Kim’s Story
M y father was a coach and a physical education teacher for almost 40 years in San Jose, California, where I was born and raised. His philosophy was: “You cannot have a healthy mind without a healthy body," which he taught to all his students, and, naturally, to my sister and me.
There was nothing we weren’t interested in, and nothing he didn’t want to teach us, so we literally did everything. In my case, this meant I ran track, played soccer, basketball, volleyball, softball, tennis, golf, and field hockey. When I was graduating from high school, universities were beginning to offer athletic scholarships to women athletes, and as part of that I was offered an athletic scholarship to play field hockey for the University of California at Berkeley where I attended.
We have come a long way in achieving fairness in sport from those days. Back when I was competing, women didn’t have the same opportunities, and most sports were aimed solely at men. Now, we see men and women participating equally in many sports. I feel this equality in access to participation is important because sport teaches so many great life skills and nobody should have to miss out on that.
Professionally, I now work as a Senior Deputy District Attorney, but I also help coach many of my sons’ sports teams. Today, it seems like everybody wants their children to be coached by a “pro” (and to become pros themselves), but a good athlete doesn't necessarily make a good coach. Taking after my dad, I see sports as something that can help you achieve any goal in life—one doesn’t have to be a professional. So, as a coach, I use sport to teach children about sportsmanship, respect, success, and failure, and I encourage everyone to play for the pure joy of the game.
Artist Notes
“Kim is featured with a hockey stick on the playground coaching two kids, a little boy and a girl. The lessons she learned from her father’s 40 years of coaching, the athletic scholarship she won at the university when most sports were aimed at men, and the fact that she has played almost every sport there is, are all represented by the different colours and patterns on her in the image, which symbolizes her experience and wisdom in the sports world.”
Published Jul 1, 2020
Updated Oct 26, 2022
Published in Issue VII: Sports