School: Abington
Field Hockey, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Tim Tebow
Favorite team: Phillies
Best memory competing in sports: I loved playing field hockey with my little sisters, especially in scrimmages when me and my sister Katherine could team up and score on Faith, our other sister and goalie.
Most embarrassing moment while competing in sports: In our first scrimmage this year, when I went to take a practice stroke and it flew up and over me, landing somewhere behind me.
Music on iPod: A pretty good variety, but I guess a lot of Christian music
Future plans: Not sure – either get accepted into the Naval Academy and hopefully fly helicopters or go to some college and become an elementary school teacher.
Words to live by: “Living for God’s glory is the greatest achievement we can accomplish in our lives.”
Goal before turning 30: To be happily married with one or two kids.
One thing people don’t know about me: At home, all I do is laugh with my sisters and quote Nacho Libre with my brothers!
Christina Geating has a simple philosophy when it comes to her approach to life.
“I think if you’re going to do something – don’t just do it halfheartedly,” the Abington senior said. “If I’m going to put a lot of time into something, I might as well do it the best I can or I’m just wasting my time.
“With everything I do, I just try and push myself as hard as I can and then when I rest, I rest well.”
Geating , according to her coach, could be the ‘give everything you’ve got’ poster child.
“Christina always gives 100 percent effort – no matter if it’s a conditioning workout, a practice or a game,” field hockey coach Amanda Deering said. “In terms of playing on my team, she always was one of the hardest working individuals, and it’s basically what she does in all aspects of her life, whether it’s field hockey, track and field or academics.”
A member of the National Honor Society and National Arts Society, Geating is enrolled in AP and honors classes and is ranked near the top of the class. That’s not to say good grades always come easily. In her Calculus class last year, Geating received a C in the first marking period.
She sought out help and finished strong.
“She’s someone – when there’s an obstacle, she will do whatever she can to overcome it,” Deering said.
The middle child in a family of five children, Geating grew up playing sports with her siblings, but it wasn’t until she was in middle school that she got her first taste of competitive sports when she went out for field hockey and also competed with the track and field team.
“I didn’t even know what field hockey was until sixth grade,” she said. “My dad said I might like it, so I tried out for it and liked it.
“It was a little rough at first because I didn’t know what I was doing and the other girls did, but I caught on fairly quickly.”
Sports immediately became an important part of Geating’s life, and the violin lessons she’d taken since she was seven were dropped when she was in eighth grade.
“Sports kind of took over,” she said.
As a sophomore, Geating was seeing varsity playing time, but she also played jayvee.
“She would jump right into the jayvee games, and as the leader on that team, she would never even blink at whether or not playing for the jayvee team was something that put her down a level,” Deering said. “She actually was such a leader for that group that she ended up leading the jayvee team to a successful season.”
For the past two years, Geating has been a fixture in the varsity lineup, contributing in the midfield and on the forward line.
“She gets balls that are loose that you wouldn’t think she would be able to get to,” Deering said. “In terms of her work ethic in practice – whenever we have a conditioning workout, she and her sisters are the most in-shape players on the team, but she doesn’t let that stop her from pushing herself.”
This year, Geating is joined in the starting lineup by twins Faith and Catherine, who are sophomores. The three siblings also compete in winter and spring track together.
“We all love it,” she said of playing together. “We’re really close already, so we like it. We talk about it a lot at home, and our parents are really strong supporters of it.
“We’re a really competitive family. When we were kids, it was more of a problem because we were fighting more. Our parents said, ‘If sports aren’t going to be for fun, you can’t do them,’ so we just play them for fun, but we’re still highly competitive.”
Geating – whose father and uncle still hold track records at Abington - is a natural in track. She got her start as a middle distance runner and was part of Abington’s relay team that went to states her freshman year, but a knee injury sidelined her for the winter track season of her sophomore year.
“That spring when I came back I did jumping events because it was a little bit easier on my knees,” she said. “Now I’m fine, but I’m still doing the jumping events.”
Geating competes in pole vault, triple jump, high jump and occasionally, long jump and was the team’s jumping MVP last year. She has a special passion for pole vaulting.
“The basic concept is you run, jump and fly through the air,” she said. “There’s a lot to love about that.”
Geating plans to continue her track career at the collegiate level and has not ruled out playing hockey as well. Her top college choices are vastly different - the Naval Academy, which doesn’t offer field hockey, and Calvin College, a small Christian college in Michigan.
Why the Naval Academy?
“It has a lot to do with my competitive spirit and always pushing myself,” Geating said. “I just like the aspect that they push you to succeed in more than one thing.
“Some colleges it’s just academics or sports. At the Naval Academy, they want you to grow spiritually, mentally and morally. They also want you to be physically fit, and schoolwork is still huge. I like that. You’re surrounded by people who all have a drive to do well.”
Geating is involved with both her community and church, volunteering her time for community service and serving as a student leader of her church youth group. She has been taught strong family values from a father who is a family pastor and a mother who grew up in poverty in Calcutta, India.
“She was a Compassion (International) kid, and her parents told her that the only way to get out was through a good education,” Geating said of her mother. “When she was around the age to go to college, the people who paid for her school paid for her to come here and go to college.”
Although her high school hockey career is over, Geating leaves with nothing but good memories of a season that saw the Ghosts elevate their program to a much higher level this season.
“I think our team was a lot closer this year,” she said. “A lot of times in the past we were more separated, so there was a lack of communication on the field, and we weren’t really playing together as a team.
“This year was really fun. Even practices were more intense than years before. Our coaches kept saying, ‘The way you practice is the way you’ll play, so you need to get on each other hard.’ Our scrimmages against each other were really intense, and our jayvee started stepping up more.”
Not surprisingly, Deering credits Geating – as well co-captain Elle Clark – for playing a role in the team’s turnaround.
“Christina wasn’t as vocal as Elle, but if the team needed a pick-me-up or someone to step up positively, she’s out there on the field for them,” the Ghosts’ coach said. “I always thought she was a quiet, hard worker, but she can be a vocal leader, and she has just blossomed into a beautiful young lady who can speak for herself.
“She just sets a standard for the players. They all know she’s really good, and the girls see what she does and why she’s so successful. Whether it’s a drill or conditioning activity, she’s always giving 100 percent. She leads by example.”
An example that future Abington athletes would do well to follow.
