My first pitch was a patch of snow. Every Christmas in Seattle, my two older brothers and I kicked the clumps aside and made our own turf. Opponents called me Huggy — I clung to attackers and never let go. The dream was simple: “Kim” on the back of a Barcelona shirt.
At fourteen, things got real. I signed with a Spanish academy and moved to Valencia with my mom. My optimistic expectations were shattered by reality: the language was indecipherable, the cultural barriers took a toll, and the soccer was at a level I had never played before. But with my eyes set on the goal, I carried a Spanish vocabulary notebook everywhere, woke up at 6 a.m. to train alone and hit the gym, and spent long nights studying how the professionals played. By year four I was fluent in Spanish and playing against La Liga youth academies.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly, and I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Then, during a match, a defender slid in. My knee twisted, and the thing I’d built my whole identity on was gone in an afternoon.
I hit rock bottom. My grades were a disaster, and I no longer had soccer to lean on. For months I was depressed, hopeless, and without a sense of purpose.
When a flower dies, it leaves room for others to bloom.
Without soccer, a new interest emerged. Selling fidget spinners in elementary school had already introduced me to entrepreneurship, and with more free time my world filled with Shark Tank and business documentaries. That spark became a double major at Emory, big aspirations in the business world, and a future I can’t wait to run into.
