When I think of Penn State Love, its not about JoePa, its about the people I met in my Kinesiology classes, the athletes I talked to in BBH freshman year, and all the wonderful experiences that I had as a Penn State Student-Athlete. I chose to go to Penn State because it had the number one Kinesiology program in the country, they had a great javelin coach and it was far enough from home that I could not go home on the weekends. Being from North Hampton, NH, and an only child, I wanted to have the full college experience without the undo influence of my parents on my decisions.
I chose to go to Penn State because of how friendly the track team was to me at Penn Relays, even when I had a broken leg. I chose to take extra kinesiology classes because that's what I loved and I just wanted to learn more about why and how our bodies work the way they do. I chose to volunteer for every professor that I had because I wanted to learn from their experience, for free.
My sophomore and junior year, I worked under my Sports Psychology professor, I just had to remind the rugby players to go get their concussion tests done. When I worked under Dr. James Pawelczyk during the spring and summer of my junior year, I wrote a paper about the gold standard for body fat percentage and how it wasn't BMI, but DEXA scans and Bod Pod machines. While I was writing this paper, I helped centrifuge blood and measure hematocrits, so that I could help him with research regarding the drug Octriotide and how it helps or does not help with orthostatic hypotension, which is typically experienced by women, or anyone returning from space. I never worked for Dr. Kenney but he was Dr. P's friend and he did a lot of research regarding Gatorade heat tolerance tests and now his daughter is throwing javelin for Penn State.
My senior year, I was a teaching assistant for Lori Gravish in the practical applications of Kinesiology lab and I got to grade lab papers for younger Kinesiology students and most importantly, I made sure I did not grade any of my friend's papers because I did not want there to be any bias. When I was a teaching assistant for Dr. R.S. Kretchmar, I helped revive the Zen Buddhism study and we brought a small group of students to a Zen Monastery in rural Pennsylvania. While working for Dr. Kretchmar, I wrote a paper regarding the likelihood of athletes to experience flow in individual and team sports and referenced The Inner Game of Tennis, The Peaceful Warrior, Flow, and another book by Phil Jackson.
Alongside, all of these experiences as a student, I also volunteered in the student body weight room as well as the team sports weight room. I served as a member of the student athlete athletic advisory board. I also volunteered with the GET 60 program sponsored by Gatorade for kids that were involved with the Second Mile program. At the time that I volunteered, I had no idea of the level of abuse that had previously occurred in that program.
Volunteerism has just been a part of my life because I have always thought that if you give back more than you ever expect to receive, it will improve your life just as much as those around you.
Sincerely,
Heidi A. Goedecke
B.S. in Kinesiology, 2008
runhappyHeidi.com
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