Destructive decisions now past, NKU soccer player Kailey Ivins turns around life through Christian faith

By Robby Johnson
NKU Athletic Communications

To say Kailey Ivins’ Christian faith is a big part of her life is an understatement, but nearly three years ago that wasn’t the case. Far from it in fact.

“I didn’t really know who I was and what my purpose was,” she recalled.

That statement is a scary reflection on her experience transitioning to her life at Northern Kentucky University, where she’s also an impact contributor on the women’s soccer program. As an incoming freshman, Ivins was making destructive decisions by partying and drinking heavily, blacking out often.

This soon went into overdrive as her freshman season didn’t pan out the way she wanted and a sprained ankle created even more setbacks.

If asked, ‘Who is Kailey Ivins?’ she would answer resoundingly that she was a soccer player. Soccer was everything to her, like many Division I athletes and their respective sports, and when that started coming into question in her mind, things only got worse.

“It kind of felt like that everything I cared about, which was mostly just soccer, was falling apart,” she said. “I was pretty average at school; I didn’t really care much about that. I just really liked partying and drinking and that was all I had going for me at the time.”

Midway through the fall semester of her freshman year, she reached her breaking point. She was done.

“One day I woke up after I had been drinking a lot the night before and I was like, ‘I’m done, I can’t do this anymore,'” she recalled. “After soccer wasn’t working out and school wasn’t going that great, I really had to step back and find something that gave me purpose past soccer.

“I started putting my purpose into something that would last longer for me. Soccer just wasn’t filling me up in any way and my mental health was not in good shape at the time.”

That something was her relationship with God as Ivins made a complete 180 with how she led her life. She quit drinking cold turkey and she started going to church, quickly putting her on the fast track to leaving a bleak situation.

Another pivotal moment was when her roommate, Emma VonLehman, also a member of the soccer team, invited her to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) meeting at NKU. In almost no time at all, she was a regular at each meeting on Monday night and she soon began connecting with other athletes at NKU, which she says made a huge difference.

“Once I went to FCA and started making friends, my self-esteem just skyrocketed,” said Ivins. “I just felt like I was so ready to change the direction of where my life was going. I just started going to church more and I was starting to find some good adult leaders in my life that would push me or hold me accountable.

“It was just something to get out there and meet new people in other sports, which is honestly one of the best parts about it. For one, you’re getting closer to God but you get to be around athletes that you probably wouldn’t normally talk to.”

After months of solid progress, the next step for Ivins came in April of her freshman year.

“Nate Sallee, our FCA leader came up to me and asked if I was ready to think about being baptized,” Ivins said. “I had thought about it but I never was fully about making the decision. I was ready though. I had taken all the negative things in my life and pushed them to the side. I was really focused on the Lord and my relationship with Him. So, when [Nate] asked me, I was 100 percent with it.”

In front of all her new friends in the FCA, Ivins was baptized in the pool at NKU’s Campus Recreation Center. It was an experience she holds dear and a huge representation of saying goodbye to her past self.

“What it represents to me is kind of the death of my old self,” she said. “All of the past negative experiences I had in my fall semester and even during high school; I was able to forgive, let go and move on.”

Now, practically a completely different person, Ivins is storming ahead with purpose. She’s since become one of five student-leaders for the FCA, carries an exceptional GPA in her social work major and is coming off a strong junior season in NKU’s midfield where she had a goal in a win over Lipscomb, the eventual Atlantic Sun Conference champion, and a crucial game-winner over Horizon League foe IUPUI.

“I now have a better understanding of who I am as a soccer player and that I’m not just solely a soccer player,” she said. “I think that’s a really good relationship to have with it. I also just have a more mature understanding with it now, where I take soccer seriously and I love the sport so much, but I look at it more as a job rather than something as who I am.”

The progress she made from the days she set foot on campus is unbelievable to many, especially her friends, and it serves as blueprint that things don’t always have to be a certain way. If she has any advice for people in similar situations to what she dealt with, it’s to block the outside noise and focus on yourself.

“Just lean on the people that you know want the best for you,” she said. “Take life a little bit more seriously and focus on growing yourself and not worrying about what other people are doing or what they have to say.

“A big part for me when I was at that point was that I wanted to fit in with everyone else, but the quicker I got out of that and realized that it’s not going to make me a better soccer player, a better student or even as someone working a job, the better things got. Just grow yourself and focus on that.”