School: Upper Merion
Favorite memory competing in sports: “I can’t pick one specific thing…team spirit, crazy t-shirts, singing to the warm-up music. Looking back, everything was a lot of fun.”
Future plans: “Go to college, travel and figure the rest of it out as I go. Although I have goals, I just try to live in the moment and enjoy the little things in life. Carpe diem!”
Words to live by: “This above all – to thine own self be true.”
One goal before turning 30: Learn how to play guitar.
One thing people don’t know about me: “I love art (especially painting)!”
Kristin Quigley just might be irreplaceable.
Or at least that’s what it must feel like to Upper Merion coach Barbara Giuffrida, who admits she can’t imagine life without her two-year captain.
“She’s just an outstanding young woman,” Giuffrida said. “She’s a scholar-athlete on top of being an outstanding, caring person.
“The girls on the team just admire her. She always made time for everybody on the team, no matter who they were or what their position. The girls all looked up to her.”
Quigley, a senior, played third singles for the Vikings, and her 5-3 record was the best on the squad, but making her accomplishments so extraordinary is the fact that she does not take any classes at Upper Merion but instead takes all of them at Montgomery County Community College.
An honors student, Quigley needed to take just two classes to meet her graduation requirement – English and Economics, and she’s taking both of those at Montco. She is also taking a pair of college courses, Sociology and Philosophy.
Quigley arranged her schedule so her classes would be completed no later than 12:30 p.m.
“I was still at school every day for tennis, and I still see people outside of school,” she said of the unusual arrangement. “The commute depends on the day – some days it takes up to 40 minutes to get there, but other days it only takes 15.”
In order to determine whether attending Montco for her senior year was the right decision, Quigley took a night course at the college last year – The Art of Critical Thinking in Technology.
“I wanted to see if I liked it before I totally switched over,” she said. “I ended up loving it. I liked the whole experience. I’m really pretty independent. I like doing things on my own.”
If it seems as though playing tennis after a day of college classes might be more difficult, Quigley would beg to differ.
“Sitting through a whole day of school and going right to tennis – a lot of people get really worn out, and that how I was last year,” she said. “You’re kind of tired after a whole day of school.
“For me it was really nice this year. School was pretty short, I got to go home a little bit and I always felt like I had so much energy.”
Quigley put that energy to use when she arrived at tennis. If there was a job to be done, Giuffrida could always count on her senior captain.
When it came time for the team to make spirit t-shirts, Quigley took the lead.
“Everybody comes over to my house, and we make our own,” she said. “It’s really team bonding.”
If the underclassmen neglected to take the team’s equipment back to the school, Quigley would volunteer to do it for them.
“She doesn’t think she’s too good to do something – I’m on varsity. I’m not going to take the stuff up,” Giuffrida said. “Whatever you need and whatever will make things better, she’s there to do it without being asked. She’s that kind of kid. She gives of herself all the time.”
When the Vikings’ coach attended a conference and thought she might be late for a match, Quigley stepped to the fore.
“She said, ‘Mrs. G, don’t worry. We’ll start the match,’ and she’s the one that will do it,” Giuffrida said. “I never had to worry as long as I had her there.
“I knew if I didn’t get back from the conference on time, she would even get the match started if necessary. I could rely on her. I knew the girls would listen to her. She was just a natural leader.”
Quigley admits she is an independent thinker – a trait that has served her well as captain.
“I do my own thing,” she said. “I don’t really go with the crowd. I do what I think is best, and I guess that kind of helps.
“Our team was great this year. We all got along so well, and we worked really well together.”
Quigley - who got her start in tennis playing with her mother and friends as she was growing up - has been a member of the tennis team since she was a sophomore after playing volleyball as a freshman.
“Tennis is definitely more of a fun thing for me, and I just happen to be decent at playing it,” she said. “I like the whole team aspect.”
Quigley was named her team’s most valuable player, and Giuffrida points to Quigley’s three-set win against Springfield (Montco) – in a match that lasted two-and-a-half hours - as a match that captured the spirit and determination of her senior captain.
“She was one of the first people on the court, and the whole team waited for her to finish at the end,” Giuffrida said. “She’s an extremely consistent player and just has an inner strength to keep herself focused.
“She doesn’t need the external rah rah. She has an internal discipline.”
As for next year, Quigley has not yet made a final decision on the school she will call home or what her major will be.
“That’s another reason I really enjoy going to Montco this year because I do have a variety of classes,” she said. “After the English and Economics, it was really up to me what I wanted to take, and there’s such a wide variety to pick from.
“Sociology and Philosophy are so random, and I can get a lot of experience and maybe see what I want to get into. If I had gone to school as an undeclared freshman, this is basically what I would have been doing.”
Giuffrida admits Quigley – whose mother spearheaded the drive to start a booster club this year - sometimes felt like an assistant coach of sorts.
“The captains lead the exercises,” the Vikings’ coach said. “She’s there, she’s doing it, she gives you 110 percent at practice. If we need to get something started, and I have to do something – she will be out there doing it.
“She’s the one who makes things run well. She’s the one you want on your team.”
And she’s the one who will be all but impossible to replace next year.
