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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories highlighting Hernando High’s 2011 Sports Hall of Fame inductees.
As Walt Cermak reflected back on Kristi Poore, he provided an anecdote that spoke not just to her gaudy statistics, but her toughness of character.
“She had gone up to the University of Tennessee one summer, and she fell in a hole jogging” said Cermak, the former Hernando High head girls basketball coach. “She did some ligament damage to her ankle.
“She started the season with two different size shoes because she had a metal brace on her ankle. She played in pain. After the game she’d be in tears. But you’d never see it on the court. That’s the kind of kid she was.”
Poore last played for the Lady Leopards over 20 years ago, graduating in 1989, then moving on to a productive collegiate career at the University of South Florida.
She admitted she hasn’t returned to the Brooksville campus in a long time. That’ll change Nov. 3, when she becomes one of eight new inductees in the school’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Hernando will hold a banquet that night at 6 p.m. inside its gym, then introduce the guests of honor at halftime of the following day’s football game against Mitchell.
“I’m very surprised,” Poore said. “But it’s a great honor. My memory there at Hernando was wonderful. I feel very fortunate and feel very honored.”
Catching up
These days Poore lives in Tampa, where she works for the Hillsborough County Sherriff’s Office. She recently received a promotion to sergeant and patrol.
Prior to that, she was a corporal in the special investigation narcotic division. She started at the sheriff’s office in detention in 1997, having earned a criminal justice degree at USF in 1994.
“There wasn’t a WNBA (when she left USF), but I was offered a chance to play in Germany. But I was ready to pursue my career,” Poore said.
“I miss it. I miss playing. But I knew when to hang the high-tops up.”
She certainly got plenty out of her time on the court, including four varsity campaigns with the Purple and Gold. The 5-foot-11 Poore left the Lady Leopards as the county’s all-time leading scorer with 1.776 career points.
That mark would stand for more than a decade, until eventual WNBA player Bernice Mosby posted 2,163 points over her four-year run at Hernando. Poore remains second on the list.
Additionally, she totaled 687 rebounds. As a senior she averaged 27.2 points and 11.3 rebounds per game.
“She was as good a post player as I had on any of my teams,” said Cermak, the county’s winningest girls basketball coach. “She had great hands. Once you got the ball inside to her, she was a gifted scorer under the basket.
“She was an excellent rebounder. She played within her ability. She wasn’t a leaper, but she was very skilled with boxing out and astute to knowing where the rebound was going to come off.”
Aside from her individual accomplishments, Poore helped the Lady Leopards reach the Final Four for the first time in 1988, a feat Hernando would duplicate with Mosby in 1999.
“My high school career was amazing,” Poore said. “We had a lot of talent on our team. We went to states one year. Coach Cermak was a hard-nosed coach. He expected us to play hard, to learn from our mistakes and retain them. He prepared me for Division I basketball, really.”
Still in record book
Poore played 106 games for USF from 1989-1993, choosing that school over the University of Florida and University of North Carolina.
Familiarity played a major role in her decision. Stephanie Glance, now the head coach at Illinois State, had coached Poore on an AAU club called Team Florida and became an assistant coach at USF in 1988.
The presence of Glance ultimately sold Poore on the Bulls. While there, she remained a solid rebounder, pulling down 630 boards (an average of 5.9) for her career.
In 1990-91 and 91-92, she paced the team in rebounding at 7.2 and 7.8 per contest. During the latter season, she also led the Bulls in steals (1.9 per game).
When she finished up at USF, she ranked fourth all-time in rebounds. She still sits 10th in total rebounds, 13th in career average, tied for 14th in games played and tied for 17th in total steals (135).
“USF was a great experience for me,” Poore said.
She followed in the footsteps of her father, Ed Poore, who played four seasons at UF and was recently inducted into the Greater Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame in his home state.
Ed Poore moved to Hernando County in 1971 and served as Hernando High’s principal from 1979-83, then Central High’s when it opened in 1988.
“He was a great influence,” Poore said of her father. “He was very supportive. He always let me know there were different opportunities out there in sports.
“More than anything I had a passion to play, and he gave me that burning desire to go out and play, him and my mother.”
Poore did dabble in other sports at Hernando. She ran relays, competed in shot put and high jump with the track and field team, and played one year of varsity volleyball.
Yet hoops remained what would define her athletic legacy, one that will once again be recognized at her old Brooksville stomping grounds.
“I’m very proud it,” Poore said of her basketball career. “I think it helped mold my character, my discipline, my hard work, my work ethic at work. I’m very proud and very thankful. I was lucky.”
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