“If you’re going to do it - do it fast.”

The words are her father’s, but the execution is all hers.

De Anza Force striker Alesha Blair does everything at an accelerated pace; trained by her track coaching father and track star mother, Blair has been groomed to blaze a trail of high velocity. So it’s no surprise to see the heights she’s reached in just the last few months.

Blair will join the U17 Women’s National Team in Buenos Aires, Argentina, next month where the group will play four international matches under the tutelage of coach Kazbek Tambi. She’ll be playing alongside other stars like Casey Morrison, Morgan Brian, Kaysie Clark and Kaili Torres.

This, after attending just one national camp in her soccer career – this past April at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. Blair would’ve loved to build on the strong impression she made at the U.S. camp but she was unable to attend any more U.S. gatherings this summer; she was too busy helping her De Anza team capture a USYS national championship.

Vrmmmmmmmmm!

“I’m pretty exited and very much looking forward to going to Argentina with the U.S. team,” said Blair, who learned of her invitation via a voicemail in math class. “The U.S. camp in April was kind of my first big event and I was really nervous. I tried my best and wasn’t sure how they were going to take that.”

They apparently took it the way everyone does when they watch Blair on the field.

“I haven’t really seen anyone who can run with her,” said De Anza Force U17 coach Shawn Medved. “She’s an exciting player that can break a game open. Over the last year or two she really focused on how to work off the ball and get behind a defense to find her opportunities. Speed will only take you so far, now she has become really dangerous.”

Speed is in Blair’s genes. Her mother was an All-American track athlete at Sacramento State, while her father Ty, is a longtime high school track coach. Alesha has grown up in an environment of training and healthy lifestyle, factors that have helped her immeasurably as an athlete.

As a youth track star she was a national champion in the long jump, as a relay runner and hurdler.

And if her father’s foreshadowing adages are any indication, Alesha just might make the most of this whole Argentina thing.

“She has always been able to manage and cope with big situations very well,” Ty said, of his daughter. “When she gets opportunities she takes advantage of them.”

It helps that Alesha is surrounded on a daily basis by national championship teammates. Players like Taylor Comeau, Emily Kruger and Lauren Hom, challenge her and keep her sharp.

“My teammates are huge in everything that I do. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be recognized at all or get invited to national camps,” said Alesha, who has committed to Santa Clara. “We’re all close and we bring out the best in each other.”

In essence, what’s good for Alesha is good for the club.

“It’s really important for the girls on our team to see one of their teammates get recognized in this way,” Medved said. “We have a lot of good players on this team and it motivates them and shows them that these things are attainable.”

Sure they’re attainable. Maybe just not as fast as Alesha has accomplished them.