RESERVE — With his distinct height advantage, Riverside Academy’s Jordan Loving has to look down on most people.

But if there is one person the 6-foot-3 junior quarterback looks up to, it’s his mom.

Tara Maus Loving is all of 5-3, but when she was a student-athlete at Riverside Academy back in the 1980s, she really stood out.

Tara played volleyball, basketball, softball and ran track as a Lady Rebel. Her son now plays football, basketball and baseball.

Their lives are much different, however.

“We pass each other on the way in and out,” she said. “The seasons didn’t overlap like they do today. Softball and track did a little, but we didn’t have the struggles they do where they go from baseball practice to a basketball game. It was really fluid for us and easy to go from one to the next.”

Softball was Tara’s sport, though, in an era when the game of fastpitch was really just beginning to evolve in the state.

She played cabbageball growing up, then slowpitch softball. It wasn’t until her senior year of high school that Tara began playing fastpitch softball and moved from shortstop to catcher.

“I had one year of high school softball,” she said. “I grew up playing just summer cabbageball. We didn’t have travel clubs back then. We didn’t have club ball. It was a completely different game.”

It’s a wonder then that an athlete at the tiny private school in Reserve, which went from being a member of the old Louisiana Independent Schools Association to the Louisiana High School Athletic Association her senior year, stood out enough to earn a scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University.

“I got very lucky,” she said. “When they came to see me, they were actually going to see someone else. I had a really good game and I kind of caught their eye. Then they came to the softball tournament. That’s when they really started talking to me. Yeah, it was an accident. It wasn’t like this kid here who grows up thinking you’re going to play college ball.”

Tara continued to excel, though.

She was a four-year letter winner for the Lady Lions and became one of the most decorated players in Southeastern softball lore, despite undergoing shoulder surgery.

She was a first team All-Trans America Athletic Conference selection as a junior, batting .309 with eight doubles. As a senior she earned Academic All-American honors from the National Softball Coaches Association and second team All-TAAC and All-Louisiana honorable mention honors, batting .300 with eight doubles and 25 RBIs.

In 1991 she became the first female athlete in school history to be named to the GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-American team, a feat she repeated in 1992.

She graduated holding 13 school records, including the still-standing record for sacrifice flies, and was inducted into Southeastern’s athletic hall of fame in 2003, an event her son barely remembers. He was 3.

“I remember, it was before a Southeastern football game,” Jordan said. “I just remember running around on the field. I wiped out on the grass a couple of times.” That doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate his mother’s accomplishments.

“Growing up, my grandfather used to tell us stories about how great she was playing softball,” he added.

Now, as Jordan works his own way from football to basketball to baseball, and back from an injury that wiped out his entire sophomore year, he knows he can lean on his mom.

“She’s really helpful in a lot of ways in all of my sports really,” he said.

“Confidence wise, she helps me. In baseball, if I’m in a slump, she’ll give me some swing advice. If I’m down and struggling, she’ll help me.”

Jordan’s dad, Rene Loving was no athletic slouch either, Jordan and Tara both point out.

A football, basketball, baseball and track athlete at Riverside in the 1980s, Rene earned a football scholarship to Nicholls State but his career was cut short by injury.

“He was really fast,” Jordan said. “I look at him on film and I see myself a little bit in the way he played.”

So the big question remains: which parent gave Jordan his talent?

“We all claim it,” Tara said. “Even my dad.”

Said Jordan: “Probably her, but my dad will tell you different. When I do something good, they both say, ‘That’s my son.’”