Press Pass Sports has built its name on game coverage, scores, and the stories that unfold under Friday night lights and in packed gyms across the Texas Panhandle.

Every so often, though, an athlete’s story stretches beyond the lines on the court. We are going to start bringing you more of those stories, too. The kind that still starts in a local gym, but points toward something bigger.

Emily Sims is one of them.

The three-year starting point guard at Tascosa has been accepted into the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School.

Chasing two dreams on the court and in the cockpit

She has lived in the same house since she was an infant, right by Tradewind Airport in Amarillo. For years, she watched planes cut across the Texas Panhandle sky and imagined what it would feel like to be the one at the controls. Today, the Tascosa High School senior is doing more than imagining it.

Sims is a point guard with a competitor’s edge. She is also an aspiring U.S. Air Force pilot who is closing in on a milestone most teenagers do not consider. She plans to earn her private pilot license.

A runway in the backyard

Sims traces her love of flying to proximity and repetition. She saw aircraft day after day until curiosity turned into a goal.

“I would say living by the airport and seeing all the planes,” Sims said. “Just seeing all the planes and everything just made me, I guess, want to fly.”

She began flight training at 14 and has logged about 70 hours so far, working out of Tradewinds Airport with Coyote Flight School. She has trained with instructors Kyle Addis and Jeff Ryan.

Her target date is circled. On April 30, her birthday, she plans to test for her private pilot license.

For her parents, Kevin and Maribel Sims, the journey has been equal parts pride and nerves.

“I was really proud of her,” Maribel said of seeing Emily fly solo. “I don’t think that I would be brave enough to do that at 15 years old and get on an airplane and just take off.”

Kevin remembers the first time they went up together on a discovery flight.

“We lived right by the airport, and I decided, well, let’s just go do it,” he said. “And she just loved it.”

Maribel still laughs about the day she realized, through Life360, that her daughter was moving fast.

“The first time that I saw the Life360, I told him, I said, ‘Oh my God, she’s going 150 miles per hour. Where is she at? Who is she with?’” she said.

Point guard mindset

On the basketball side, Sims’ story starts the way a lot of great ones do. It started at home.

“That’s pretty much sibling rivalry is how I started and really wanted to play,” Sims said.

In sixth grade, she played with the boys team, a challenge she embraced.

“That kind of made me, I guess, feel a lot superior to everything because I could play with the boys,” she said. “And it just felt good.”

Kevin sees point guard traits in the details, even outside the gym.

“What made her a good point guard is she played drums,” he said. “You’re not a very good drummer if you can’t use your left hand. And when you’re a good point guard, you use your left hand. You can go both ways.”

Ask him to describe his daughter and the answer comes quickly.

“Competitive, hardworking, and honest,” Kevin said. “She wants to win.”

Maribel’s version adds the warmth.

“She’s a sweet kid, she’s smart, she’s funny. She’s hilarious,” she said.

One destination

Sims is graduating early, a choice she said was driven by family example and a desire to get started on what comes next.

“My sister graduated early, so I kind of wanted to,” Sims said. “I’m ready to start with my life, I guess, just get a head start.”

But there was also a bigger target.

Sims has been accepted into the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School, a path that keeps her aviation dream front and center.

She said she made contact the way she approaches most things. She did it directly.

“I went up to them and told them who I was, how much I love aviation, and how that was my dream school,” Sims said.

Kevin said that focus has been the defining trait of the whole process.

“The Air Force was the only school she applied to,” he said. “She was so determined. She realized she wanted to do it early, which is unusual.”

Grounded at home

When she is not in the gym or at the airport, Sims’ world still centers on family.

Her parents own Smokey Joe’s, a local restaurant and bar on Historic Route 66 in Amarillo. It is a place that has seen late nights, early mornings, and the kind of steady support that makes ambitious goals feel possible.

Sims credits both parents for the belief they have poured into her.

“Their belief in me has just, I guess, pushed me more and more,” she said.

And while her friends may still be wrapping their heads around the idea of a teenager logging flight hours between practices and schoolwork, Sims has learned to carry the unusual with confidence.

“Some of them found out and thought it was really cool,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Wait, you can fly a plane before you can drive a car. How is that even possible?’”

For Sims, it is simple. She knows where she is going.

There is a point guard’s clarity in the way she talks about the future, eyes up and scanning for the next opening. There is also an aviator’s calm in the way she keeps stacking hours toward April 30.

Two dreams, one direction.