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Sports has long been a bond between Leah Black and her mom, Kristin Black.
Leah grew up roaming the courts and sidelines of Panther Valley sporting events, while Kristin ran them as the district’s athletic director.
And as Leah became a star athlete herself at Tamaqua High School, her mom has been there to cheer her on at every one of her basketball games, volleyball matches, and track meets.
Now, two recent awards from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association have brought the Lake Hauto mother and daughter even closer.
Leah was announced last week as the organization’s 2026 Pennsylvania student-athlete essay award recipient, making her tops in the state.
That award was in recognition of her essay, which she read to 350 athletic directors from across Pennsylvania, and it also honored her academic excellence and athletic accomplishments.
While Kristin sat proudly and listened to so many people compliment her daughter’s character that day, and how well she represents Tamaqua School District, she too had an award coming.
Kristin won the organization’s Athletic Director of the Year award for Region 2, which includes Schuylkill County and the rest of PIAA Districts 2, 4, and 11.
Since Panther Valley includes Coaldale, she was only the seventh athletic director from Schuylkill County to win the award since it started in 1992, and the first woman from Schuylkill to do so.
Being recognized on the same day as her daughter made the award much more meaningful to Kristin, she said.
“It was amazing,” she said.
Leah’s essay was a personal reflection of being on the Lady Raiders basketball team, where she played forward as a sophomore and junior, and stepped up to assume the vacant role of starting point guard during her senior season.
In speaking about how high school athletics has affected her life each day, she wrote about practices and games, and also community involvement and building relationships.
“The positive impact sports would have on me has been more than I could have imagined,” she wrote.
She reflected on how local gyms and athletic fields were her second home growing up as her mom brought her along to countless events, and how the Panther Valley athletes that spoke and played with her during practices became people that she looked up to. So was her mom, whom she watched in charge of those events.
“Being around athletes who worked hard every day and exemplified their talents in practices and games was just enough to convince me to play sports too,” she wrote.
She also wrote about how as an eighth grader, she tore her ACL playing basketball. As hard as it was to miss most of her freshman season, the injury taught her patience and how to persevere through something detrimental, she said.
“Overcoming my injury made me strive to be the best athlete I could be to make up for the lost year,” she wrote. “After coming back, I worked hard and became a captain in multiple sports because of my leadership, accountability, and communication skills.”
Just as she admired her mom’s athletes, she works to be a good role model to those younger student-athletes at Tamaqua who strive to be great, she said.
After graduation she plans to study nursing at Lehigh Carbon Community College.
While Leah’s hard work was something that the association awarded, her mom, too, has an impressive work-ethic, as her schedule demonstrates.
As Panther Valley’s athletic director since 2005, she has spent her days, and most nights, performing a myriad of tasks. Other than when attending games involving Leah and her sister, Millie, Kristin is at every home event that Panther Valley hosts, where she’s in charge of ticket sales, game officials, security, and game management. If anyone from parents to students to coaches to spectators to referees have a problem or need help, they’ll likely end up coming to her.
“I’m the one marking where the hurdles go for the track meets,” she mentioned as an example of her wide-ranging tasks.
Kristen also serves as the district’s activities director, meaning that she helps run all types of events, ranging from school dances, to band and chorus concerts, to cheerleading activities, requiring her to perform all types of duties.
For instance, when she heads to the Friday night football games that she oversees, she drives the book buddy van there, so kids can have access to free books.
She transports and supervises Panther Valley students at the special-needs fishing derby held each year in Jim Thorpe.
She monitors weather forecasts to decide whether events need to be postponed.
And when new Panther Valley employees come on board, it’s Kristin who is handing them their collection jars for drug testing.
She was excited for her award because it was voted on by her peers, who recognized that she’s doing her job well.
“I work hard at what I do,” she said.
As a 2000 graduate of Panther Valley, where her husband, Fenton Black, also graduated, she is thankful to be doing that work for their alma mater.
“I bleed black, gold and white,” she said of P.V.’s colors.
Kristen said that since local athletic directors are a close group who work together regularly, she was proud to follow others from Schuylkill who won the annual athletic-director of the year award for Region 2, including Charlie Williams of Panther Valley in 1992, Don Bricker of North Schuylkill in 1993, John Carestia of Pottsville in 2004, Scott Dimon of Pine Grove in 2009, Michael Hromyak of Tamaqua in 2011, and Richard Dry of Minersville in 2019.
Also proud of her is Leah, whose admiration for her mother continues, she said.
“She was my role model when I was little,” Leah said, “and she’s still my role model now.”
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Leah grew up roaming the courts and sidelines of Panther Valley sporting events, while Kristin ran them as the district’s athletic director.
And as Leah became a star athlete herself at Tamaqua High School, her mom has been there to cheer her on at every one of her basketball games, volleyball matches, and track meets.
Now, two recent awards from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association have brought the Lake Hauto mother and daughter even closer.
Leah was announced last week as the organization’s 2026 Pennsylvania student-athlete essay award recipient, making her tops in the state.
That award was in recognition of her essay, which she read to 350 athletic directors from across Pennsylvania, and it also honored her academic excellence and athletic accomplishments.
While Kristin sat proudly and listened to so many people compliment her daughter’s character that day, and how well she represents Tamaqua School District, she too had an award coming.
Kristin won the organization’s Athletic Director of the Year award for Region 2, which includes Schuylkill County and the rest of PIAA Districts 2, 4, and 11.
Since Panther Valley includes Coaldale, she was only the seventh athletic director from Schuylkill County to win the award since it started in 1992, and the first woman from Schuylkill to do so.
Being recognized on the same day as her daughter made the award much more meaningful to Kristin, she said.
“It was amazing,” she said.
Leah’s essay was a personal reflection of being on the Lady Raiders basketball team, where she played forward as a sophomore and junior, and stepped up to assume the vacant role of starting point guard during her senior season.
In speaking about how high school athletics has affected her life each day, she wrote about practices and games, and also community involvement and building relationships.
“The positive impact sports would have on me has been more than I could have imagined,” she wrote.
She reflected on how local gyms and athletic fields were her second home growing up as her mom brought her along to countless events, and how the Panther Valley athletes that spoke and played with her during practices became people that she looked up to. So was her mom, whom she watched in charge of those events.
“Being around athletes who worked hard every day and exemplified their talents in practices and games was just enough to convince me to play sports too,” she wrote.
She also wrote about how as an eighth grader, she tore her ACL playing basketball. As hard as it was to miss most of her freshman season, the injury taught her patience and how to persevere through something detrimental, she said.
“Overcoming my injury made me strive to be the best athlete I could be to make up for the lost year,” she wrote. “After coming back, I worked hard and became a captain in multiple sports because of my leadership, accountability, and communication skills.”
Just as she admired her mom’s athletes, she works to be a good role model to those younger student-athletes at Tamaqua who strive to be great, she said.
After graduation she plans to study nursing at Lehigh Carbon Community College.
While Leah’s hard work was something that the association awarded, her mom, too, has an impressive work-ethic, as her schedule demonstrates.
As Panther Valley’s athletic director since 2005, she has spent her days, and most nights, performing a myriad of tasks. Other than when attending games involving Leah and her sister, Millie, Kristin is at every home event that Panther Valley hosts, where she’s in charge of ticket sales, game officials, security, and game management. If anyone from parents to students to coaches to spectators to referees have a problem or need help, they’ll likely end up coming to her.
“I’m the one marking where the hurdles go for the track meets,” she mentioned as an example of her wide-ranging tasks.
Kristen also serves as the district’s activities director, meaning that she helps run all types of events, ranging from school dances, to band and chorus concerts, to cheerleading activities, requiring her to perform all types of duties.
For instance, when she heads to the Friday night football games that she oversees, she drives the book buddy van there, so kids can have access to free books.
She transports and supervises Panther Valley students at the special-needs fishing derby held each year in Jim Thorpe.
She monitors weather forecasts to decide whether events need to be postponed.
And when new Panther Valley employees come on board, it’s Kristin who is handing them their collection jars for drug testing.
She was excited for her award because it was voted on by her peers, who recognized that she’s doing her job well.
“I work hard at what I do,” she said.
As a 2000 graduate of Panther Valley, where her husband, Fenton Black, also graduated, she is thankful to be doing that work for their alma mater.
“I bleed black, gold and white,” she said of P.V.’s colors.
Kristen said that since local athletic directors are a close group who work together regularly, she was proud to follow others from Schuylkill who won the annual athletic-director of the year award for Region 2, including Charlie Williams of Panther Valley in 1992, Don Bricker of North Schuylkill in 1993, John Carestia of Pottsville in 2004, Scott Dimon of Pine Grove in 2009, Michael Hromyak of Tamaqua in 2011, and Richard Dry of Minersville in 2019.
Also proud of her is Leah, whose admiration for her mother continues, she said.
“She was my role model when I was little,” Leah said, “and she’s still my role model now.”
Continue reading...
