Almost unfair
Published 10:39 pm Friday, May 1, 2009
When it comes to sports, Amber Wyatt has the attitude and physical stature necessary to compete with the boys. That’s bad news for Wyatt’s female competition.
Six-foot-one and ultra competitive, Wyatt is The Clanton Advertiser’s Girls Basketball Player of the Year, an honor she seems born for.
“Kindergarten,” Wyatt said when asked when she realized she was going to be taller than her peers. “I towered over everybody else. It was awful.”
But as opposed to being ashamed of her own height, Wyatt talks as though it was too bad that everyone else wasn’t taller.
That’s still the case. A sophomore during the 2008-09 season, Wyatt averaged 12 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks per game. She led the Mustangs in all three categories.
Wyatt should post impressive numbers because she’s had lots of practice. Wyatt, an only child, began playing basketball with her father, Billy Wyatt, at a young age.
Then the Wyatt household turned into a popular hangout for male relatives and male schoolmates. Wyatt stayed in the middle of everything.
“I was always with the boys,” she said. “My parents think of them as their children. We put a futon in a room so they wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor.”
But, sometimes, things turned competitive.
“Sometimes they get mad at me when I beat them.”