Elizabeth Funderburk (seated center) sat with some special people in celebration of her distance running future with Florida State University. Seated are grandparents Darrell and Gail Funderburk and Carole and Len Robinson. Standing are father Darrell, Colquitt County coaches Mell Wier, Eric McCranie and Dextra Polite, and mother Jenny.

MOULTRIE – When you’re a celebrity … total strangers come up to you with congratulations on your latest triumph.

But Elizabeth Funderburk, distance running extraordinaire for Colquitt County High School, doesn’t really see the well-wishers locally as strangers. She has the well-known father, former Colquitt County High football player and assistant coach Darrell Funderburk, and everyone from church to her running club mates to teachers from high, middle and elementary school, to even day care wanted to be a part of her big senior year celebration.

Not only did Funderburk fulfill her goal of winning the GHSA girls cross country championship in Carrollton earlier in November, but she has signed to be both a cross country and track and field runner for Florida State University.

Nobody was near Funderburk when she breezed to the finish line of state and waited a minute for the next runner to cross. Winning is all she’s done this fall as a senior, so it would be easy to take it with a business-as-usual approach. She said she has the straight-forward personality, and there wasn’t any element of surprise in her victory.

“After it sunk in, it’s like ‘Wow, I’m finally a cross country state champion,’” said Funderburk about the emotional response that followed. It was back in May that she won her first GHSA gold in running topping the 7A girls field in the 3,200 meters at Berry College. “That’s been my goal ever since I started in middle school running. It was a pretty cool moment.”

Numerous aspects of Funderburk’s life growing up in athletics were revealed on this occasion Wednesday. The running chapter did not begin until the middle school days, she tried her hand at tennis, swimming is a big part of her training in the early morning hours, but it all began with her father on the golf course.

“I thought I was going to be a collegiate golfer,” said Funderburk, her father taking her to the course for the first time at age 4. “When I got to middle school, I was like, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll try cross country’ to have something to do in the fall. It started out as something fun. At around eighth grade I realized I was pretty good. So in high school I really started working at it, seeing a lot of improvement, and I loved it.”

Going back to the early days on the golf course, naturally Funderburk wasn’t a serious player at age 4. It was just a chance to have fun with her dad.

“I started playing in tours and competitions when I was 8,” she said. “What kind of drew me away from (golf) I would say is there’s so much stress you can put on yourself. Sometimes, even if you practice all the time you don’t see improvement. That can be frustrating. Running was like a stress relief for me.”

Funderburk didn’t completely leave golf, for she still plays on the Colquitt County team and is a region champion there. The golf course also built that important bond between father and daughter. Darrell was described as one intense football coach during his time on the Packer sideline – he was part of Jim Hughes’ staff for the 1994 state championship season, a Packer first – but then stepped away from coaching and into administration at the time of Elizabeth’s birth in 1999.

So how did the old football player handle the delicate little girl?

“It’s a little bit of both,” she said. “He can be intense, but I grew up with it so I knew how to handle it. It made me stronger as an athlete and all areas of my life.

“We’ll just be at the grocery store somewhere and someone … usually they know my parents (Darrell and Jenny) at least, but I may not know them. They will say congratulations. It’s such a good feeling to know I have this whole community supporting me.

“I’ve had so many great people in my life. A lot of people didn’t have that foundation when they were young.”

She’s referring to her day care provider as both of her parents are in education. It’s there she made her best friends. Putting it all together didn’t just lead to state championships, but the valedictorian spot in her graduating class.

“It’s time management,” said Funderburk, who will be up around 4:30 a.m. ready to go. “You have to have priorities. I’ve given up a lot of things that are important to other teenagers to be successful. That’s just who I am.”

Mathematics is the field Funderburk said she enjoys the most academically (Jenny is math coordinator). Really, she said she doesn’t have a bad subject as she will apply herself in any classroom. At Florida State, she’s not fully decided on what avenues to pursue, but the leading contender is law school.

“I think I want to be a lawyer,” she said. “That’s kind of my long term goal.”