“I have a special place in my heart for the girls who come in here,” she says. “It takes a very confident girl to walk into a place like this and train with all the guys. They have a certain kind of strength that I admire because I can relate to it.”

Drew’s passion for combat began when she developed an interest in karate in junior high. “I’ve always liked the idea of one-on-one challenges. Team sports are great, and you can have a lot of fun bonding with other teammates, but at the end of the day I like to know that I can win or lose on my own.” After training in martial arts and earning her black belt at age 14, she began looking for new challenges, both physical and mental. “A trainer at my gym suggested boxing because it uses a lot of the same skills as martial arts. For several years I went back and forth between boxing matches and karate tournaments because I think the two disciplines actually complement each other very well.”

Mixed martial artist and boxer Audrey Drew trains for the next challenge.

Among other titles, she won the 2010 Women’s National Golden Gloves Championship. Yet, the cute little girl who attended Lamplighter and ESD and went on to earn a degree in Biology from UT Arlington is far from resting on her hard won laurels. She’s now taking on the sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. “I like the idea of competing in the grappling arts,” says this 165 pound fighter who pictures herself as one of those girls you see on ESPN battling it out in a cage. “I’ve done a lot of competing while standing up, so I’m excited for the challenge on the floor.”

Also see updatedallas.com for the latest in real estate news. CEO Robbie Briggs independently owns and operates Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.

She was chosen to go to Omaha for the trials because she recorded the nation’s sixth fastest time in the 50-meter freestyle among 18-year-olds and under at the National Swimming Championship and the Junior National Swimming Championship in Palo Alto, CA. “I am really excited to go,” she said. But she is realistic that the Olympics this year may have come a little too soon. She plans to compete in Omaha for the experience, but expects her best shot to make the Olympic team will come in 2016.

Photos of Claire Brandt after winning the 50 yard freestyle at last winter’s Short Course Junior Nationals.

Getting to this pinnacle was not always a foregone conclusion. Brandt started swimming in her backyard pool when she was five and soon began competing year round. Her times at ages 10, 11 and 12 caught the attention of anyone watching. But when she hit high school, her freestyle times stagnated. Her times did not improve as a sophomore and junior, although her backstroke times did. “This year, I got my head right,” she said.

Brandt is no one-dimensional athlete. She is a good student in the academically challenging environment of Greenhill, which she described as “a very special place.”And she likes giving back to the swimming world. For years, she taught younger children, including her sister, Rebecca, how to swim in her pool. For the last two summers she has been a lifeguard and taught swimming at the Northwood Country Club.

Photos of Claire Brandt after winning the 50 yard freestyle at last winter’s Short Course Junior Nationals. In second place was Lindsey McKnight from St. Andrews Swimming (Florida) and in third place was Rachel Moore from Crimson Aquatics (Massachusetts)

Next fall, she will be on the Texas A&M University team. “I am so excited to be an Aggie!” she wrote. “I felt that I could be very successful both as a student and a swimmer there, and on my trip, I just felt at home. Gig em!”

Also see updatedallas.com for the latest in real estate news. CEO Robbie Briggs independently owns and operates Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.

Now a teaching professional for the last 10 years at Brookhaven Country Club, Anders may be best known as the first coach for Jordan Spieth, the top-ranked junior golfer in the country. But he takes pride in working with every young golfer who walks onto the courses at Brookhaven. “I like to think that everybody has the potential to be a great golfer,” he said.

Among his students who seem to be on the path is his adopted daughter, Anya, who had never played golf until she came to the U.S. in 2008. Now a junior, she is a star on the Carrollton Creekview High School team and can hit drives that rival LPGA players. Every year Anders, who didn’t take up golf until he blew out his knee playing college basketball, works with 200 to 300 young golfers who come through the Brookhaven Golf Academy or the club’s golf leagues.

