Star Athlete? You Can’t Say She’s a No-Brainer
Once upon a time, there was a student-athlete who had the audacity to be a student-athlete.
On the eve of an important college track meet this spring, she stayed up the entire night writing a 15-page material science paper about the properties of aluminum.
She showed up the next afternoon with heavy eyes, a belly full of soda, and a mouth full of gummy worms.
She competed in nine events, set a school record in three, and qualified for nationals in one.
Once upon a time, in that strange and wonderful land known as Caltech, there was Kristen Zortman.
“Everyone at this school is a nerd, or you wouldn’t be here,” she explained. “But, turns out, within the nerd family, there are different classifications. There are nerd jocks. That is me.”
She’s maybe the most impressive nerd jock in town, walking across a Pasadena stage today to receive her degree in engineering and applied science with a concentration in aeronautics.
While engineering two years as the only woman on the baseball team.
While applying science to three years on the volleyball team.
While using aeronautics to finish 14th nationally in Division III in javelin.
Now calculate this:
Before entering school, she had never played any of those three sports.
Four years later, she says she would not have survived without them.
“School here is a real strain,” she said. “Athletics became my outlet. Athletics helped me stay myself.”
Isn’t this what athletics are supposed to do? Isn’t this why colleges added athletics in the first place?
Not for the school’s bank account, but for the student’s growth.
It shouldn’t take a budding rocket scientist to figure that out.
“For me, athletics is not about the end result,” she said. “It’s about the process.”
That process began her freshman year, when the blond-haired, blue-eyed, steely-grinned Zortman came from Wisconsin to Pasadena with her perfect 800 SAT math score and little else.
“My first term, all I did was study, it was really hard, I knew I needed something else,” she said.
She played softball in high school, but Caltech doesn’t have a softball team, so she took a P.E. course to learn how to play, yep, baseball.
“I was scared of the ball,” she said. “And this being Caltech, we’re not known for great athletes, so I get out there and guys are chucking the ball all over the field.”
Playing first base, she was battered about the ankles. While at the plate, she was plunked by every pitcher on the team.
During one game, the opposing first baseman wrote “Call me” in the dirt around the bag, then drew out his phone number.
During another game, the pitcher doubled over in anguish when she managed to hit a line drive past the infielders.
“He couldn’t believe he gave up a hit to a girl,” she said. “But I was like everyone else out there. I was even spitting like everyone else.”
In her two seasons, the team went 3-41 and she batted .162 with two RBIs and 16 errors.
“And it was great,” she said. “Each hit, I’ll remember. Every day, I learned something new about myself.”
Which is how it works at Caltech, home of 30 Nobel Prizes yet zero major athletic achievements, no sports scholarships, no sports buzz, no problem.
“What we do at Caltech is as pure as it gets,” said Wendell Jack, athletic director. “This is how college sports started. Kristen is the truest amateur at the truest level.”
When Zortman joined the volleyball team as a fall diversion, she didn’t even know all the rules.
“I knew the ball had to go over the net, and you hit it three times, that was it,” she said. “I had no idea those people standing out there were actually playing positions.”
In three years, her team went 0-42 in conference play.
“But it’s never about winning here,” she said. “Just being out there is so valuable.”
She joined the track and field team on a lark, only after a track friend agreed to join the volleyball team.
She found herself throwing javelin only because she didn’t want to spend every afternoon jogging laps.
“I’m very averse to running for the sake of running,” she said. “Very boring. Very painful.”
She knew which end of the javelin went into the ground, but that was it.
Yet her arm was strong from baseball, and her aim was good enough to avoid impaling spectators.
“I didn’t hit any people,” she said. “But I did hit a lot of other javelins.”
Yet she improved to the point where she qualified for the Division III nationals, in a small town in Iowa, four days filled with dinners and social events and....
“I didn’t do any of that stuff,” she said. “I brought my books. I had to study. After every day at the track, I would come back to the hotel and spend four or five hours studying.”
She has studied in the stands between track events. She has studied on the team bus before games.
“We’re just students here,” Zortman said, and, indeed, this is what separates her from the many collegians who are just athletes.
ESPN? Not only has Zortman never appeared there, she doesn’t even get it on her rabbit-eared television.
“Not much time to watch TV,” she said, shrugging.
Tutoring? Are you serious?
“The whole idea of needing a tutor seems odds to me,” she said. “Why don’t you just do your own work?”
Escalade? She drives a Mazda with 89,000 miles on it.
Alumni influence? She has received one congratulatory e-mail from one former student.
Cushy off-season job? She spent two summers helping NASA develop math lessons for students.
She spent another summer helping inventors in an autonomous vehicle control lab.
“Cars that drive themselves,” she said to the confused reporter with a pity-filled smile.
She was voted Caltech’s athlete of the year, yet she has never been asked for an autograph, never done a radio interview, and won’t buy a black-and-orange letter jacket.
“I chose the letter blanket instead,” she said. “Our colors are kind of ugly to wear on a jacket.”
Today, as a Zortman, she will be the last of 189 undergraduates to receive her diploma.
Then she’s hoping to land a coveted position helping design unmanned spacecraft at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“It’s going to be tough,” she said, but not to worry.
The nerd deserves to get the job. The jock will figure out how.
Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke
