The goal is the Oval Office, and the journey there includes the Olympics

TALLAHASSEE – Amanda Thompson said she will be the president of the United States.

Not wants to be or hopes to be but will be.

Just like she will be the attorney general of Florida, the governor of Florida, and the United States attorney general before reaching the Oval Office.

“That’s the plan,” she said. “I’m going to get there.”

Of course, there is some prep work to be done before she begins a career of service to her state and country.

First, Amanda, 17, is set to graduate this May from St. John Paul II Catholic High School (JPII), where she will be class valedictorian. She attends the parochial school in Tallahassee with the help of a Florida education choice scholarship managed by Step Up For Students.

Then it’s off to Harvard University, where she plans to double-major in government and history and earn a degree from its prestigious law school. Along the way, Amanda will pitch for the Crimson softball team with designs on leading the program to its first appearance in the Women’s College World Series.

As that unfolds, Amanda is determined to play softball in the Olympics. She has attended tryouts for Team USA and is a member of the United States Virgin Islands national team.

Taken separately, any one of her goals is ambitious.

But combined?

“She has very, very high expectations,” said JPII Principal Luisa Zalzman. “She’s a go-getter, a high achiever. She has a drive that is very mature for her age.”

“She's done everything she's ever put her mind to,” said Amanda’s mother, Ashley Williard. “She said she wanted to be valedictorian, and I said, ‘OK, go be valedictorian.’ And she did it.”

Amanda is a bundle of energy and confidence. On the softball field, she has a running dialogue with everyone – teammates, opponents, coaches, umpires. In the classroom, she’s involved in every class discussion.

If you had approached her in August 2022 as she took the initial steps of her high school journey and told her she would graduate first in her class and be a member of Harvard Class of 2030, she would have been stunned.

“I would have said, ‘You got the wrong person.’ The difference between me then and me now is astronomical, and I think it’s because I attended this school,” she said. “It has to be.”

Amanda was a star as she rose through the ranks of the Tallahassee youth softball programs. Her parents, Ashley and James Thompson, envisioned their daughter earning an athletic scholarship to college. They were thinking of a high-end academic university like Duke or Notre Dame. That’s how Amanda, who attended her district schools until eighth grade, landed at JPII.

“We wanted a high school that was college-focused,” Ashley said. “Education is what we were looking for, and we could not have done it without Step Up For Students. No way could we afford to put her in that situation.”

There were “little things,” Amanda said, that shaped her academic future.

Her freshman English teacher encouraged her to write outside the margins during tests and essays.

“He said, ‘You don’t have to stay within this box. If you know more, write more on the paper.’ That stuck with me,” Amanda said.

Her freshman world history teacher announced to the class that Amanda scored the highest on the first test of the year.

“He congratulated me,” she said. “I thought that was insane.”

Midway through that semester, Amanda realized she had A’s in all her classes. That’s when she began to believe in herself as a student. Future valedictorian?

“Why not?” she said.

Amanda took AP World History as a sophomore and aced the AP test.

“That’s the class where I learned to learn,” she said.

Also, her love of history and government was born in that class, Amanda said. She can name all the countries of the world, tell you where they are located, and identify the flags.

“I’m working on my capitols,” she said. “It’s my hobby.”

 Amanda took Spanish I and II in middle school and passed each, but not with grades that would stand out on a high school transcript. Sara Bayliss, JPII’s college advisor, suggested that Amanda retake those courses.

“She said the grades weren't good enough, that I could do better,” Amanda said.

Amanda retook both classes. She asked Principal Zalzman, a native of Venezuela, for tutoring help. The result was a pair of grades that fit proudly on the transcript Amanda sent to Duke. Duke was her dream school for education and softball.

And then Harvard called.

At midnight on Sept. 1 of her junior year – the first day college coaches can contact 11^th graders – Amanda received a phone call from the Harvard softball coach.

“I didn’t even know they had a softball program,” Amanda said.

Intrigued, Amanda accepted a recruiting visit to the university located just outside of Boston. That trip marked the end of her Duke dreams.

“I want to make a difference in this world, and I think Harvard is the perfect school for me,” she said.

Terrence Brown, JPII’s softball coach, has watched Amanda emerge as an Ivy League student and a Division I softball player good enough to attend Team USA tryouts and earn a spot on the national team of a small territory with Olympic ambitions.

“She’s goal-oriented, and she doesn’t let anything get in the way of achieving those goals,” he said. “She’s worked very hard to get to where she’s going.”

Ashley and James are proud parents, but Ashley said they won’t take too much credit for Amanda’s success.

“We have nothing but pride,” Ashley said. “She is self-driven, self-motivated. We try to provide motivation. She’s missed proms and dances because of softball travel and schoolwork, and that was all her decision.

“There are a lot of sacrifices made to go along with this. She’s not afraid of hard work. She says she’s going to do something, and she goes out and does it.”

Roger Mooney, manager, communications, can be reached at [email protected].