OAKLEAF - One of Clay County's more renowned coaches — softball at Ridgeview, baseball at Clay and now baseball at Oakleaf— Casey Thompson admitted that he is deathly afraid of heights, at the least, and rollercoasters, at the maximum.

"I was asked by a Clay coach friend (Clay math teacher Kathy Kelly) to do something crazy on my 37th birthday on May 28," Thompson said. "We decided to go skydiving."

Thompson admitted after he did his first tandem jump without friend Brittany Hackett, Clay cheer coach, and with a picture of his daughter, Saige, on his T-shirt at the World Skydiving Center on Amelia Island, that he was doing the jump because nobody in his sphere would ever think that he would actually do it.

"I gave Brittany some [crud] for not showing, but she said her son had a baseball game, Really?," said Thompson, who was joined on the jump by Kelly.

"And, the second reason, was that everyone knew I was deathly afraid of heights and rollercoasters and no one would ever think I would do it. So, I did it."

Thompson said Kelly was good up until the actual jump.

"She was cool and collected all the way up when they opened the door to jump," Thompson said. "But she eventually jumped. Good for her."

Thompson admitted that, in the Thompson family upbringing, his sister Christina was considered the daredevil of the group but has not taken the time to jump out of a plane yet.

"My dad, Rob Thompson, told me he made her promise that she would never do that," Thompson said. "He was afraid of losing her. He never made me promise the same thing, so I was off the hook. When he saw the video, he said it was pretty cool."

Hoffman lifts, runs, burpees, rope climbs at CrossFit Nationals

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - With a competition schedule that included such events as Quad Trio, Norkalsu II, The Mountain, Sand Trap, Bar Exam, Lopsided and Toe Tag, Clay High grad and CrossFit athlete Lindsay Lee Hoffman battled some of the best physically trained athletes in the country at the Northern California Classic over the weekend (May 29-31) with a shot at the CrossFit Nationals in July.

"The Toe Tag, which is the last event and includes a forward handstand walk with dead lifts with weights, is probably the appropriate last event of the three days because that is what they put on your toe when you die," said Hoffman, 30, who finished 27th amongst a Elite field of 50 women CrossFitters from around the country. "We had seven total events for the three days; two on day one, three on day two and two on day three. It was brutal, but not unexpected."

For Hoffmann, a well-known gym instructor at the Black Fin CrossFit gym in Orange Park with husband Tristan Hoffman with her in California, attacked the rigorous schedule after months of training and a qualifying event months prior.

"The difference here is at the qualifier we got the type of events and the order of events two weeks before the actual event and that gave me time to train for specific tasks and prepare myself a little better," Hoffman said. "This one, they gave us the event schedule the night before."

In the competition, Hoffman fared well, according to Tristan in the weight moving events with Sand Trap her best finish of the weekend with a 12th place finish.

"You run a 100 feet, pick up a 150 pound sand bag, carry it back 100 feet, then climb a rope, touch the top, come down the rope halfway, stop, climb back up the rope, three times, then descend and carry the bag back with each climb one less rep," Hoffman said. "That's done three times in less than seven minutes."

The week prior at the Black Fin gym, Hoffmann supervised with father-in-law Marc Hoffman, the owner of Black Fin for the famous Murph workout, named for Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy.

"The California event had their own 'Hero' workout called the NorKalsu II workout which was just as brutal," Hoffman said. "Those type of run, pushup, ring dips and runs are part of the CrossFit community."

For the weekend, Hoffman had finishes of ninth in the Quad Trio and 12th in the Sand Trap as her two best events with 26th place finishes in the Lopsided and Toe Tag events, a 30th in The Mountain and another 30th in the NorKalsu II.

"All of the events involve doing a set of tasks under a time constraint with reps in a certain amount of time versus weight increases and position along the way," Hoffman said. "We do just about all of the tasks in the competition at Black Fin, but the time between events; recovery, eating, stretching and nerves makes the whole day very stressful."

In her Elite category, broken up by days and events, Hoffman was on hand nearly the entire day prepping for her one, two or three events for the day amongst the 49 other elite athletes around her.

"It's much like a swim meet because your event last maybe 20-30 minutes total, but the mental stress and physical preparation between them is very chaotic with other athletes around you all doing the same thing, plus you are thinking about what's going on in the competition gym when I'm not there," Hoffman said. "Having Tristan kind of being by my side with equipment, food and encouragement is critical."

Husband Tristan Hoffman, himself a CrossFit athlete, was also on a daily schedule to watch and keep Lindsay in the right places while offering words of advice.

"She did excellent, followed her game plan and executed among the best athletes in the country, I can't be more proud," said Tristan, as the pair finished off Sunday's tasks and headed to dinner, a long sleep and week vacation. "We can take what we did here and learn a bit more to keep getting better."

The Mountain, a stationary cycling event, was one piece of the weekend that Hoffman said she would need to improve on.

"You get on a stationary bike for an 18K ride (about 10 miles) with a 20-minute switch on the resistance to full resistance," Hoffman said. "It's like climbing a huge hill in sand or mud. That's the one that caught me by surprise, but one that I know I can improve with leg strength work."

For the point system scoring, Hoffman finished 27th with 318 points while overall winner Alex Gazan won with 588 with top five finishes in four events; three seconds and a third. Gazan, from Las Vegas, is ranked 25th in the world and 6th in United States. Hoffman is ranked 53rd in North America East, 100th in United States and 239th in the world. Hoffman has steadily improved her world rankings from 530th worldwide in 2023, to 476th in 2024, 407th in 2025 and 239th in 2026.