Kelsey Holbert Reflects on UW-Milwaukee Women’s Soccer

Perseverance through personal and organizational turmoil has defined UW-Milwaukee women’s soccer graduated midfielder Kelsey Holbert, and that drive has earned her some well-deserved hardware.

Holbert, who was a team captain during her redshirt senior season last fall and graduated in December, received women’s Senior Student-Athlete of the Year, James Wright Special Recognition, and the Faculty Athletic Representative Award for women’s soccer at the Golden Panthers award show in the Union Ballroom on May 10. The last of those is given to the athlete with the highest grade point average on the team. Finally, her team won the Horizon League Sportsmanship Award.

“I’m really glad that I was able to go and accept those awards,” Holbert said. “It was also really nice after having a good season for our whole team to be recognized.”

Holbert, who was a chemistry major with a biology minor and was pre-med, finished with a 3.974 GPA to earn the Faculty Representative award along with the highest GPA for all female Panthers athletes. She also was named a second team Academic All-American.

“My biggest motivation is that I love learning,” she said. “I really like science, but I didn’t really realize how much I loved chemistry until I got to college. I got really involved in research and just really enjoyed it. It was easy to put in the work when it was something that I really liked learning about.”

The Wright Special Recognition Award is given to athletes who have persevered through adversity, notably serious injuries, and have come back to be valuable to their respective teams. It is named after James Wright, who is a former UWM men’s basketball player from 2000-2005 and suffered a severe injury during what would have been his true senior season, but came back to be a key contributor in his final season on the Panthers team that made it to the Sweet 16 of the 2005 NCAA Tournament. Coincidentally, Holbert ended up sitting at the same table with Wright at the award show.

“It was really unique for me to know that he went through that same thing; being faced with the opportunity to maybe have to change your plans or readjust some things in order to come back and play,” she said. “We could both tell that we shared a similar passion for our sport, and so it was a huge honor to be recognized for that… it was extra special getting to meet him and share our experiences together.

Holbert suffered through a navicular stress fracture (stress fracture of a bone that helps connect the ankle to the foot) that ended what would have been her true senior season after one game. However, she used her redshirt and gained eligibility this season.

“I sort of knew what it was like, or the feeling that I could have had knowing that I wasn’t going to be playing soccer anymore,” she said. “It’s such a big part of my life and I really wanted to end on a good note.”

“On the field, I was really motivated by the injury that I had last year… I was out for 13 months,” she said. “I worked really hard to get back on the field and postponed my graduation to have that fifth season. There were a lot of factors that contributed to me not knowing if I was going to play again, and once I knew I was going to play, that was a huge motivation.”

Holbert used those 13 months to complete a laborious rehab process that included being on crutches for 6-8 weeks following surgery. In fact, she feels as if the injury derailed her chances of being a professional soccer player.

“I tried healing non-surgically for seven months,” she said. “Then, I started slowly getting back to doing physical therapy and walking and running. That’s when I realized that something was still wrong, so I saw some other doctors and then ended up getting surgery. After that, the rehab really started. I was doing physical therapy three to four times a week and then I would do as much with our athletic trainer as allowed.”

The rehab process stretched into the preseason and limited Holbert’s ability to engage in team activities. Much of her early-season activity included biking, intense workouts and getting to know the coaching style of first-year head coach Troy Fabiano. She had to regain some of her game as well, seeing as she had not played during the spring of 2015.

“When you step out of the game for that long, it takes a while to get back into it,” she said.

Stability in the women’s soccer program during Holbert’s five years has been all but nonexistent, as she has played for three coaches. However, all three of them have maintained the Panthers’ remarkable run of Horizon League success, as the 2014 season was the first one in 14 years where UWM did not win the conference title.

“Part of the reason why I really wanted to come back was to try to help get everything back on track,” Holbert said regarding the Panthers’ winning ways.

Holbert was recruited by former UWM head coach Mike Moynihan, who coached her for one season before taking the same position at Northwestern. Moynihan was the head coach of the Panthers for 15 seasons and led them to seven NCAA Tournament appearances. He was succeeded by Greg Henschel, who was the head coach for three seasons before his contract expired after 2014.

Before this season, Holbert garnered first team all-Horizon League and all-Horizon League Tournament honors following her sophomore and junior seasons, along with all-Newcomer honors her freshman year. The severe heel injury may have convinced Holbert not to pursue a pro soccer career, but she is heading to medical school at University of Illinois at Chicago in the fall.

“I’m really excited to sort of make the transition out of one thing that I love and I think I’ve really found something else that I’m going to love and it’s going to take up plenty of my time and energy,” she said.