Family the focus as Parker-Hester prepares for HOF nod

It’s always been about family.

Martha Parker-Hester stayed in Columbia for college, choosing South Carolina. She stayed in Columbia for her professional career, finishing at USC School of Medicine and a residency at Palmetto Health Richland before opening South Hampton Family Practice with her husband.

She’s attended reunions of her former USC teams and said it felt as if time stood still, and treated former coaches and teammates, in addition to relatives. So when the call came, Parker-Hester was flattered, then excited – for her extended family, not herself.

“It’s just a time that I know it seems it centers around the athletes, and the folks that played that are getting inducted, but it’s such an opportunity to thank all the folks that have just blessed me in my life and my career,” Parker-Hester said. “It’s really a night for them, even though it seems like it’s for me.”

Parker-Hester is one of eight inductees in this year’s class of the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame, which will be enshrined Monday at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. She’s one of three former USC basketball stars that were selected this year (two of the men’s top-10 career scorers, BJ McKie and Art Whisnant, are also on the list). She said she won’t use her time on the dais to speak about her career, but all those who made it possible.

“Like it is today, I was allowed five visits, and I looked at some out-of-state schools,” said Parker-Hester, who had an all-star career at Hammond High. “But my family was here, my friends were here, my support system that had been so crucial to me, they were all here. I’m just so thankful to have played under coach (Nancy) Wilson, and to be part of her legacy that she’s left with the university. It was a special time at a special place.”

Parker-Hester arrived at USC in the fall of 1985, and helped return USC to the national spotlight. Wilson immediately inserted the dynamic freshman into the starting lineup and Parker-Hester averaged 9.8 points a game, helping guide the Gamecocks to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in four years.

USC played in three NCAA Tournaments during Parker-Hester’s career, and she left as the third-leading scorer in its history (1,728 points). She’s still sixth on the list and second in career steals, and her No. 13 jersey has been retired and hung in the rafters.

Parker-Hester went into the medical field and started a family, helping coach her children as they began playing basketball. The time commitment didn’t leave her much opportunity to catch USC games in person, but she gets back every now and then.

“This past season, a bunch of us got together, the team that I was on as a senior,” she said. “It’s just like we never left. That’s the sweet thing, that there’s such a bond.”

And naturally, every time she reads the newspaper or an online piece about the current women’s team’s success, she feels proud. It was her teams that got the program back on solid ground, and she’s seen it become elite.

“It’s a joy. It’s something that we’re extremely proud of,” Parker-Hester said. “We’re proud of what they are today, and we’re proud of what coach Wilson laid the foundations for 20 years ago.”

Monday is a recognition of that and her individual career. She’ll be surrounded by the group that got her there – family.

“The philosophy behind being part of a special school and encouraging kids to be good student-athletes, and then to go to a university that also emphasized that, and to move into a career to still be part of that same community, is incredible,” Parker-Hester said. “Columbia’s like a small family, that fortunately I get to take care of folks who coached me, or played with me. It’s a privilege.”