WATCH: Florida Tech Scholar-Athlete Spotlight Recognizes Softball Player Kelly McLaughlin
By Jerry Durney, Florida Tech News Bureau // September 6, 2022
McLaughlin is majoring in marketing
ABOVE VIDEO: In this Scholar-Athlete Spotlight, we are featuring Florida Tech softball player Kelly McLaughlin, a senior who is majoring in marketing.
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Being a scholar-athlete at Florida Tech takes an incredible amount of hard work and dedication to excel both in the classroom and on the field.
In this Scholar-Athlete Spotlight, we are featuring Florida Tech softball player Kelly McLaughlin, a senior who is majoring in marketing.
The Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania native has been named to the Sunshine State Conference Commissioner’s and Florida Tech Athletic Director’s Honor Roll in each of her first two years at Tech and earned a Distinguished Student Scholar award this past May.
In addition, McLaughlin was named an Easton/NFCA All-America Scholar-Athlete after this past season.
In order to qualify as an All-America Scholar-Athlete players must maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher for the entire academic year.
A softball season can be very active with around 50 games in just over three games, not to mention all the practices and travel. So, we caught up with Kelly to ask her how she makes her hectic scholar-athlete life work.
■ What’s your major at Florida Tech and why did you choose this? Is it something that you’ve always wanted to be a part of?
So, I’m a marketing major, I guess you could say I always wanted to do it. I never really knew what the name was. But I think that since I was in maybe Middle School, it was a dream to go into sales.
■ Having grown up just outside Philadelphia, what was it about Florida Tech that drew you here?
Yeah, being far away, I never really knew about Florida Tech. It wasn’t until a job fair in Philly that I went to where I saw some alumni and I ended up coming down for an official visit. I just met some fantastic professors and great staff here. So that was the deciding factor.
■ How do you plan to use your degree after graduation?
So, I plan to go into software sales. I’ve always wanted to go into sales and the ability to utilize technology, which I see as a growing field, is something that I’m really interested in. Getting to travel and meet new people and sell that kind of product is definitely a dream of mine.
■ What are some of the exciting projects that you’ve been able to work on in classes here?
My favorite thing so far about Florida Tech is the number of local businesses that we work with and the opportunities that I’ve gotten to do. Any kind of charity work or help out in any kind of way, has been the best project for me to work on.
How do you keep everything balanced once the season starts? Especially with all the games, practices, and road trips, you guys have during the three-month season.
It can be tough, but you have to remember that you probably have the greatest support system here at Florida Tech between professors, coaches, academic advisors, and your own teammates, everybody’s there to help you and we help each other out as much as we can.
■ How has being a collegiate athlete prepared you for what you’re doing now and what do you take from softball that you apply to your studies?
The biggest thing for me is teamwork and great communication.
I’ve learned how to communicate with all different types of people and how they choose to receive communication. I get to practice that every day with my teammates and with coaches and that’s definitely something that I bring into my professional career.
■ What advice would you give to an athlete that’s looking to come here that might get into marketing?
I would tell them to take advantage of all the opportunities here and to talk with professors that are, you know, going to have experience in the same field that you do. They’re the best resource for you and it’s good to have a close relationship with those professors.
■ What have you enjoyed the most about your time with the Panther softball team and what are you looking forward to for the 2023 season?
The thing that I’ve most enjoyed is just having a group of people that I can call family on and off the field. I love spending time with them and traveling with them.
I’m really just looking forward to having a great new group. We have a lot of new people, so I’m excited to make more friends and meet new people. And winning, I’m excited about winning!
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