Osceola High School alum Kenya Pereira, who starred in the pitching circle for the Kowboys softball teams before moving on to an accomplished career at Florida A&M University, has been named to this year’s induction class to the FAMU Rattlers’ Sports Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony for the school’s 47th Enshrinement Weekend will be Sept. 22-23 on the university’s Tallahassee campus.
Pereira said she’s still processing what it means since the announcement was made last month.
“I’m sure it won’t really hit me until the induction weekend,” she said. “You think of someone older with you think of being in a Hall of Fame, and I’m only 27.”
Pereira left her mark on the Rattlers’ softball career record book during her career from 2014-17. She helped lead Florida A&M to four consecutive Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference championships in her tenure, and is among the school’s all-time leaders in victories, strikeouts and innings pitched playing for Coach Veronica Williams.
“I’d always hoped something like this would come,” Pereira said. “I wasn’t aware of the magnitude of what I’d done there, the career marks and the statistics. When you’re in it, you’re performing, trying to win every game and win the conference.
“I know my family was very proud and happy. My dad knew it’d be coming, he said he just didn’t know when.”
Prior to her collegiate career she starred at Osceola High, pitching for the storied Kowboys program from 2010-13. As a junior, she was named the Osceola News-Gazette’s Softball Player of the Year in 2012, when OHS advanced to the FHSAA regional finals. She’s one of three sisters — Keisha and Kimberly — to play at Osceola. Their head coach, the legendary George Coffey, passed away last year.
“It’s bittersweet that he’s not here to share this,” Pereira said.
Pereira graduated from FAMU in 2017 with a degree in Health Sciences, and works for OneBlood as a phlebotomist.
“I feel like I’m able to make a difference, because blood is always in need,” she said.
But, Pereira’s softball career has continued since graduating from FAMU in 2017. She still volunteers with the Rattlers’ softball program, and she continues to pitch for the U.S, Virgin Islands national team — the team representing the birthplace of her parents Keith and Sandra. Qualifications rounds will soon start for a playing in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, in which softball is back in as an Olympic sport.
