Today’s guest is another fellow 2009 classmate of mine, and I’m excited to spend time today with Kelsey Byrd. Kelsey was a 3-year team captain of the Valley Christian women’s basketball team, ultimately leading the Warrior to back-to-back CCS championships in 2007 and 2008. She was selected to the all-WCAL team and earned all-CCS honors all three years she spent on the varsity team. Additionally, she was selected to the All-San Jose Mercury News team her junior and senior years, San Francisco Chronicle’s all-metro team her junior year, was the Valley Christian female junior athlete of the year in 2008, and was Valley Christian’s overall female scholar athlete of the year in 2009.
Ultimately, her experiences allowed her to attend the high academic and athletic Ivy League school Dartmouth College where she studied Geography and Health Care Policy. Kelsey would go on to become a member of the Big Green women’s basketball team, but pivoted her Junior year and instead took up competitive cycling, racing road and mountain bikes her last two years at Dartmouth.
After graduating from Dartmouth, Kelsey would go on an exciting journey to get her career off the ground. First, she moved to Maine were she served as an AmeriCorps volunteer. After that, Kelsey moved back to California and took up a graduate assistant coach position with the women’s basketball program at Cal Poly San Luis Opispo, where she would go on to earn a Master’s in Sports Management in 2018.
Eventually, Kelsey realized she felt called elsewhere, and so she pursued an MBA in Design Strategy, which she completed just this past week. Today, Kelsey is a Product Manager at Microsoft, where she specifically engages in the development of technology for social impact.
Thanks for tuning in to the Warrior Rewind, where we take time to visit with members of the Valley Christian Athletics community---past and present. Once a Warrior, always a Warrior.
Warrior Rewind is hosted by Rob Fair '09, who also serves VC as a football coach, lacrosse coach, and Assistant Athletic Director. Connect with Rob on Twitter (@robfair3) to nominate a new guest for the show!
Music: https://www.bensound.com
