Extra Oomph: All About Kim

Kim is another of our Florida collegiate players but she plays for FAU's biggest rival, Florida International University. Eyal spoke highly of her skills at flyhalf and wanted to try to find a space for her on the team, especially as she has been working with Serevi trainers to better her rugby skills.. As a few players had to drop from our roster, it was a quick and easy choice to offer her a spot on the Stars. Can't wait to see how she elevates the team and inspires teammates!

In her words:

 

Sports are the best! Throughout my life, I would always annoy my family and friends to do anything sport related with me; of course, I always ended up being that person who would beg for another game or 2 when everybody else called it a day.  I’ve convinced myself that no one loves playing sports more than I do, I may be wrong, but one thing is for sure,  I can’t get enough of it. A past time that stands out the most to me was when I would play football with my two brothers. My older brother would be all time quarterback and I would go against my twin brother one on one. We would play tackle and it was always so intense!  We did this for years, mostly every Sunday; I loved it! 

I always loved the thrill of competition and especially the adrenaline that came from tackling.  I always hated the fact that the only thing offered to women was flag football in grade school so when I first found out that tackling was involved in rugby I got super excited and could not believe it. 

Needless to say,  I got into Rugby hardcore. I started playing in September of 2012 and I always think to   I cannot get enough of rugby. I often get these huge cravings in the middle of the night to just do anything with rugby, and I will grab my rugby balls like at 1 AM and go to the park. Just even watching rugby excites the heck out of me. It’s such a beautiful game.  I love how creative you can be on the field, the teamwork it involves, the roughness, I love every single thing about it. I know rugby will for sure be a part of my future and that alone makes me love life. 

Without rugby I really think life would suck -  I don’t know if that’s pathetic, but I do not care, I love rugby! I especially love the friendships and bonds that are made through having teammates. Getting better makes rugby more fun, it sucks to suck, so really that’s enough reason for me to train hard, but my teammates and coaches definitely help me add that extra oomph to my training. Not only do I train for myself, I train for them. I think to myself “Damn if only I knew about rugby earlier in life, I know I for sure would be doing huge things with it by now,” but really that only drives me to work even harder.

Playing high level and for the Stars is going to mean a lot for me. As I mentioned before, I love the thrill of competition! There is no greater feeling than the adrenaline that comes from good competition- when you have to work really hard for something and you finally get it; for example, a hard earned try in a really close match. Just thinking about it is such an awesome feeling!   

I know this experience will drive me to love rugby even more and I’m positive it will give me an even greater zeal for rugby.  I’ll be able to compare myself to some of the greatest female rugby athletes and see where and how I can improve.  The best part is that I will also get to play with them.  It definitely will give me a new goal to work up to and I’m so excited for it. I know it will give me an even greater motivation for training. I can’t wait!