Northern Lights

VALDOSTA – Separated by a continent, Cathy Parker believed she could bring a football field to a struggling team in Alaska.

But she had her doubts.

She didn’t want her goal to negatively impact or embarrass her family. She didn’t want to promise something then fail to deliver to the remote Alaskan community where the boys played football on rocky tundra. 

She had faith but she just didn’t know. 

What if she misunderstood God’s calling to her? Why wasn’t God sending in someone with more experience, more clout, to finish what she started? 

What if the task – and it was an enormous task – was too much for a mom and a coach’s wife living in Florida who had been inspired by an ESPN television report on the young team in Alaska? 

What if the naysayers in the Alaska town and throughout the U.S. were right? That it couldn’t be done? Or thought they were right, if she failed, that there was some sort of catch?

Her quixotic but successful mission to bring a football field – named the Cathy Parker Field – to the Alaskan town of Barrows has received a lot of media attention here and nationwide.

People may think they know her story but they haven’t known the full story until now.

Parker has shared her struggles and experiences in a book, “Northern Lights: One Woman, Two Teams and the Football Field That Changed Their Lives.”

Since the book was released in June, she has traveled the nation promoting it, been on TV and the book has even been designated the August selection for talk show host Delilah’s book club, Parker said.

Parker comes home to South Georgia this week for a “Northern Lights” book signing and launch.

The event is scheduled 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 23, at New Covenant Church Family Life Center, 3531 Bemiss Road. 

Parker and her husband, Carl, live in Baxley, where he coaches ball. She still regularly commutes to the Boys and Girls Club of Valdosta where she works as a consultant and has been working with the organization to open a Boys and Girls Club in Brooks County. 

She still has South Georgia roots. Parker has family living here and she is a 1983 Lowndes High School graduate.

Cathy, Carl and their four children lived in Jacksonville, Fla., when her Alaskan football field odyssey began.

She saw an ESPN television special on Barrow, Alaska, high school students playing football on a field of dirt and rocks. 

As the wife of a former pro football player turned school coach and a mother of four athletic children, she understood the importance of sports in the development of young people.

So, she did the impossible.

Cathy Parker coordinated the construction of a football field a continent away in a town where no one knew her, to a culture completely different than hers.

But with assistance from co-writer David Thomas, the book goes deeper.

“While football and two worlds colliding are the framework, ‘Northern Lights’ is a book about faith,” The Valdosta Daily Times book review noted earlier this year. “The faith of one woman, the faith of supporters of the project and the faith of the people of Barrow.”

But faith is made stronger by overcoming doubts and obstacles, by pushing forward despite the doubts. Parker shares her doubts not only about the field but about football and her relationship with her husband in the early years of their marriage.

When she first submitted the manuscript, it contained little about herself. The publishers returned it and said it needed to be more about her, what she went through, what shaped her.

“I thought why would I do that? I don’t really want to tell my struggles,” Parker said. 

Her kids are in their 20s now and on their own, so she discussed writing a more personal and candid book with husband Carl. 

“It was more important to have Carl’s buy in,” she said. “He said he thought sharing what I went through would help a lot of people. If we didn’t have a good marriage, we couldn’t do it.

“Carl talked to the kids about it. He said, ‘Mom’s putting it all out there.'”

Many of the notes she has received about the book have thanked her for being honest. She’s honest about a lot – about her feelings regarding her relationships, her doubts, even her early resentment toward having a husband so deeply connected to football. 

But she’s buoyed by the knowledge that sharing her inner self has helped others.

“The notes about how much the book has helped people, ministered to people,” she said.

While she promotes the book, Parker is preparing for a movie based on her story. She said she has been developing the film with Andy Tennant, a producer and director best known for “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Hitch.” 

The script is written and it has a $28 million budget, she said, though it still needs to be cast.

Asked who she would like to see play her in the movie, Parker said, “I’m sure I’ll be happy with whoever they pick.”

Pressed, she said she does have someone she would like to see play her but Cathy Parker isn’t sharing everything. She keeps her personal choice to herself.