Golf: It’s a sport that requires confidence, consistency, focus, balance, and a competitive eye. To excel at the sport, even at the high school level, you’ll need to be out on the course daily. The 18th hole will leave the most decorated golfers mentally exhausted, even if they have yet to break a sweat.
Cross Country: It’s a sport that requires discipline, heart, a touch of crazy, and the ability to endure extreme discomfort. Even at the high school level, you’ll need to be logging quality miles on a daily basis. Done at maximum effort, 3.1-miles will leave even the most seasoned runners too physically exhausted to carry on a clear thought.
While both sports require incredible work ethic, they are on opposite ends of the sports spectrum. To do well at both sports simultaneously would take a rare breed of athlete.
Meet Elizabeth Funderburk.
As a freshman, she qualified for the 2015 GHSA State Cross Country meet in Carrolton, Ga. South Georgia isn’t exactly known for their excellent high school long distance runners, but Funderburk broke through the norm to place 11th in the event although the terrain in Carrolton was far more demanding that what she was used to.
“It’s pretty much flat in South Georgia but at the state course, there are four big hills that we had to run twice,” Funderburk said. It was kind of a shock being that it was my first year because I had never seen it before and I [physically] didn’t know what to expect.”
Also as a freshman, she took third place at the 2015 AAAAAA State Championship Golf Tournament with a score of 73, leading the Packers to a second place finish.
With a resume even the most athletic seniors in the state can only dream of, Funderburk is focusing on what she still wants to do at the high school level: Win State Championships.
At the time of this writing, her cross country team is taking on late-summer workouts, practicing together three nights per week. She also has a personal running coach who she trains with on days she isn’t with the team; however, two-a-day running workouts are not rare for her.
Less rare, is a basic two-a-day. In fact that happens nearly every day. Golfing since the wee age of eight, she still hits the course daily with the same exceptional mindset.
“Whenever I go out there, I work really hard and focus on my weaknesses,” she said.
As a reader, you may be getting a little lethargic just reading about Funderburk, but this young lady isn’t quite through cataloging her honors thus far as a high school athlete. She runs track too. In the 2015 GHSA Track & Field Finals she placed 14th in the 1600-meter run and 13th in the 3200-meter run. Not bad for her first year on the
track.
At the brink of her sophomore year, the sky is the limit for Funderburk, and she is doing more than creating her own impressive resume. She is helping to put South Georgia on the map in sports typically dominated by Atlanta area schools.
What may be most intriguing about this young lady, however, is her refusal to brag. With a father who is an assistant principal and a mother who is the mat coordinator in the Moultrie community, exceptional discipline and good manners are the only option for Funderburk.
“Regardless of wins or losses in athletics, she has been a blessing to me and her mother,” says her father, Darrell Funderburk, CCHS assistant principal.
Class of 2018
Personal Records
5,000-meter run 18:54.84
3,200-meter run 11:53.10
1,600-meter run 5:30.25
Calling Elizabeth Funderburk a student-athlete almost seems like an understatement. At 15-years-old, she is number one in her class and has excelled at the state level in three different sports.
Elizabeth Funderburk
Colquitt County High School
Moultrie, Ga.
Written by Sarah Turner
Photography by Micki K Photography
