TU alumna joins USA Bobsledding Team
Track and field graduate Megan Kelly has gone from the track to the ice as part of the 2018-19 USA bobsled and skeleton team.
By Towson University Athletics on November 7, 2018
Aspirations turned into reality as recent 2018 Towson University track and field graduate Megan Kelly goes from the track field to the ice in the USA winter Olympics. Kelly has made the
2018-19 USA bobsled and skeleton national team as a push athlete.
For any meet, athletes like to get in the zone. For Kelly, her normal game day routine
is to eat a good breakfast, listen to music and envision what is to come. This go
around, all her visions and a lot of what will happen will be a first.
Being an athlete is never an easy feat, especially when your specialty is one sport
and then you get approached for a sport you have never competed in and your college
does not sponsor it, so how did Kelly get involved with bobsledding you may ask?
Kelly was approached by Elana Meyers-Taylor on the bobsled team and asked if she wanted
to be on the team. Kelly found out that every year they look for new athletes to recruit
for bobsled, and she was lucky enough to be one of them.
“I had never really thought of bobsled as a sport I would participate in because I
honestly knew nothing about it,” Kelly said. “It has really been fun learning about
everything and seeing what I can do.”
The expression on Kelly’s face screamed enthusiastic when describing how big of a
chance and opportunity this is. Opportunities like this do not just happen every day
and its one Kelly knew she could not pass up. “It’s such an honor to be named to the
USA team,” Kelly said. “It's been a childhood dream, and being a USA National Athlete
is out of this world and such a great opportunity.”
One minute, Kelly was working in her field at the veteran’s hospital in Baltimore
doing geriatrics then all of a sudden she was training at the combine in Lake Placid,
New York.
At TU, Kelly’s main events were the 400 and the 400-hurdles, making her a sprinter,
but she quickly learned that the training for bobsledding involved much shorter sprints
and more explosive training in general.
“Coach Mike Jackson, who I was lucky to have helped with the transition, got me to be faster than I thought
I could ever be,” Kelly said.
“Training all summer was fun and I am lucky to have Coach Jackson and Coach Mike Chatman
to train me and I could not have done it without them,” Kelly said.