important her faith.
“With COVID it was definitely different,” Stricklin remembers. “We started doing open gym in September. There was talk the season was to start in November so we were trying stay prepared and do the best we could with all the guidelines.”
“I would say my team is hard working,” says Stricklin. “Our motto is practicing ‘men and women for others.’ I think every time we step on the court, we are working for each other, setting a good screen, getting a rebound, whatever it is, I think all of us are playing for each other and it makes the game easier.”
Selflessness is what comes to mind when Tamia Stricklin’s name comes up. Caring for and doing for others is Stricklin’s purest intentions and this attribute carries over into her hoop game leading her team by helping to make her teammates better. Coach Elsner believes that Stricklin is the epitome of what Seattle Prep strives for all of their students to be.
“Seattle Prep is a Jesuit Catholic school and we have a saying, “we want to graduate men and women for others,” says Elsner. “And, Tamia is the perfect example. She is a woman for others. She cares so much more about her teammates getting attention or her team doing well than her individual accolades but she also does service through her church, her community, at her old school, food banks and the way she plays basketball reflects being a woman for others.”
Stricklin says that she plans to be a pediatrician after her basketball career is complete.