Amy Paine Hines

MOULTRIE – It isn’t rare for high school athletes to participate in – and excel in – two sports. But it is somewhat rare, however, when those two sports are holding practices and competitions at the same time of the year.

When Amy Paine Hines was a student at Colquitt County High School in the late 1990s, she was an outstanding gymnast on the Moultrie YMCA and Colquitt County High teams and was equally talented on the Lady Packers’ cross country and track teams. She juggled multiple sports successfully in Colquitt County and later at Rhodes College in Memphis.

Competing in both cross country and track and field at Rhodes, she became a two-time Division III All-America in the 1,500 meters and was an 11-time All-Conference performer, winning seven Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference individual titles in events ranging from the 800 meters to the 5,000 meters. She also was a six-time NCAA national qualifier.

When she was inducted into the Rhodes Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015, she still held school records in the mile run, 1,500-meter run, 3,000-meter run and 5,000-meter run. And her 2003 time in the 1,500-meter run still ranked among the top times in NCAA Division III history.

On Thursday, Amy will be inducted into another hall of fame, this one in her hometown.

She will be among nine individuals and two teams to be enshrined in the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame at its banquet to be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Colquitt County High School cafeteria.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce and Modern Cleaners.

Joining her in being inducted are former Packer football players Brian Knighton, Matt Parker, Brian Jordan and Sherard Reynolds; “Voice of the Packers” Durwood Dominy; basketball players Sarah Edwards and Britney Wetherington Mobley; and another outstanding track athlete, Armanti Jamal Hayes.

The Hall of Fame also will honor the 1963 Moultrie High School state runner-up football team and the Riverside Cotton Mill baseball team.

Amy’s gymnastics career began when she was a pre-schooler in the YMCA’s program directed by Pat Murphy. As she matured and improved, she was influenced by two Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame gymnastics coaches, Don Blevins and Bob Swadel. She eventually became a level 9 gymnast, even as she trained to become a distance runner.

“She was an overachiever in the gym,” Swadel remembers. “She worked tremendously hard to overcome some physical liabilities.

“But she made the Y teams and the high school teams better just by being part of those teams. She was one of the best team leaders we’ve ever had. She was a joy to coach and had such an impact as a peer leader.”

Amy says Swadel’s biggest influence on her was in goal-setting. She says she recently came across folders from the early-1990s in which she kept copies of the goals she set.

“I didn’t always reach those goals,” she says, but added that the importance of having something to strive for helped define her future athletic successes.

Amy remembers arriving at the YMCA at 5 p.m. for gymnastics practice having come straight from training with the cross country team. Gymnastics practice lasted until 8:30 p.m.

Colquitt County cross country coach Mell Wier remembers those days as well.

“Sometimes she would practice 20 to 25 minutes with us and then go to the Y,” Wier says.

But even without a full commitment to running, she would still post times in 21s and 22s, Wier says.

“We’d go to meets with 30 or 40 teams and she’d still be in the top 10,” says Wier, who came to Moultrie as the cross country coach in Amy’s junior year. “She was extremely talented for a part-time runner, just eat up with potential.”

Amy does not regret the afternoons practicing disparate sports before settling into a late evening of homework.

“The two sports are actually very complementary,” she says. “And that combination worked for me.

“It taught me discipline and time management. Even in college, when I was in season and racing, my grades were better.”

Her affinity for running came from her parents, Matt and Nancy Paine.

“They always ran,” she says. “It just seemed like the thing for me to do.”

Weir says he tried to get Georgia Tech interested in recruiting Amy, but her times were not fast enough, he was told. He could not sell the Yellow Jackets on her potential.

When Amy was deciding on a place to continue her athletic and academic careers, she visited Rhodes and it appeared to be a fit.

“I just prayed for God to make clear the next place for me,” she says. “And it seemed the place for me.”

Rhodes was interested in her running potential, but was also looking for a pole vaulter. And an ex-gymnast with upper-body strength seemed to fit the bill. It was not her favorite sport, but she did it for two seasons.

She was not an immediate success at Rhodes and was not among the top 10 runners on the cross country team as a freshman. She also started slowly on the track team. But she trained vigorously between her freshman and sophomore years and blossomed into one of the top Division III runners in the country.

In cross country, she won the SCAC title as a junior in 2001, leading Rhodes to the conference championship and qualifying individually for the National Championship Meet.

As a senior, she led the Lynx to a second straight conference championship. She also finished third at the Southeast Region Championships, leading Rhodes to its first appearance at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.

But she enjoyed her greatest success on the track.

As a junior, she qualified for the Outdoor National Championships in the 1,500-meter run. The next year, she qualified for the 2003 National Indoor National Championships and earned All-America honors in the 1,500 meters.

In the outdoor season, she qualified for the National Championships in both the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs.

She completed her career by finishing second in the 1,500 meters in the NCAA Track and Field National Championships at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. Her senior season time of 4:26.55 was at that time the second-fastest 1,500-meter run time in NCAA Division III history.

She credits much of her success to her Rhodes coach, Robert Shankman.

“He was good for me,” she says.

When she was inducted into the Rhodes Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015, Shankman said, “Amy was key in developing a culture of commitment, integrity and passion that is still fundamental within our program today.”

Winning the Seidman Award as the Rhodes College top scholar-athlete, she graduated cum laude with a degree in economics. After leaving Rhodes, Amy went to Palo Alto, Calif., to compete with the Nike Farm Team. She also taught third- and fourth-graders for three years at the Baton Rouge Classical Christian School, where she helped in the school’s physical education program.

When she moved to Tallahassee, she worked with the Florida State University program as a volunteer assistant. She also trained with the team, leading her to post her fastest 5K time of 16.29 at the Penn Relays.

Amy taught at Christ Classical Academy in Tallahassee for several years before becoming the school’s principal. She is now the director of children’s ministry at St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral in Tallahassee, where she lives with her husband Magnus Hines and their three children, Magnus IV, 7; Twila, 3; and Hattie, 1.