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Second-year Wootton boys tennis coach Nia Cresham does not like the fast up-and-down motion of roller coasters.

But the amusement park attractions are going to seem like a piece of cake May 21 when the government, politics and law teacher flies with the Navy Blue Angles in an F/A-18 Hornet.

"I am totally nervous," Cresham said. "But there was no way I was passing this up. I had to sign a release, and they had to know how much I weigh for the ejection seat and the parachute. When I think about that, reality hits and it is kind of a scary thing. But I am not dwelling on that part. These are the best at what they do. I have total confidence in their ability."

The Blue Angels are the U.S. Navy's Flight Demonstration Squadron. Cresham's flight, which she was awarded by the Department of the Navy for being a "key influencer of young Americans in our community," will take off from Patuxent Air Base at 10:30 a.m. It will be part of a rehearsal for the following day's Naval Academy graduation show.

"I received a letter from the Department of the Navy; it was brought to my classroom and I opened it up and it was this whole package," said Cresham. "I was flipping out. You do not know you are going to get it. You have to be nominated by someone and you do not even know. It was so out of the blue. My kids were all flipping out, too."

Cresham, whose son Mike is a football and lacrosse standout at Wootton and will play both at Tufts University (Mass.) next year, has longstanding ties to the Wootton community. She was an eighth-grader at the school when it first opened in 1970 and was on the Patriots' first-ever girls tennis team (she played from 1971-75). And she is an extremely active member of it.

Aside from coaching boys tennis — the Patriots are 22-3 since Cresham took over last spring — Cresham, a former lawyer who coaches the school's Mock Trial team, began teaching at Wootton in October 2004. In 2005 she took over as National Honor Society adviser and revamped the whole program. She put more emphasis on student leadership, and Wootton's NHS raised $4,000 for the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless and $4,850 for a school in Kenya this year.

In 2006, Cresham, who keeps voter registration forms in her classroom and encourages seniors to come in and fill them out, introduced a law course.

"Teaching, you can really make a difference for a kid," Cresham said. "I really got into teaching when I was in law school, watching the professors. But I did not want to teach law school. I wanted to teach kids who were still in the developmental stage of their lives, where I could make a difference and put them in the right direction. Once I started it, I just loved it. I could make a lot more money working downtown, but the rewards are huge. It is so cool to come back and teach and coach at Wootton. It is kind of like being in a time warp."

It is not often teachers and principals encourage students to miss school. But Cresham has touched many students' lives and on May 21 they want to support her once-in-a-lifetime experience.

"We are talking about carpooling and getting the kids down there," Cresham said. "All my kids are going to be there so there is no way I am going to embarrass myself or get sick. I am excited. These are probably going to be some young hotshot air guys who are like, ‘Who is this chick?' And I am going to be like, ‘Be nice to me.'"