The future is bright – Baylor

From Jerry Hill
Baylorbears.com

“Welcome to the podium, the new Big 12 Conference Commissioner, Mariah Polk. “

This can be the future for Polk or not, a senior citizen base/a tumbler for nine-time defending Ncata-Champion Baylor Acrobatics & Tumbling Team. But as an assistant for character formation Christal Peterson Say it: “The world is literally its oyster.”

“I really think Mariah will have a big impression,” said Peterson. “Your name will be one that we often hear in different departments. This is what will happen to you, not only from a view of the sports students, but also from an administrator, because you are aware of the knowledge, and she is willing to ask questions and advocate the right information.”

Some of them obviously open the doors themselves. But the senior from Dallas, Georgia in the fifth year, has definitely opened some doors for her, the latest internship was a one-year internship at the NCAA National Office within legislation and governance unit that will begin in Indianapolis on June 16.

Mariah already thought one or two steps in advance and said she spoke to people who were working in the NCAA office “who were just moving in from her internship”.

“And this specific department is reduced a few people,” she said, “so I hope that you will just move in when my internship ends next June.”

Peterson said she would not surprise herself if the (Mariah) happened there after her time, because why should you get rid of good talents, especially at the national level? “

“It is incredible,” said Peterson. “You call that an athlete.”

Even as a four-time Nca national champion, Mariah's greatest achievements actually came off the mat.

In May to graduate in health, kinesiology and leisure studies in May, she works in her third year in the Baylor's student athlete consulting committee and in the second year in the executive board as vice president and chairman of the Golden Bruisers Awards Committee.

“This last month will be crazy,” said Mariah about a full schedule that the Golden Bruisers Awards Show on May 5, the end of May 17th and then prepares to move to Indianapolis.

“It was bitterly sweet. I hadn't really sat and thought about how sport ended for me and frankly to mourn a bit. This is something that I grew up all my life. You wake up, you eat, you go to school, you go to practice, you eat and you do everything again.”

Mariah came from a jubilee and gymnastics background and started gymnastics at the age of 9, trained in acrobatics and stumbled at the Atlanta School of Gymnasics. She changed back to cheer her last two years at the Harrison High School, but also happened to have sent a questionnaire to Baylor's acrobatics and tumbling program under the direction of Coach Felecia Mulkey.

“I sent it in and never thought about it again. To be honest, I forgot that I even did it,” she said. “And then in my junior year, as soon as they could start with their recruitment process, I received an e -mail from one of the coach coach of Coach Fee. Then I started all my research and found that Baylor was one of the top programs.”


Mariah was initially interested in the Pre-Med program and said she was “locked up” when she found that Baylor also had the A&T program.


“Baylor is the only Acro school that I looked at and I'm grateful for that,” she said. “I either went to Baylor for both of them, or I just wanted to be a regular student elsewhere.”


Coach Fee said Mariah's background in jubilation and gymnastics made her a perfect candidate for our team.


“When I went to her gym to see her train, her work morality, her interactions with the people in the area in the gym,” said Mulkey, “because this kind of things, this work ethic, this ability to work with people in her area that has more than talent when I recruited. And it was talented too.”

Mariah from Baylor A&T in January 2021 from the middle of the year in January 2021 “grew up through sport in my own way”.

 

“Because I came in the middle of the year, I saw five different versions of the team,” said Polk, mainly a basis in meetings with 36 consumers in the last three seasons. “We have not only become mentally strong – I have grown and the culture that changes dynamics and such things – but only physically, the physicality we have, the standard we have set is over the roof.


“Sometimes I am in practice in my own brain and I like 'Wow, we raise people over our head!' And when I arrived here, it was very rare.


As a “voice for athletes who are constantly changing”, Mariah will feel unvoiced to Baylors SAC as a second year, and said that she “felt this tractor in sports”.


“I was sitting in my car last spring and tried to make my schedule for the coming year and I spoke my eyes to my mother on the phone,” she said. “I only thought about how to end and I've been for 20 years now. And I said: 'Mom, I am not ready to give up sports.' I also worked with football in recruitment and operations, and I had the feeling: “This is my thing.”


Then her mother, Marranda Edwards, gave her a clever advice: “Why does sport have to end for you? Maybe you are not the athlete, maybe you are the one who serves student athletes.”


It was this easy moment when Mariah thought about a career path that could include a master's degree in sports law or “potentially legal faculty”. She has a specific interest in compliance, governance and regulations.


As one of the representatives of Baylor for the Big 12 Student Athlete consulting committee, Mariah worked as a co-chair last year and was elected chairman for 2024-25. He was able to go to Big 12 meetings with sports directors and presidents of the 16 institutions of the league.

 

“Only different options like these were super unique,” said Mariah. “They send me to a conference in May, and I will speak there for the BIG 12 on behalf of student sports enthusiasts. And then we also look at something that they have in April in the Capitol Hill in front of them. Hopefully this will match my schedule. I think every occasion is great.

While her career as a student athlete at the NCATA National Championships from April 24th to 27th in Sioux Falls, SD, Mariah's Swan song with Baylor SAC will be the black and white gala theme Golden Bruisers Show on May 5th in the Hurd Welcome Center.

“I could cry about these golden bruisers,” she said. “I have made the Golden Bruiser Committee since I was on SAC, and I've been the chairman for two years. So that's like my baby. I literally saw the ideas from my notebook on a floor plan and that goes to the day of the show, and we run through the script and things like that.

“I not only try to make it special for all of our student athletes, but especially for the seniors who will go because I have the feeling that this is the only thing we missed in the past few years, the seniors are not enough recognition.”

And after the end, it goes to Indianapolis and your next steps with the NCAA office.

“The big goal, like shooting for the stars, if I could choose my job for the rest of my life,” said Mariah, “it would definitely be to be a sports director at a Power 4-school, only to make changes and to be what the student athletes need.”

Peterson said: “I hope I work for you one day. Maybe I have to use my résumé now. Say Mariah that I will be your chief of staff.”