For this national collegiate wrestling champion, nothing is taken for granted.
That includes wrestling on a team that nobody ever thought she would make.
Kelsey Campbell is the lone woman on this year's ASU wrestling team, and the first female ever to don the Sun Devil uniform.
Growing up in Oregon, wrestling for ASU was a far cry from normal, Campbell said.
"I remember people telling me, 'Kelsey, if you ever wrestled at ASU, you would be a world champion,' " she said.
That possibility became a reality when Campbell moved to Arizona in October 2006 to help start a non-denominational Christian church.
"I came here to build a church, but I think wrestling just worked out," Campbell said. "When I tell people that I came here to build a church, it's very interesting (to see) the direction the conversation goes. But it's not just saying I'm a Christian and I came here to build a church. It's really about showing people what the Bible says."
But Campbell was not always part of the church growing up. As a toddler, she actually was more of a performer than anything else.
This singer, songwriter, musician and choreographer even produced a concert during her high school tenure.
"I wasn't in the church growing up, and I didn't even become a Christian until I was 18, but I was really into performing," Campbell said. "That was my passion growing up — writing music and teaching myself how to play the piano and the guitar. Those were the things that I really loved."
After living most of her life in the Pacific Northwest, Campbell settled down in Arizona and started her new life as a Sun Devil.
"I didn't know anybody, and I didn't really know any of the wrestling programs," Campbell said of moving to Arizona after living in Oregon for 14 years. "I had to just go and make myself known and meet people."
Campbell did that by joining numerous teams and clubs around the Valley as she further developed her wrestling skills.
"I kind of scrapped together this makeshift training regiment because that's all I could really do," Campbell said. "I definitely was not on the radar for ASU. When I actually started wrestling at ASU, it was more like I didn't want to join the team but I just wanted a place to train. It turns out I had to join the team, so that's just kind of what I did."
ASU wrestling coach Thom Ortiz and the team have appreciated Campbell and her quest to improve.
"She walked on to the team and she's been doing everything that everybody has been doing," Ortiz said. "We're doing everything we can to help her make that Olympic squad in 2008."
Only a junior, Campbell still has a few years left before she retires from grappling.
She entered this season ranked No. 1 at 59 kilograms (130 pounds) in the collegiate women's rankings and is the defending national women's collegiate champion at 63 kilograms, after knocking off the No. 4, No. 2 and No. 1 seeds in last year's national tournament.
"It challenges me to work harder because I know what happened last year at Nationals wasn't supposed to happen," Campbell said. "This year is more competitive, so you never get comfortable. The toughest competition this year is at my weight class, and I want it to be that way. I want people to give me a challenge, and I want people to fight for that title because that's what I'm going to be doing."
Now reaping the benefits of being a part of ASU's squad, Campbell said she is lucky to have the opportunity to wrestle with a collegiate team.
"It's challenging, but I think I have an advantage also in some way," Campbell said of being the only women wrestler on the team. "Women don't have a training situation like this anywhere in the U.S. Some women may have good coaching or a good wrestling partner, but I have both."
Although Campbell said she is proud to be the first woman on the team, she also realizes that there is a tough task ahead of her.
"If I don't do it, somebody else is going to have to at some point," Campbell said. "I'm just glad that I love the sport enough because if I was doing it just to be the first, I don't think I could handle it. It's really challenging physically and mentally."
Reach the reporter at love.bhakta@asu.edu
