Mia Kelly is not one to keep with stereotypes.
Yeah, she’s a girl, but she’d rather get dirty than go to a spa. Kelly could live in cutoffs and a tank top her whole life. Ever the fashion rule-breaker, she wore her prom dress to a sorority formal less than a year later. She doesn’t care. Dressing up has never been her favorite thing.
She was voted “Most Likely to do the Opposite of Every Sorority Stereotype” by her Phi Mu sorority sisters. They were right. After all, not every sorority girl wins a world championship before she’s old enough to start college.
Kelly, a UF freshman, won the gold medal in the 16- to 18- year-old category at the 2010 World Association of Kickboxing Organization’s Junior Championship in Serbia when she was 17.
She’ll hold the title of world champion until September, when another girl will take that title in the junior division, which, at 18, Kelly is too old to compete in.
Now that she’s in college, though, Kelly wants to be known as “Mia who kickboxes,” as opposed to Kickboxer Mia, she said.
One would never think that the redhead with a beaming smile and toenails polished a light pink could throw punches like she can.
Kelly is a more-than-meets-the-eye type of girl, anyway.
Her Team Full Circle kickboxing teammates, who have been first-hand witnesses to her skill in the ring, could never see her as Sorority Mia, the one who, despite her tomboy-like tendencies, enjoys painting her nails, or Student Government Mia, the one who’s passionate about event planning.
“You’ll never meet anyone else like her,” said Dawn Roffey, who coached Kelly in the 2008 Junior World Championships in Italy. “Mia is enthusiastic. She’s self-disciplined, sure of herself, but never cocky.”
Kelly is not, indeed, the usual competitor. In high school, she managed to be, as Roffey describes, a “super-A student,” while being very involved in theatre and, of course, kickboxing.
Despite her passion for kickboxing, Kelly has scaled back on training in order to get adjusted to college life.
By day she takes classes in her major, psychology, as well as in other areas she’s thinking of pursuing, such as English and journalism.
By night, she works on internal event programming for the Freshman Leadership Council, a Student Government programming cabinet.
In the beginning of spring semester, Kelly also devoted some of her time to attaining a certification as a Group Fitness Instructor, with which she hopes to develop and teach a kickboxing group fitness class for the UF Department of Recreational Sports.
On top of it all, Kelly trained to compete in the Irish Open. This past Spring Break, she traveled to Dublin, Ireland, to participate in the 18- to 29-year-old category for women weighing less than about 140 pounds, where she advanced to the third round. This tournament was one of the few she chose to take part in while she focused on college.
“I wish I could compete at the same level I was before, but I’m competing against women who own karate schools and devote their life to training,” she said. “Kickboxing is their life, but I want more.”
And while Kelly hasn’t decided exactly what she wants to do with her life, she knows that, even if she’s not competing professionally, kickboxing will always be a part of it.
For now, though, Kelly is just a college student trying to balance school, club involvement, kickboxing and a social life.
How does she do it?
“She doesn’t sleep a lot,” her mentor and FLC Cabinet Director Chris Raleigh jokes. “But she’s handled everything perfectly. She’s very focused.”
Raleigh thinks it’s her kickboxing training that has helped Kelly manage it all.
“When you fight, you can’t be worrying about what you did; you have to focus on the next thing and think two or three steps ahead,” he said.
Now that the Irish Open is over, however, Kelly’s workload has lightened.
“I woke up late today,” she said. She woke at 9:30 a.m. for the first time since she began training for the Irish Open. “It was wonderful.”
Kelly has now been able to focus on her other passion: music.
This summer, Kelly is planning to attend the four-day Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee with acts ranging from electronica, bluegrass, hip-hop and indie rock.
Kelly’s musical taste is just as broad as the Bonnaroo lineup. She’s been known to rap Drake’s “The Motto” to her teammates before a kickboxing match, and, if her iPhone were put on shuffle, it could easily go from Britney Spears’ “Toxic” to “Trapeze Swinger,” a song by indie rock artist Iron & Wine.
When asked to pick a favorite song, Kelly said it had to be a song by The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix, but then she switched her pick to “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley.
After a few more favorite options, including songs by Fleetwood Mac and John Lennon, the kickboxing world champion threw her hands in the air and said, “This is just too hard. I can’t do this.”
