This young and aspiring senior at Valley Christian Academy is only a few months away from graduating and moving toward a new chapter: life as a college student.
Kylie Mugg started playing sports when she was 9 years old after joining a recreational soccer team.
“I’ve always been a klutz, so naturally my parents were surprised when I wanted to play,” she said.
Not long after beginning to play recreational soccer, Kylie, as a junior higher, joined her high school’s basketball team.
“My dad was the coach for the girls’ team, and one day asked me if I wanted to play and I said ‘sure,’” she said, “and I’ve been playing ever since.”
After nine years of playing soccer, Kylie’s teams have won more than 30 tournaments. Individually, she’s been awarded numerous trophies and medals for her excellence and hard work as an athlete.
As a freshman at VCA, she was recognized as Athlete of the Week for basketball as starting point guard of VCA’s team. She’s been MVP of her team twice, and thanks to her team’s hard work and dedication, they’ve won league for the past four years—and nabbed two CIF championships.
When asked what her most memorable moment was, Kylie said: “Basketball. Freshman year. CIF game. Fourth quarter, right at the end of the game. The score was enough that we knew we had won the game, and with 30 seconds left on the clock, my sister Whitney and I were standing at half court and I just remember the both of us looking up at the clock and reading the scoreboard and hugging each other. And then coach took us out and put the second string players in to finish the game. There was cheering everywhere because we had won CIF for the second year in a row.”
Kylie emphasized that “being able to play and function on a team is vitally important.
“I think I’m very good at seeing what is needed on a team and fulfilling my role,” she said.
“My biggest challenge was being a leader on the team,” she said. “I wasn’t used to that in junior high, and when I was a freshman it was very scary to step into a leadership role, being younger than everyone else. But it helped equip me for the future in many ways.”
This article appears in Mar 12-19, 2009.