Four! Nikki Gannon Is Playing Through
It’s noon at the Gannon household, and what began as a trickle has erupted into a steady flow of dizzying activity.
Judy Gannon, the mom, yo-yos up and down from her seat at the kitchen table, dividing her attention among a women’s tennis match on ESPN, a reporter who has come to talk to her daughter, Nikki, and the arrivals and departures of nine of her 10 children.
Ten-year-old Rick and Kristi, who turned 8 the day before, are the youngest. They have gotten bored trying to send a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle kite--the household’s most recent acquisition----into orbit. Instead, they settle on shooting baskets on the driveway’s makeshift court.
Zack and Shannon, the family dogs, play enthusiastically in a spacious back yard that is surrounded by orange and avocado trees and sandwiched between a dusty tennis court and a 25-yard swimming pool. Soon, they are summoned to the living room window.
“Shannon is one of my favorite names,” said Judy Gannon, “but I couldn’t see any of my daughters having to go through life as Shannon Gannon.”
This philosophy elicits a chuckle from Nikki, the fourth of Judy’s six daughters.
Nikki was spared the name but spoiled with a mix of pure athletic talent and competitive fire that San Pasqual High won’t soon forget, or duplicate.
For four years, she has served up aces, scored from three-point range, free kicked and driven in game-winning RBIs with equal aplomb. And she has done it all in a way that has shed a positive light on San Pasqual.
“There are some (athletes) you’d want to carry the school banner,” said Gordon Marsh, San Pasqual’s athletic director. “She’s the perfect choice. She’s always smiling, she has the most pleasant of personalities, and she hasn’t been affected by the publicity she’s received. She’s taken it all in stride and run with it.”
Actually, running is one of the few things she hasn’t tackled. But four seasons of tennis in the fall, soccer and basketball in the winter and softball in the spring give Nikki, 17, the four-sport distinction few share.
According to Marsh, 800 to 850 students compete for San Pasqual. Of those, approximately 600 participate in a single sport, 200 are two-sport athletes and 50 find time for three. Then there’s Nikki.
“We do have a couple of younger classmen who did four sports, but none near the level of Nikki,” said Marsh.
Nikki has an astonishing four San Diego section patches--three consecutive 2-A titles in soccer and one in basketball--plus nine team and two individual varsity and two junior varsity team Avocado League titles to her credit.
Of the endless array of trophies, certificates, patches and medals all stuffed into Nikki’s bedroom and the living room, there are two she treasures most.
“The year I won both (section titles) within 24 hours,” she said. “That was my first CIF title, then I got both. It was neat, and all within a day.”
In 1988, Nikki won a section championship in basketball on a Friday night and barely got a decent night’s sleep before playing on the winning soccer team the next afternoon.
On the flip side, her most haunting loss was San Pasqual’s one-sided defeat to Point Loma in the Division II section basketball final this year.
“How many times can you lose a CIF game in the morning, then get another chance to win in the afternoon?” she said. “Emotionally, I was really upset. We were so much better than that. It was hard to get excited for the soccer game.”
San Pasqual defeated USDHS for its fifth consecutive soccer title, but Nikki remained miffed.
“It was hard going out with a game like that, with so many people watching,” she said.
One ardent follower through everything has been Judy Gannon, who assisted Terri Bamford as the assistant basketball coach this season. Judy, husband Gary and her siblings have provided the support and coaching that complete Nikki’s story.
Of her brothers and sisters--three from Judy’s first marriage--Long Beach State graduate Mac McKeever, 27 and Nikki’s oldest brother, is one of the strongest influences.
“He comes to all my games and gives me advice,” Nikki said. “He’s really the only voice I hear in the stands.”
Gary Gannon and his oldest sons, Mac and Stanford graduate Barry McKeever, 24, helped build the football stadium at San Pasqual. The school graduated Judy’s first daughter, Teri McKeever, now the women’s and men’s swimming coach at Fresno State, in 1979, and will graduate her last, Kristi, in 2000.
Judy also helps coach some of the younger kids basketball teams and keeps statistics for Nikki’s softball team.
“They make it to every game,” said Bill Bullock, San Pasqual soccer coach. “I’ve seen Judy get Nikki from Mira Mesa to El Capitan in 30 minutes. Obviously, that makes a difference.”
Said Marsh: “I give her parents the credit for those kids. The environment in her home is one of real support and the continued availability of a game to play.”
Or the ingenuity to invent one.
Marsh recounts the time his son came home from an afternoon at the Gannons, where he had been playing broom hockey. “When there wasn’t a game to play, they made one up,” he said.
In addition to the pool and tennis court, the Gannons also have a bare patch of land that masquerades as a softball field. Inside, the recreation room boasts an air hockey set, mini-trampoline and exercise mat.
Nikki’s coaches all described her as a quiet leader and said her unselfishness kept her teammates from becoming jealous of all the attention she has received.
“There was never any jealousy,” Bamford said. “It didn’t matter to her if she scored 30 points or two. As long as we won, she was happy.”
Said Bullock: “She never felt it was important to score all the goals.”
Also figuring prominently in her success is Nikki’s innate court and field sense.
“In soccer it’s something we call vision,” Bullock said, “being able to see that whole field ahead of you. Generally, she knew what to do with the ball and how to get it there.”
Mike Basalo, San Pasqual softball coach, said she has, “a good sense of what’s going on around her and sees what needs to be done.”
That Nikki had a built-in “team” available at all times for practice purposes didn’t hurt either. Most of the older children left their marks in record books at San Pasqual and were successful in college, and the younger ones are beginning their careers.
“Athletics has always been pretty important to me,” Judy explained. “They start real little, but they practice too. It was always important to me that they participate, do well in school and graduate from college. I have three down and seven to go.”
Nikki said Tuesday she had decided to attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on a partial basketball scholarship. She was also considering Sacramento State and UC Riverside.
Although there are hundreds of girls competing for few college scholarships, Nikki said she never felt that concentrating on one sport would be beneficial.
“No, because for the rest of my life I’ll always have something to do,” she said. “And when I started, I wasn’t really thinking about college anyway.”
But colleges also look at other aspects of a student/athlete, and Nikki performs equally well in the classroom and beyond.
She has maintained a 3.3-3.5 grade point average, is currently is the Associated Student Body vice president--brother Jim Gannon, 15, is the freshman class president--and was a princess in the 1989 Homecoming court.
Marsh said some successful athletes have trouble integrating with non-athletes, but that was never a problem with Nikki.
“You see the way kids move from one group to another on campus, and you don’t see any aloofness in her,” he said.
Nor lack of energy. In spite of her crazy schedule, especially during the winter, Nikki was described as one of the hardest-working athletes by her coaches.
“Even though sports come come easy for her, she’s always willing to put in the time to get better,” said Ron Peet, San Pasqual tennis coach.
Said Bamford: “She never missed a practice. It was tough because both teams counted on her so much, but every time she had a soccer game before basketball, she’d have a better game. Fatigue factored in some games, but she gave it everything she had in all the games.”
Nikki said she would like to major in communications in college, and someday be a sports broadcaster. She certainly has some sound credentials to start with.