WEEK #32: KELCIE S.
Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I grew up playing soccer since I was four years old and I still play just for fun – OWSL Women’s for UMSC. For the past 3 years I have been competitively Olympic Weightlifting and train about 5 days a week. I got into weightlifting via CrossFit. I found CrossFit around 9 years ago after wanting to get fit when I came back home from school. As a career, I chose physical therapy and I have been doing that for the past 3 years. Originally when I graduated High School I chose Kinesiology because doing sports for marks sounded like a really cool idea. After post-grad, I wasn’t 100% sure what I really wanted to do. I have a special needs sister and I grew up watching her do a lot of Physio. With a combination of that with a sports background, it seemed like a natural choice for me. As I went through school and started working, it affirmed my belief that it is the right career choice for me. I get to incorporate what I like to do as a hobby and work it into my career.
What advice do you have for parents, coaches, and/or sport administrators to improve inclusion in sport?
It’s important to teach your kids not to judge a book by its cover, and to remember that kids lead by example. If you’re setting a good example and you do not judge others who may look different than you, then kids will follow suit. If they have been open to more experiences and seeing people of different backgrounds, that’s not going to be new for them when they come into the sports world either, so it will be normalized.
What lessons did you learn in sport that can be applied to your career?
Just like sport, some things are not going to come naturally to you, and that is true in work as well, especially when you’re new. They mirror each other a lot. When you start off in a sport, there is always a learning curve. There will be parts in your sport career and in your
professional career where you are going to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. But everyone’s been there before, and what’s important is how you take the lessons and failures, and flip them and turn them into learning experiences and grow from those experiences. It’s the same whether it be a new sport that you’re trying to learn or a new career that you just started.
How has sport contributed to the person you are today?
Definitely through the people that I have surrounded myself with in life. Like-minded individuals flock to like-minded individuals. A lot of my close friends are from team sports that I played. My work environment is also people that I’ve played sports with. I think that it’s important to be in an environment that is similar to your beliefs and your values. People always talk about how you want to surround yourself with people that you look up to and you want to emulate. I try to put the best environment out there possible and surround myself with really good people because I think, then, good things will follow.
5 words that best describe me are: