During her freshman year, Kelly suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery and a break from climbing.

“It’s a surgery that not everybody can come back from. I’m excited I could come back from that and get to Paris,” she said.

Looking back, Kelly has her Xavier community to thank for her perseverance, particularly her advisor, Professor Laura Carney in the Exercise Science program.

“Coming back from a surgery like the one I had was hard physically, but also mentally,” she said. “I had been a top-level athlete since I was 16 years old, so it was hard to start from ground zero. Professor Carney was there for me on a personal level – helping me deal with starting from zero and having to work through things I never worked through before.”

Kelly spent nearly two years rehabilitating her shoulder. A lot of her recovery took place off-the-wall on Xavier’s campus, working out with friends in the Health United Building (HUB) and Mosaic Climbing in Loveland – a community Kelly felt was instrumental to her climbing again.

“The climbing community, in general, is special because it is community-based. We are competing against the person next to us, but I feel like it's a competition against yourself. We don't have any bad sportsmanship or anything like you might see in some other sports. We are friends, and we all want the best for each other, and that was the same in Cincinnati,” she said.

“Something that did help is a lot of my friends were still athletes in some capacity. Even if it was just going to the gym, I could still go to the HUB with my friends and work out. Since I made friends at the climbing gym, I still had people there to push me.”

In between training, Kelly attended Xavier events with friends. One of her favorite Xavier memories included the highly competitive and fan-crazed Crosstown Shootout, an annual men's college basketball game played between the University of Cincinnati Bearcats and Xavier University Musketeers..

“I'm glad I got to experience that,” she said. “You line up super early in the day and you're just hanging out with people, and everyone's excited to be there. Then, you go to Dana’s after the game and it's a lot of fun.”

Kelly also used what she was learning in the classroom to help her prepare for her return to competitive climbing.

“Climbing is not a super popular sport, so I've been self-coached almost my entire career. As an exercise science major, I was interested in my training – and I had to be because again, I was self-coached,” she said.  “Throughout college, I was using what I learned in class to write all of my training programs, as well as nutrition and psychology plans to become a better athlete. That was a big part of how I got here today.”

Kelly graduated from Xavier in 2023 and moved to Utah to prepare for the Olympic trials. She says her rigorous climbing and class schedules have her more than prepared for the Olympic training.

“I usually wake up around 8 a.m. I make breakfast. Then, I head to the gym around 10 a.m. I work with my coach and train on the wall until 2 p.m. Then, I head to lift with my strength coach,” she said. “I also work as a coach for some youth teams that are in the area. Coaching is a way for me to give back and share some knowledge with younger kids.”

Kelly enjoys coaching as much as she does climbing.

“It is cool to see how excited the kids are about having an Olympian as a coach. A lot of the children are eight to 12-year-old girls. I'm hoping I can be a role model to them and show them what it is like to be an elite-level female athlete.” she said.

Kelly’s advice for female athletes and any athlete passionate about sports on the rise is to get into the gym, not be afraid and lean into your community.

“Don’t be scared. I think a lot of people see the gym as maybe a scary or intimidating place, but it’s not,” she said.  “My experience is that everyone is there to improve themselves. If you have a question, if you don't know how to use something, ask other people. You can ask the staff and don't be afraid to do some research or look at social media.”