St. Kate’s Katie Reeves has recipe for success on and off the golf course

If you re a Division III coach in these parts it never hurts to have a kid on your club who s passionate about food and nutrition The St Catherine s women s golf association discovered that in a delightful way a meager months back on a spring break trip to Arizona Katie Reeves a graduate attendee from White Bear Lake in St Kate s demanding nutrition and dietetics plan prepared two meals from scratch for her Wildcats teammates and coaches She put together a plan for everybody to submit the meals they demanded to eat on spring break revealed St Kate s Coach Mary Giorgi She had a couple of teammates help her out but she directed it and did the majority of the cooking She helped me create the grocery list and did the grocery shopping with me The end Two memorable meals Giorgi especially liked Reeves s homemade chili one batch with meat and one without She s incredible Giorgi revealed Extremely humble A friend to every person on our company Giving to others comes easily to Reeves who juggled volunteer work golf and academics for five years at St Kate s She ll graduate later this month with a master s degree in nutrition and dietetics along with national recognition Reeves is one of collegiate women and men across all NCAA and NAIA divisions and the only one from Minnesota named to the first Allstate NACDA Good Works Group for spring sports NACDA stands for the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics It s the natural offshoot of the Allstate Good Works Club that s honored college football players since Division III is one of the last bastions of sanity in college athletics Academics come first and the greater part coaches make accommodations for students to pursue their educational goals That s certainly the situation at St Kate s the small Catholic liberal arts university in St Paul known for its nursing plan In contemporary years Wildcats women s golf has risen in prominence winning four of the past five Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference MIAC championships This week St Kate s represents the MIAC at the NCAA Division III Championships in Williamsburg Virginia seeking to improve on last year s fifth-place finish The master s venture in nutrition and dietetics at St Kate s requires more than hours in supervised learning much of it outside the classroom It s so time-consuming that Reeves is the only athlete enrolled in this year s four-person graduating class according to Megan Baumler the venture director and Reeves advisor the past four years Next year s class of also has just one athlete Baumler announced And yet Reeves detected time to volunteer with Feed My Starving Children and Open Arms of Minnesota the latter a meal delivery organization for critically ill individuals For Reeves that makes time management even more crucial than her touch around the green I think there s been a learning curve and something I ve developed especially the beginning of the graduate effort last year Reeves reported A lot of time is spent in those little moments when I can get assignments done in the van driving to golf tournaments things like that It s been tough but you make it work especially if you care about the different things that you dedicate your time to Katie Reeves Credit Lindsay Madryga St Kate's With Open Arms Reeves filled multiple roles from trimming basil to packaging up meals As part of her academic project she also spent one semester with Ready Set Smile a dental non-profit that provides services in underserved schools in cities Reeves provided nutrition information to children from kindergarten to fifth grade one day a week Back on campus Reeves conducted nutritional assessments at the St Mary s Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Therapies SMMART Clinic which primarily serves Latino and undocumented individuals She also created and taught nutrition training lesson plans for eighth graders at her old junior high in White Bear Lake and adapted a Hmong recipe for backpackers with Wilderness Inquiry an outdoors-focused non-profit That s a lot for a college learner to balance let alone a college athlete Baumler declared she didn t know Reeves was on the golf unit when she began advising her Now that I know her ability to focus and really channel her energies into what demands to get done sort of makes sense to me Baumler explained It feels like she s applying her golf skills to her academics She s got her eye on what requirements to happen and can execute it in a calm focused way She s just solid St Kate s golfer Katie Reeves is a top golfer in the MIAC according to her coach Mary Giorgi Credit Lindsay Madryga St Kate's Reeves traces her interest in nutrition back to her parents Doug and Carol Reeves who cook at home frequently We didn t eat out a lot growing up Reeves revealed I just kind of adopted that as I got older I relied on myself to make meals in college At that point I hadn t declared my major but it kind of grew even after I declared my major in dietetics From there it s been a great experience to have the impact in the public the nutritional impact St Kate s women s golf effort is so deep it fields two five-person teams Reeves played mostly first group as a sophomore for St Kate s MIAC runners-up Giorgi stated But Reeves increased academic load and volunteer work the past two years cut into her practice time This season Reeves played mostly second crew Katie is still a top athlete in the MIAC declared Giorgi named Monday as the conference women s golf Coach of the Year for the fourth time in five years The bulk other teams she d be on first company all the time After graduation Reeves plans to become a dietician preferably at a hospital The wide variety of activity and conditions in a hospital is good experience especially for my future if I ever want to become more specialized in something she stated Assessing her time at St Kate s Reeves noted I ve had a great experience I loved the opportunity to play on a real competitive company and get better Whether you re out of the lineup or on the first or second unit everybody cares just as much Not only to have the golf experience but to pursue my graduate degree while playing golf and wrapping it all up at the same time has been really awesome I feel like I had a well-rounded time here Reeves leaves behind a tasteful legacy I have a daughter who s a golfer and Katie s invariably asking about her and giving her various advice to pass on Baumler explained Katie is compassionate and thoughtful and that makes her really personable The post St Kate s Katie Reeves has recipe for success on and off the golf program appeared first on MinnPost