She Has Burning Desire to Succeed

“I don’t think I’ve ever let myself down,” said a confident Kathy Mollica, Brea’s only woman firefighter and a recent competitor on the “American Gladiators” television show.

She was one of 48 men and women gladiators selected to compete in the popular show from an entry list of 10,000 athletes from across the country.

The Costa Mesa woman was picked for the Brea Fire Department job over about 300 men and women applicants.

“This (Fire Department) is what I’m going to do the rest of my life,” she said. “I’m not here to prove females can do the job. I’m doing it for myself. I’m here just to do the job.

“I like to think I got everything on my own from my education, working as a reserve for two fire departments and being physically fit,” she said. “I’ve put my time in.”

Her next goal is to become a paramedic. And after that she plans to aim for a position as engineer, then battalion chief--and someday maybe even chief.

“In a career, you can’t stand still or everyone passes you by,” she said

During high school she didn’t have time to think about her future. A gymnast and volleyball player, she once was named Athlete of the Year. She also was a song leader.

“High school was the best time of my life,” reflected the Cal State Fullerton graduate, who majored in physical education. She earlier attended the University of Nevada-Reno, where she played volleyball on a scholarship.

After one year she left. “I loved the school and town, but I liked it better here. I need to stay around my family,” she said.

Her father is a teaching golf pro, and her mother “is a real jock,” she said, smiling.

The onetime Orange Coast College student said that during her grammar school days she carried a lunch pail blazoned with Smokey Bear, which subconsciously might have helped her decide on a career.

“I was driving home on the freeway one day and told myself I wanted to be a paramedic,” she remembers, not realizing she first had to become a firefighter.

It was another firefighter who urged her to compete as a gladiator while they were watching the television program.

“I told him I could do that, and he said go for it and I did,” said Mollica, who despite her confidence considers herself “a pretty ordinary girl. I don’t think I’m exceptional.”

Mollica has completed competition in her gladiator role and will be seen on television in February.

“The competition was much harder than I thought it was going to be,” she said.

The trying events included Swing Shot, which included hanging from a bungee cord; Power Ball, running through a maze of gladiators while attempting to sink soccer balls in small baskets; and The Eliminator, running through an obstacle course guarded by gladiators.

“It was very challenging,” said Mollica, who routinely works out two hours every day.

Some of the gladiators were named Zap, Blaze, Diamond, Gold and Ice. Mollica was sometimes called Flame.

Those advancing through a series of competitions won $20,000 and more, noted Mollica, who said she had hoped to score high enough to help her buy a house.

How high did Mollica finish?

“We were told not to tell how we did until after the program is shown” she said in an interview in her Costa Mesa apartment.

However, she was smiling.