Soccer
Favorite athlete: Christie Rampone
Favorite team: Philadelphia Union
Favorite memory competing in sports: My favorite memory competing in sports would be playing a game two years ago with my club team. We were playing on a turf field somewhere in New Jersey and it was freezing cold, pouring down rain, and I loved every minute of playing that game. The team was working together flawlessly, and we were up by a goal. I was playing outside back and was pushed up just outside the other team’s eighteen. My coach was telling me to move up more at the same time the ball came out to me. I meant to cross the ball but ended up putting it in the side netting of the goal with my left foot (I’m a righty) and scoring. I just remember turning around to my coach and was like, “You were saying?” He laughed and told me to get back into position for the tap.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: There have been a lot of funny memories, so it’s hard to pick one. One of my favorites was when I was eight, and there was a creek by the field we were playing on. Instead of warming up, I convinced my team that we should be hunting for frogs instead. So after getting yelled at by the coach and with some wet feet, we were frogless and getting ready for the game. Needless to say, we tried to catch the frogs after the game and were somewhat successful!
Music on iPod: Just about everything. I have my country songs for the summer, Christmas for when it gets around the holidays, pump up songs for running and before the game, calmer music for doing homework, and then all the pop songs that I sing off key to all the time.
Future plans: I plan on going to college next fall to play varsity soccer and begin my studies in biochemistry and molecular biology. After college, I hope to go to med school and become a pediatric cardiologist.
Words to live by: “Hard work is hard. That’s why it’s not called easy. But if you put the time and effort in, you’re bound to accomplish just about anything you put your mind to.”
One goal before turning 30: Before I am 30, I would love to travel throughout Europe.
One thing people don’t know about me: I don’t like chocolate. The occasional Hershey bar is okay, but I don’t like chocolate cake or ice cream or anything else that is really chocolaty.
By Mary Jane Souder
Kristen Upton has an unmistakably positive outlook on life.
“She’s an excellent leader,” Central Bucks South coach Joe Bocklet said of his senior co-captain. “She’s always positive, always encouraging.
“She is not someone who yells at teammates when they do something wrong. She’s more likely to encourage them and help them move on and get to the next play and continue to work.”
Upton certainly has had plenty of practice putting her positive approach to life to good use.
In seventh grade, she was diagnosed with a condition called reflex neurovascular dystrophy (RND).
“It’s when your nerves short circuit, and you have pain when nothing is wrong,” Upton said. “In the shower, (the water) felt like needles, and if somebody bumps you, it would amplify it, so it felt like they punched you. It wasn’t fun.”
In seventh grade, the RND manifested itself as pain in her ribs, and as a recommended form of treatement, she participated in an intense physical therapy program at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia five days a week, seven hours a day.
“I would get up at six, be on the train down to Philly and be there all day,” Upton said. “I spent four weeks in the program, and it went from 9s and 10s on the pain scale to 1s and 2s, so it was great.
“(RND) is stress induced. Usually what they find is they don’t really know why people get it, but once you go through the program and you figure out how to manage your stress, you physically retrain your nerves, and then it usually stays away.”
Unfortunately, the pain returned a year later, this time in her head and spine, so Upton was back at Children’s Hospital for therapy, this time for three weeks.
In ninth grade, the RND was back yet again, and this time it was in the form of a stomach bug.
“It actually flipped a switch in my stomach, and every time I ate something, my stomach thought it was supposed to throw it back up,” Upton said. “I was down at CHOP three weeks and came out 12 pounds lighter. We had to retrain my stomach how to eat food and keep the food down.”
Through it all, Upton put a positive spin on her situation.
“When I was down at Children’s Hospital, I made a friend who had a double hip replacement,” she said. “You see all these cute little kids being pulled in wagons, but then on the back of the wagons is the label ‘oncology,’ so as bad as I was feeling, I recognize that my condition was minor and temporary compared to the other children that are down there.”
Battling RND paled in comparison to the loss of a peer, and when Upton was a sophomore, she lost her close friend Caroline Gallagher.
“Losing a friend is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t lost one before,” Upton said. “Caroline sat at lunch with me and my other friend every day since eighth grade, and all of a sudden, she wasn’t there.
“You know she’s your friend and you know she’s always there for you, but when she’s gone, you kind of realize how big of a role she had in your life.”
Upton decided to channel her grief into something positive, and within a month after Gallagher passed away, she was in the early stages of planning a 5K in memory of her friend called the Sweet Caroline 5K.
“It takes close to a year to plan,” Upton said.
But planning is something that comes naturally to Upton, who enlists volunteers, orders and distributes t-shirts, finds sponsors and organizes the actual race.
The second annual race was held this fall on Oct. 20, and close to $15,000 has been raised with the proceeds donated to Children’s Hospital since that is where Gallagher spent the final weeks of her life.
“It’s a fulltime commitment,” Upton said. “A couple of days I was late for practice because I had meetings and things to do for the 5K. Coach Bocklet realizes how much work it is, and he’s okay with me being a little late.
“Having the 5K has definitely been a way for me to help cope with it because it’s a way for me to memorialize her and realize what a wonderful person she was and how big of an impact she had on the community.
“On the back of the shirts, we had the saying ‘Spread the Sparkle’ because Caroline was one of those people who always made you smile and made you laugh. We said she spread her sparkle to everyone she met. Our goal was to spread her sparkle even though she’s no longer with us.”
Upton has ensured that Gallagher’s legacy will live on as three juniors – Emma Burke, Jack Gallagher (Caroline’s brother) and Adam Daymon – are taking over the reins when she is gone next year.
Organizing the race is just one item on Upton’s lengthy resume. She is a Titan Ambassador and a member of the Key Club and Livestrong Club. An excellent student who has taken a lengthy list of AP courses, Upton is a member of the National Honor Society, and she volunteers her time at Tabor House, which works with children being placed in foster care.
“I love being involved with different things, and it helps that I have pretty good time management,” she said. “I try to get involved with everything that I possibly can, but I’ve had to look at some clubs and be like, ‘I’m sorry. I’d love to help, but there’s just not time.’”
Somehow Upton has found time to stay involved with soccer year round. She plays club for the Ukrainian Nationals. A three-year varsity player, Upton is a standout defender.
“The last two years, she’s been on the field almost every minute of every game,” Bocklet said. “She has good instincts.
“She knows how to read where the offense might go with the ball. She’s good at making runs to cut attackers off, and she’s good in the air with her head. She has real good technical skills and is an excellent communicator.”
Upton has been playing soccer since she was four, following in the footsteps of her older sister.
“I like the fact that it’s a physical game and you have your technical skills, but it’s also partly a mental game,” she said. “I like playing near the back the best because you can see everything. You can see how everything connects and how everything goes together.”
Playing collegiate soccer is definitely part of Upton’s future, although she is uncertain where that will be. She plans to study molecular biology and biochemistry and hopes to continue on to medical school, giving up on her third grade career choice of becoming President of the United States.
“I wanted to be President until I learned that you had to be 35 years old to actually be President, and I wasn’t patient enough to wait till then,” Upton said.
No matter what her career choice, it’s a safe bet Upton will be involved in as many activities as she can fit in a 24-hour day.
“When you look at it, I don’t know how she has time to do anything,” Bocklet said. “She’s extremely involved and really committed to everything.
“I have never seen her fazed or stressed. She’s awesome, she really is.”