His students appreciate his dedication and support. “I can honestly say that I would not be the golfer I am if it wasn’t for Joey. He helped me take my game to the next level and achieve my goal of a college scholarship,” says Erin Barrington, a Dallas Baptist University Freshmen who earned All-Heartland Conference Second Team recognition this year and recorded a 79.00 scoring average and two top-five finishes. “Joey motivated me to become more committed to my practice and aspirations.”

Left to right Hanna Harrison, swing coach Joey Anders, and Erin Barrington.

According to Anders, the key to his teaching success is listening. “If you can match your goals for them as closely as you can with their goals, then you can really help them.” Anders tries to find what motivates each young person. He said the young golfers with the most potential are those who are intelligent and like challenges. “I have been surprised by a few,” he said. “So I can’t give up on anyone.”

See updatedallas.com for the latest in real estate news. CEO Robbie Briggs independently owns and operates Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.

Novakov is the head coach of Parish Episcopal’s little league football team, a group of 6th graders who have played together on the same football, basketball and lacrosse teams since they were… little. Together, the team accomplished an impressive 13-0 record last season, capturing the area championship in a close game against the North Texas Express.

Novakov’s, Cowboys played against North Texas Express for the area championship. Also shown, coaches Stephen Jones and Kent Petty. Photo by Richey Humphreys.

“These guys are smarter and work harder than a lot of the guys on the college team I coached, and they’re only twelve,” says Novakov who played quarterback at Notre Dame and went on to coach at Miami University in Ohio. “We use a playbook straight from Highland Park High School, and they’ve already learned a lot of the terminology that I used when coaching college players. I’m amazed at their ability to understand the game of football and be very successful at such a young age.”

Their accomplishments are a result of hard work and dedication, encouraged by a coach who sets the bar high. “I don’t baby them. I work them hard, I expect a lot, and they don’t complain…and neither do the parents. It’s a great group all around.” Novakov knows that it can be challenging to keep a group of 12-year-olds focused and motivated, so he’ll use everything from game film, to team dinners to honey badger T-shirts to keep the kids interested and learning.

“Coach is funny and inspiring and he tells us great stories,” says cornerback Will Wood. “He teaches us to never give up, and he teaches us discipline and those are things that help, not just for football but for school too.”

Coach Novakov’s passion for football is contagious, and the kids he coaches catch the positive attitude early on. “Football teaches a lot about mental toughness and physical effort. In football you are rewarded for your performance as a team,” he says. “It’s been fun to see all their hard work pay off.”

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Compared to elementary and middle school, high school “is a huge difference,” Young said. “It is nice to get them to understand how things work. They appreciate the encouragement.” And the new freshmen can go home and tell their families they are friends with one of the school’s star athletes.

Tyler Young hits the mark as athlete, scholar and volunteer.

Young is ranked the fifth best high jumper in Texas and 23rd best high jumper in the nation. But that is only a part of his story. He is also a very good student with what Father Paul McCormick described as “a great mind.” He is not one to shirk his religious duties. “He is very conscientious about living out his faith,” said McCormick, the school’s assistant headmaster. “He has a great moral compass.”

In addition to helping younger students transition into high school, Young has worked as a volunteer in the Special Olympics, he has donated food to the North Texas Food Bank and the St. Vincent dePaul Society, and at Christmas he has helped needy families identified by the Catholic Charities. Young attributes his commitment to the church and community service to the school and to his parents, who always put faith first.

He gives credit for his high jumping success to his volunteer coach, Bobby Olson, an Irving firefighter who was a two-time Olympian athlete. “I had potential (as a high jumper), but he has given me the knowledge. I don’t know where I would be without him,” Young said. Over the Easter break, Olson took time to put Young through his drills. He said, “He is pushing me to a whole other level.”

Also see updatedallas.com for the latest in real estate news. CEO Robbie Briggs independently owns and operates Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.

So Jamie Cantrell, the varsity soccer coach for nine years, argues, “I’m not doing anything that anyone else doesn’t.”

Her Ursuline colleagues disagree.

