Stewart: Simple kindness went a long way for Valerie Thames. Now it's her turn to give.

A kind word. A helping hand. You’d be surprised the difference those can make.

That’s what comes to mind when I think of Valerie Thames. She’s remembered in track and field circles as a standout at Milwaukee Riverside who as a junior helped the Tigers win the 2012 state championship. Most recently she has been the footnote to the growing résumé of Wausau West star Brooke Jaworski.

Who was the previous state record holder in the 300-meter low hurdles?

The answer to that piece of trivia is Thames. One year after running the third leg of what was then the 1,600-meter relay record, she came back as a senior  and broke a 16-year-old record in the 300 lows.

A week or two later Thames received a tweet congratulating her success from someone named Angela Martin.

Eventually, it clicked.

“I was like ‘Oh my God, this is the person,' ” Thames said. “Her name was changed, so I had to do some research. I was like this is the lady, she just got married.”

Thames knew her as Angie Bruecker, the former Seymour star Thames had been chasing all those years, and she was reaching out to offer a pat on the back. The short message was a big gesture that wasn’t lost on Thames.

The moment was part of a coming-of-age period for Thames. What happens when the standard you’ve ached to reach is more than attainable? What doors are unlocked when you understand that your best is good enough? How much can be accomplished when one is truly inspired and works with purpose?

Five years later Thames gives us an answer. She shone on the track first at Southern University and then at Missouri. She got her bachelor’s degree at Mizzou and her master’s at the University of Tennessee, both in social work. And in the game of life, she developed a pay-it-forward mentality she is ready to act upon.

It makes sense. Someone did it for her.

“My whole (development) was because I had people in my life who acted as social workers but weren’t really social workers,” she said. “Just being able to go to college. … I had so many good resources and people who advocated for me and showed me things that were not natural or normal in my family or environment.”

Thames is the eighth of 14 children who range in ages 36 to 11. She is the first of the group to go to college.

Her skill as a hurdler and middle distance runner helped make that happen. She started at Southern where she won the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship in the 400 hurdles and took second in the 100 hurdles as a freshman.

After transferring to Missouri, she went on to become a second-team All-American in the 100 hurdles as a junior in 2016 and left with school records in the 60 hurdles, 100 hurdles and 400 hurdles as well as the 1,600 relay record.

Thames had a season of indoor eligibility left this past season but opted not to use it.

Her college career was better than most, and one of the seeds that led to that success was planted five years ago during the 300 final. After stuttering over the first hurdle, she put aside the thought of getting the record and just ran to win. A race that didn't have makings of a state-record performance turned out to be a state-record run after all.

Thames, it turned out, was more than good enough. Her time of 43.04 seconds was a pretty big jump from Bruecker’s record time of 43.46.

“I crossed the line and I saw that I had the record and I was just like finally all my hard work is paying off and it wasn’t even my best race, so it kind of gave me a taste of the kind of athlete I could be going into college,” she said.

“Before then I had the mindset that everything has to be perfect for me to be great and that race wasn’t perfect and I was still able to get the record that stood for such a long time.”

Thames’ state meet record has been safe until the last couple of years. Last year DSHA’s Jadin O’Brien won the title as a freshman in 43.22, the second-fastest state meet time ever. This year it was clear from the times Jaworski, a first-year hurdler, was posting was heading into state that the record would fall and Thames was ready.

When the record fell, she would do for that person what Bruecker did for her. With the help of one of her mentors, Robert Kern, a long-time state-meet official, Thames chatted with Jaworski for a couple of minutes over the phone during the final day of the state meet earlier this month..

For someone who has broken her share of records, this was a first for Jaworski.

“It was a nice surprise,” she said. “I’ve never spoken to a former record holder. It was really cool, though."

Thames can consider one debt paid. Now she plans to make a start a career of doing for others what so many did for her: making a difference.

“I’m looking to work with at-risk youth and children with mental-health issues,” she said. “I think mental health is a huge need that doesn’t get talked about a lot and give back to family and children who really don’t get noticed or get the time taken out for them to be successful.”

Mark Stewart can be reached at mstewart@journalsentinel.com or on Twitter at MarkStewartMJS.