Kayla Bashore Smedley
Kayla Bashore (born February 20, 1983 in Daegu, South Korea[1]) is an American field hockey defender and midfielder. Now living in San Diego, California, she was a student of the Indiana University, where she played for the Hoosiers, and was the first player from that university to make the US National Field Hockey team.[1] She represented the USA at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[2]
Kayla grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. Growing up, Kayla did not find her sporting love in field hockey, but in soccer instead. It was not until high school that she picked up her first field hockey stick. The field hockey coach of the high school saw her playing and immediately wanted her on the team. Throughout the year, the coached constantly asked her to consider playing field hockey instead, but Kayla did not want anything to do with it. Finally, after persisting, Kayla decided to play field hockey and after that moment she realized she had made a good choice. She immediately fell in love with it. From then on out she excelled at the sport and played at the top of her team. After graduating from Hamburg Area High School, she made her way onto Indiana University's team. After playing on the team for four years, in the last couple months of her senior year, she got asked to join the United States National Field Hockey Team. After that, she made her way to San Diego, California, to start to train alongside of the team. This is where she grew into the field hockey player she is today. Her and the team went through rigorous training daily to achieve these goals. The team first qualified for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Alongside of her team, her whole family made the trip over to support her in her dreams. In the Games, the team did not win any medals. Throughout the following four years they trained harder so they would be able to go to the 2012 Olympics in London, England. They did just that. Her family again was there to support them on. During the games, they did beat their biggest rival team, Argentina. The team did not win any medal during those Games either. A few months after the Olympics, Kayla decided it was time to hang up the shoes and retire. She retired with over 100 international appearances.
International senior competitions
References
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