The soccer team may be best known for its 22 state titles. But in certain homes where financial fortune has not always smiled, Cantrell’s girls are better known for their generosity.

Each fall, Cantrell challenges the team to pick a service project. Being near Christmas, most of the projects have helped needy families.

In 2010, Cantrell and the team furnished a one-bedroom east Dallas apartment where a single mother and her two daughters lived with two beds, a television, a stocked pantry and toys.

Last season, Cantrell blended competition and fun with service. She divided the players into six-member teams and assigned each a family from the Dallas Galleria’s Angel Tree. Each team had an hour to buy gifts for the children.

“That evening Wal-Mart was filled with Ursuline soccer players bustling around to fulfill the Christmas wishes of the less fortunate, all thanks to the service-minded spirit of their humble leader,” added assistant coach Allie Daus.

Cantrell considers herself the blessed one. “I inherited a great program (at Ursuline),” she said. As to her service projects, she said, “It’s fun. That is why we are here.”

Ursuline Academy Soccer Coach Jamie Cantrell prepares team members to take the field.

An SMU graduate, Cantrell initially worked for Wyndham International, but dropped out of the corporate world when her soccer coach at Plano Senior High School asked if she would like to coach. Two years later she left for Ursuline.

“Hundreds of soccer players have passed through the Ursuline soccer program over the past nine years,” added Daus. “More important than the State Championship medals all of those girls have taken with them is the lesson that their blessings and good fortune should always be reciprocated by service to those in need, all thanks to their humble, spirited and ever so passionate coach.”

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For professional baseball players, the winter is a time for training, not exotic travel.

A Highland Park High School pitching star and last year’s Cy Young-award winning pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Kershaw wanted to spend the time throwing baseballs. But his wife, the former Ellen Melson, was persuasive.

“Africa had become a big part of my life, my heart,” she said. She had traveled there five times during college, growing more passionate about Africa each trip. “I wanted it to be a big part of his life too,” she said.

When they arrived in Zambia, he fell in love, particularly with the children. When he walked down the street, it was like he was this gentle white giant, Ellen Kershaw said. “There would be a string of kids holding his hand, walking down the street.”

Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw donates $100 for every strike out to help orphaned children in Zambia.

The Kershaws decided they wanted to create new opportunities for the children they met and one child in particular.

Hope was 11 years old when Ellen Kershaw met her. She was homeless and diagnosed with HIV, but the disease was not being treated. She was malnourished and lived on the streets.

The Kershaws made sure she had a place to live, food and medicine to treat her disease.

“It has made a world of difference,” she said.

The couple decided to expand their success with Hope and build a home for other children to break the poverty cycle.

The Kershaws created Kershaw’s Challenge. It makes pitching strikeouts even more meaningful. For every strike out he pitches, the left-hander donates at least $100 to the home they are building. For the 2011 season, when he pitched 247 strike outs, he donated $492,300. When he won the 2011 Players Choice Award, he donated $260,000 to the home, now named for Hope, who will be the first of 12 new residents as soon as the home is furnished.

This year, the Kershaws are buying more land to help the children learn to grow crops and raise chickens, which will help sustain the home and raise money.

For more information, visit kershawschallenge.com.

Then a student at Highland Park High School, Garrett has autism. She would not look people in the eye. She did not like being touched.

Today, Murchison, the program director for the Dallas-area Special Olympics Program, said Garrett is employed at the Y, typing and doing other administrative work in membership development.

“It was really cool watching her grow,” she said.

Murchison, who graduated from Mesquite High School before studying health and human performance at Texas A&M University, Commerce, is in her second year as the Special Olympics program director, a job she sought after working 15 years at the Y.

Thanks to her passion and an invigorated volunteer base, the program has grown 13 percent in one year, including adding 850 athletes. It serves more than 6,200 athletes, who participate in 19 different sports from track and field to equestrian events.

Cyndi Murchison, Austin Igo and his mom Becky Igo enjoy softball with friends from Special Olympics

Murchison even joined in the Polar Plunge at the Mesquite City Aquatic Center in January, jumping into icy water to raise $6,500 for the program, although raising money, her boss informed her, is not in her job description.

“If you tell me I can’t do something, then I am determined to do it,” she said. Of the success of her program, she said, “When you are passionate about something, it will sell itself.”

She is busy preparing for the Spring Games, a competition at Cedar Hill High School April 27-28 that features a track meet, soccer and tennis matches. There is also a 5K and Fun Run on the Katy Trail April 1, starting at Reverchon Park.

For more information, to volunteer or to donate, visit sotx.org. Also see updatedallas.com for the latest in real estate news. CEO Robbie Briggs independently owns and operates Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.

“It’s a chance for girls who may not, or choose not, to compete at the highest levels to have the opportunity to compete in a huge arena and experience the thrill of being on a team,” says the 23-year-old Plano resident who admits to being “one of the oldest girls in the gym these days.” For many of the talented athletes who competed in the 3rd Annual Nastia Liukin Cup, held recently at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, getting there was one of the biggest hurdles. Liukin has supported many of these gymnasts not just with encouragement and advice but though her namesake foundation that covers fees for training, competition and more. “I’ve had such a great experience with gymnastics, but I know how incredibly expensive the sport can be. Between the foundation and the Cup, we’re able to give gymnasts an experience they wouldn’t have been able to have. Whether or not they train at top levels is not important. What’s important is being able to work hard, be part of a team and experience success.”

Nastia Liukin meets young gymnasts at the 2012 Nastia Liukin Cup. Photo by John Cheng

As to Liukin’s goals, she’s back in training in pursuit of team Gold at the 2012 Summer Games in London. She’s also using her popularity with young gymnasts to model self-confidence and positive thinking.

“Gymnasts spend a lot of time in leotards. We spend a lot of time being judged on minute details. That can really hurt a girl’s self-confidence. I think part of my role in this sport is to constantly remind girls not to pay attention to other people’s negativity and, instead, focus on doing what makes them feel happy and healthy.” Her advice holds true even for those not dreaming of Gold.

Nastia Liukin competes at the 2008 Olympic trials. Photo by John Cheng

Rex Cotten was an average Little League player, but he loved baseball and has worked to help his own sons and now the sons of others become as good a ball player as each can be.

“My kids liked playing, and I was determined that if I was going to coach them and other kids, I would learn more about hitting and give them a better chance to succeed at such a hard game,” he said.

Rex Cotten and players Adam Kountz, Brice Zack, Christian Summers, Cameron Booth, and Geno Tarin.

Retired and widowed, he sought out hitting instructors and tried to develop a simple hitting approach that would help young players become better.

Cotten, a resident of Horseshoe Bay after living in Dallas for seven years, was asked by several parents to help 10 young players when they were nine years old. He worked with them on their techniques. He also bought their uniforms and subsidized their tournament entry fees for the traveling select team they were on.

Seven of the 10 were named to the All West Texas team. Two are playing college baseball – a pitcher for Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, and a shortstop for the University of Texas, Austin.

It is the shortstop who is on Cotten’s mind these days. A tall, very fast young man, he has tremendous potential. But suddenly this spring he hit a slump and has been benched for poor hitting.

“These things just happen,” Cotten said.

He has been trying to reassure the young man’s parents that their son will probably start hitting well again. And he drove to Houston to watch a UT game and spend time with his young protege.

“I still have my baseball cards from the 50s and still love the game and it’s history,” Cotten said.

But he is far more proud of his own sons, who went on to play in high school. His youngest was the third leading hitter in his 5A district during his junior year with a batting average of .436.

“He probably got more hits in that year than I got my seven years of Little League and teenage ball,” he said.

See updatedallas.com for the latest in real estate news. CEO Robbie Briggs independently owns and operates Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty.