RamWire: Holland's Giving Nature Extends Around the Clock
Junior diver makes the most of her day
Mike Brohard
She looked at the meeting as a 20-minute opportunity to prove to the Green and Global committee she would add value to the Costa Rica trip.
So Rachel Holland prepared for her chance, just like she would any of her pursuits. By the time she was finished, the collective group of Albert Bimper Jr., Kim Mbadinga-Nzamba and Marie Tyrell were wondering what more they could be doing for Holland.
"We literally were blown away. When she interviewed, it was the thoughtfulness of her responses, the due diligence she put in to study about the country we were going to and what she could find of interest there," said Bimper, Colorado State's senior associate athletic director for diversity and inclusion. "Then it was more of us sitting there taking notes, like, we're inspired to help her in any way we could to get connected to other opportunities on campus, to help give her even more options than she was aware of in that moment."
They suggested she look into a Rhodes Scholarship application, among other academic pursuits. They suggested people to contact for her servant pursuits, enthralled by some of the activities she does on her own and how they could improve Colorado State's already robust community outreach.
Recalling their reaction, well, it just makes Holland blush. For the Fort Collins native (she is a graduate of Rocky Mountain High School), it's just all part of a normal day for her.
"I would so much rather be busy than bored," Holland said. "A lot of it fell to my family dynamic. I'm the second of six, and my older sister has an intellectual disability, so I grew up taking on a lot of responsibility at a young age. As my parents had more kids, I took on more. I could help out, cook, clean and babysit. I think having that sense of responsibility at a young age led to me wanting more and more responsibility and getting myself involved in things where I could have leadership responsibilities."
I would so much rather be busy than bored. A lot of it fell to my family dynamic.Rachel Holland
She walked on as a diver at CSU because she still loved the sport. The main reason she was on campus was to earn her degree in health and exercise science, the path she chose to continue improving the quality of live for others. She works as a gymnastics coach at Mountain Kids so she can live away from home and exit her college experience debt free. She teaches Sunday school to the young single adult group for The Institute, a division of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints she grew up attending.
"Rachel just has a way of No. 1, gathering other people around her and getting other people on board with ideas and activities and things like that," said Kelly Anderson, The Institute's director. "She also just is a great servant leader. When we have an activity here, aside from classes, I can guarantee you Rachel is always the last one to leave. She'll be the one cleaning up the kitchen, not asking somebody else to do it."
"She gets more done in a day than most young adults do, I dare say. She's always willing to step up and keep serving."
She could have lived at home, but she wanted to step out on her own. Recently, her older sister Emily has moved in with her and a few roommates, staying with them five days a week as Emily is transitioning out of the family home. They cook and shop together, and Emily works three days a week at Columbine West Health Center.
"I love being off campus, especially being a Fort Collins native," she said. "I know the city really well, and I have branches of people I know really well all over the place, and I'm able to leave campus and decompress in my own place with people who aren't athletes."
Besides, home and her family are still close by, and they all still gather on Sundays. It allows her to see her youngest brother play basketball (Jason is 8), and still be part of the lives of Anna (18), Whitney (16) and Ryan (12).
She does service activities through the honors program she's involved with on campus (she carries a 3.80 GPA and has been Academic All-Conference and a Mountain West Scholar-Athlete each of her first two seasons), as well as through the athletic department. She volunteers with the Poudre School District, teaching cooking and nutrition.
Yes, there are some days where she's exhausted, but through each pursuit, she finds they uplift her spirit. She'll also take the time for herself. Yes, she has sat down on the couch and binge-watched Netflix. Her current goal is to get through the complete series of "Friends" before it is taken off the service.
?The passion she shows to all of her endeavors really struck Bimper. This isn't busy work for her, it's purposeful. He's seen people who are resume-stuffing, and Holland is not one of them.
"Everything has been my life for so long, I didn't realize it was so special," Holland said. "I figured every college student has all these little facets in their life they are involved in."
Her upbringing has pushed her to take full advantage of what Colorado State has to offer her, making it a very complimentary relationship. She walked on as a diver, but after scoring for the Rams at the Mountain West Championships, she's earned a partial scholarship.
Like anybody who has met her, CSU head swimming and diving coach Christopher Woodard is fascinated by the dedication Holland shows to each and every aspect of her life. As he sits in his office, she swings by the Moby Pool to fill her water bottle. Without looking at his watch, he says, "it's 8:45."
On the dot.
"I can set my watch to it," he said, before she popped her head in and cheerily said, "good morning."
"It's so easy for all of us to get caught up in our days and focus solely on one thing, or get hyper-sensitive about not being able to do enough," he said. "Rachel doesn't tend to get down. She's always like, it can all be done. Having someone like that with a do-it-all mantra, she wants to get integrated, she knows she's going to have to work and give back to her community and help her finance her education. She works really hard on the boards, and in the classroom, she's a star.
"I don't think she ever thinks there aren't enough hours in a day to get things done."
After her interview with the Green and Global committee, she has started to look into each and every opportunity presented to her, and that pleases Bimper. He said the committee was stunned by how much she is doing on her own, and they wanted to make sure the university was giving back to her.
"We were asking what her career goals were, and I remember the three of us were like, I know somebody in this industry, I know somebody over here," Bimper said. "It was about getting her connected with people. She had done a lot of service, so connecting her with Patrick Krza (CSU's director of community engagement and fan experience). She was doing things outside of our own community-service lanes, so she might actually enhance what we do. We went off on some tangents."
It caught Holland a bit off guard, as suddenly, the meeting took an unexpected turn. This was a young lady who has had a 10-year plan mapped out since high school. While it has morphed a bit – collegiate diving wasn't in the preliminary draft and she has switched from wanting to do physical therapy to wanting to be a physician's assistant – not much is off the original path. She's not rigid, she just has a plan. It's the perfectionist tendency which comes from her time as a gymnast and continuing into diving.
The truth is, she's run out of time, because there are some organizations she'd like to be more involved with, but she's prioritized where she can remain fully devoted.
"It's a high-demand schedule, but I think when you do things you love, your body is fatigued, but your body and your soul are lit up," Holland said. "Diving, obviously, it's very physical; I'm in the weight room and in the pool. School, it's very educational, and when I go to work, it's kinda social; high school kids are fun to work with, and it's still physical, spotting kids and lifting them around. The church and the preparation for teaching is very spiritual.
"I feel like I hit all facets of my life, and that helps me become a more well-rounded person. I have a little bit of everything."
Naturally, Holland was one of the student-athletes selected to go on the trip to EARTH University in Costa Rica. The experience fascinated her as to how everybody can do their part to do the little things to make the planet more sustainable.
Chances to help a cause are not missed by her, and while she feels the trip bettered her as a person, Bimper knows his life was enriched by what both sides felt would be the standard interview process.
"Sometimes you meet some folks and they walk away and you're like, 'I need to do better with my life.' Not that they're trying to make you feel bad, but they've really committed themselves to living their lives to the fullest, have the highest expectations of themselves and are working at it," Bimper said of the meeting with Holland. "You walk away, 'wow, that person elevates us all.'
"I think all of us, our jaw dropped a little bit because we just saw somebody who elevated the three of us in 20 minutes."