Kathryn Nichols, Class of 1999

My name is Kathryn Nichols, and I grew up in a small community called Basking Ridge, New Jersey. While attending Ridge High School, I participated in 3 sports (soccer, alpine skiing, and softball) and earned 12 varsity letters. At the time, I knew nothing about athletic training, but did work at a local physical therapy clinic during my summers. It was during that time I had determined I wanted to work in physical therapy, but with an athletic population. It was during my visit to Hope College during my senior year that I met Rich Ray and learned about the athletic training program. I knew that this was the answer to my interests in both physical therapy and athletics: being right in the middle of the action (or at least on the sidelines).

As a student athletic trainer at Hope, I worked with the swimming and diving teams, the men's basketball team, the softball team, the ice hockey team, and the football team. I also gained experience with internships at Lakewood Family Medicine, Holland Community Hospital Rehabilitation Clinic, and Zeeland High School. In my spare time, I played on the women's soccer team, was a member of the Gospel Choir, and volunteered as an advisor and mentor to high school students at Holland Presbyterian Church.

My final year and a half of athletic training experience was not the usual path for a Hope College athletic training student. I was determined to gain football athletic training experience at my undergraduate institution, so it would "look good" on my resume for graduate school applications. But because of playing soccer in the fall, gaining football athletic training experience meant returning for an additional semester in a fifth year. After graduating with a BA in Kinesiology from Hope in May 1999, and becoming a certified athletic trainer in August 1999, I returned to Hope that fall to finish a major in Exercise Science while working with the football team. But the different path does not stop there: I was also the Assistant Athletic Trainer at Zeeland High School. Rich was very supportive of my flexible schedule, working football season at both Hope and Zeeland. After football season at Hope concluded, my focus shifted to covering all of the high school sports at Zeeland.

After completing the one-year position at Zeeland (filling in for Kaylynn Albers '88 Beltman, who was on sabbatical), I continued my education. I moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota and began my Master's Degree in September 2000. While working on a graduate degree in Sports Psychology, I was a Graduate Assistant Athletic Trainer with the Women's Athletics Department at the University. My first year was spent working with the newly-formed Varsity Women's Rowing Team. It was a great experience, concentrating not only on one specific team, but also learning the nuances of a sport I did not have much personal experience with. Getting in the shell for the first time and taking a few strokes was an interesting experience! My second year of GA athletic training experience included working with the Women's Soccer and Softball teams. I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Masters Degree in Kinesiology, majoring in Sports Psychology, in September 2002.

I chose to pursue a Master's Degree in Sports Psychology because I wanted to focus on the complete athlete. Having been injured myself during my freshman year of soccer at Hope, I can understand the frustrations a student-athlete goes through from an initial injury to the rehabilitation process to watching from the sidelines. Through my injury and the education at the University, I have come to understand and respect that a person's frame-of-mind is crucial to successful rehabilitation and return to competition and activity. I have also become more aware of how many articles in newspapers and magazines and on websites and television in some way touch on the psychology of sport. It's fascinating!

I chose Hope College because of the sense of feeling at home, although it is 750 miles from where I grew up and went to high school. Each person I had contact with had a true concern for how I was doing and making sure my time in Holland was a pleasant one. It made it a new family for me. The education I gained both in and out of the classroom has helped me to be the person I am today. When people ask me if I was happy about choosing Hope, I respond by saying that I could not imagine spending my college career anywhere else.

Being able to start my athletic training career at Hope was wonderful. By starting as a freshman with very little experience, I was able to work hard and learn in practical setting and graduate as an athletic trainer with confidence in my skills and qualifications. This was the best preparation for working as an athletic trainer in a college today. As I now stand in front of the class and help a new batch of athletic training students learn, I realize how lucky I was and how much I learned from my experiences at Hope.

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