Kent County High School senior Taiyanna Goldsborough loves the weather, and the forecast for her future seems sunny and bright. Goldsborough will major in meteorology at Millersville University of Pennsylvania and attend the school on a lacrosse scholarship.
Goldsborough’s favorite website is weather.com and she enjoys watching videos of storms. She says she has been fascinated with the weather since the fifth grade when she had a close encounter with lightning.
“It was hot, humid, and a storm was brewing. I was doing cartwheels down my friend’s driveway,” recalls Goldsborough, who carries a 3.9 grade-point average at Kent. “Then lightning struck in the corn field directly in front of me.
“It was terrifying yet thrilling,” she adds. “I became curious about why the lightning bolt struck and what caused the storm. I just wanted to know more.”
Goldsborough wouldn’t mind being on television as a forecaster one day or having a career in research. “If I’m going to spend my life on something, I want it to be something that always keep me on my toes,” she says.
The 18-year-old stayed busy at Kent with sports and off the field activities. Goldsborough has earned eight varsity letters, three MVP awards for volleyball, sportsmanship awards for track and lacrosse, and First-Team North Bayside All-Conference honors. She was also a member of the Spanish Honor Society, treasurer for the Student Government Association, and vice president of the Minority Scholars Program.
On top of that, Goldsborough works part-time at Acme to help support her family. She says her desire to make things easier for them is what pushed her to be a standout student-athlete.
This past January, Goldsborough received the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award, given to two members of the community for “significant contributions to the quality of life in Kent County,” according to an online article of the Kent County News. “I think it was the fact that I’m so intertwined with so many different things,” she says. “I don’t stick to just one.”
The 5-foot-1 Goldsborough has been playing lacrosse for 11 years total and seven on highly competitive club teams, including The Lady Blue Crabs, who recently moved up to a more competitive bracket. She says that the team has gone from “walking all over everyone” to facing a more welcome challenge.
“That helps us a lot,” she says. “We were actually getting challenged, and you could definitely see our growth.”
Goldsborough said last year’s Kent varsity team graduated many of its top players and she is just one of two returning seniors. The four-year varsity starting defender looks forward to taking on a bigger leadership role. “I like talking charge,” says Goldsborough, who also considered the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Florida Institute of Technology, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to play lacrosse at the next level. “I can be better organized than other players and make quick, timely decisions.”
She was also a standout on the volleyball court. As a member of the junior varsity team her freshman year, Goldsborough recalled “we just weren’t that good. And it was pretty hard.”
She says the team often struggled to stay motivated. And in a game so dependent on momentum, this would have a major affect on their performance. “If no one is motivating you, or if you don’t have any drive to be better,” Goldsborough says, “the game will go so left, so fast.”
Goldsborough’s main focus, she says, was pushing the team to keep up any positive momentum it could find. And her attitude and commitment showed, as she was awarded with MVP that season. She also won MVPs as a junior and senior on the varsity as a libero. “She only played four years and could have played volleyball at some colleges,” Kent County Volleyball Coach Michelle Phillips says. “She was special. She knew where the ball was going before it was there. She was tenacious, quick, and hungry.”
Phillips admires Goldsborough for what she has accomplished off the field, saying she has exemplary character. “She is nurturing, caring, and very self-motivated,” Phillips explains.
