The spring semester is now underway at most colleges and universities across the country, which means for many seniors the “offramp” toward graduation has also begun. But for Bucknell’s Kyla Kelly, there is no such thing as Senioritis. Not with an honors thesis in neuroscience in progress and the swimming championship season just around the corner. One of the stars of an outstanding Bison senior class, Kyla came to Bucknell from Danville, California, where her family had moved in 2016 after eight years in Colorado. Her father, Patrick, played football at Stanford and her mother, Laarni, was a dancer, and they encouraged Kyla and younger sister McKenna to pursue activities that would “get their bodies moving.” Both started out in dance, but when they moved to California, they signed up for the local swim club, San Ramon Valley Aquatics. Kyla says that when she showed up she knew how to swim, but she had not thought about doing it competitively.
“After the move, my parents were just like, stick with it until Christmas, give it a chance and don’t quit yet,” Kyla recalls. “But I ended up loving it a lot. I owe that to coach Larry Baker for instilling that passion in me.”
Living not far from the Stanford campus, the Kelly family hung out there quite a bit, attending football games and swim meets on the weekends. Stanford is well-known as a swimming factory – the Cardinal have sent at least one swimmer to the Olympics in every Games since 1976 – and as a young swimmer herself Kyla got to meet the G.O.A.T., Katie Ledecky, and other former Stanford stars. Pretty soon, her bedroom walls were adorned with autographed posters.
As Kyla’s love of swimming skyrocketed, her times dropped in equal proportion. She still holds some SRVA age-group backstroke records, she was named the club’s Swimmer of the Year three times, and pretty soon swimming was more than just a recreational activity, it had become a lifestyle.
“When you get good at something, you just want to keep pushing, and I was seeing a lot of good progress. As I got older, I moved on to a different coach, Coach Rich. He was very philosophical about swimming, which kind of brought out a different dimension, where it’s not just a sport but also a way of framing my life. It instilled a discipline in me to the point where I felt like I could not manage my time without having swim in there.”
Swim workouts were held before school, which meant a 45-minute drive at 4:30 a.m. to get her day started. Not many teenagers are rolling out of bed at that hour, but Kyla says she wore it like a badge of honor, with a little light ribbing thrown at her friends at the start of the school day. “I’ve been up for hours, what have you been doing?” Kyla says that even if she had not gotten any college swimming offers, the sport had become so ingrained that she would have found a local club or YMCA to stay with it. Fortunately, her times attracted college interest, but unfortunately her junior year at Monte Vista High School – the time when most college-bound prospects are in the thick of their search – came during the COVID period in 2020-21.
As a result, Kyla was not able to travel right away for official visits, and much of the recruiting process came via email. One of those notes in her inbox came from former Bucknell assistant coach Ethan Cooke, who later went on to coach at Duke and is now the head coach at the Raleigh Swim Association, a prominent North Carolina club.
“I talked to everybody at first, because I definitely wanted to see all of the options. I kind of saw myself going to the East Coast, so I was heavily considering a lot of those schools. Coach Ethan reached out, and I definitely liked the idea of going to a smaller liberal arts school. And Bucknell was definitely taking a leap of faith in me, because I had pretty good times leading up to COVID, and then I got COVID twice and was just not swimming very fast at that time.”
Kyla says that she had met a Bucknell alum in California who had moved from the East Coast, and she knew his daughter. He talked up Bucknell and recalled what a great experience he had in Lewisburg. Eventually Kyla was able to make a trip east to visit colleges, and she made sure Bucknell was on the list. After starting in D.C. with a visit to Georgetown, she saw several Ivy League schools and then hit Bucknell on the way out to Ohio to visit Denison, a Division III swimming power that ended up becoming her second choice to Bucknell.
“Bucknell just clicked. When I came back for a second visit, it was later in the spring and the stores had begun to open back up downtown and the weather was nice and people were out and about and so welcoming. It also helped that my tour guide was a wrestler, and he gave me a little bit more perspective into the student-athlete experience here.”
The Bison women’s swimming and diving team has a tradition of upperclassmen supporting the freshmen with their transition to college, and Kyla recalls getting letters from Catherine Craig and Reggie Frias after she committed.
“Before I had even stepped on campus, they’re sending me these cute letters telling me that we’re right there with you. We were also super nervous and we know you’re traveling a long way, so we will be here for you as soon as you get here. The team made Bucknell feel like home before I even got here.”
In terms of her training in the pool, Kyla says that there are significant differences to what she was used to previously.
“I wouldn’t say it was easier overall, but the yardage isn’t as crazy. The philosophy here is quality over quantity, whereas at most swim clubs, it’s all about quantity and hitting the kids while they’re young to get their endurance up. I did both high school and club, so the high school team felt a bit more like college with the dual meets, but they are more frequent here, and I think the way that we build though the season is definitely more meticulous. High school was a little more detached. Not that we weren’t trying to win, but everyone was focused on getting on the States team and things like that. Here, we all collectively have a shared goal of winning.”
Kyla has certainly contributed to the team’s success. She owns top-10 times in team history in the 100-yard freestyle (8th) and the 200-yard individual medley (10th), and at last year’s Patriot League Championships at Kinney Natatorium she helped set the school record in the 200 freestyle relay. She has piled up 92.5 Patriot League Championships points in individual events during her first three collegiate campaigns, and last year she made an A Final for the first time with a sixth-place finish in the 200 IM. In addition to the school record in the 200 free relay, Kyla was part of the 400 free relay that was runner-up at Patriot Leagues before winning gold at the ECAC Championships at Navy the following weekend.
“I feel really good about how it’s gone so far. When I got to Bucknell, one of my goals was just to be a contributor on the team, both points-wise, which are easy numbers to calculate, but also from a culture standpoint. And I think through my four years I’ve become a better person, and I’ve learned more about what it’s like to work on a team with a diverse set of individuals. I’m very satisfied with where I am and where my progress has come, so now as a senior, I’m not really stressed about trying to make a certain time or anything like that.”
In parallel with her swimming, Kyla has also been heavily involved with the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and this year she is on the SAAC Executive Board as the Director of Initiatives. Her SAAC involvement adds one more time management layer on a heavy academic workload as a neuroscience major, where she carries a near-perfect 3.93 cumulative grade-point average. Kyla’s parents are both mechanical engineers, but she quickly learned that was not the path for her. She tried robotics in high school, and while it was fun, it did not light a spark. Kyla says she became interested in psychology later in her high school career, and her college admissions adviser recommended neuroscience as a way to combine that interest with her STEM background. Bucknell has a highly regarded neuroscience program, and Kyla is on the bachelor of science degree path. Kyla has done research in Bucknell’s multi-sensory speech perception lab since early in her sophomore year. She is currently working on her honors thesis there with Dr. Aaron Mitchel, studying how bilingual individuals are able to learn multiple grammars growing up.
“The idea is that the learning mechanisms that are used to speak multiple languages are retained through adulthood. So I’m testing Psych 100 students on whether or not they are able to learn a couple of artificial languages that I’ve developed and the grammar that is inherent to those languages. The research is based off a couple of older studies and then combining it with Dr. Mitchel’s work. I’m super excited about it. We’re finishing up the experiments in the next couple of weeks.”
While she still has a lot to do before graduation in May, Kyla’s future plans possibly include a Physicians Assistant graduate program. She completed her certification as a nursing assistant last summer, which will help her build up clinical hours before embarking on PA school. She will also be spending the summer studying for the MCAT exam, but rest assured, swimming will still be part of her schedule.
“I definitely want to continue the sport after I graduate. I might join a masters program, but swimming is so good for your overall health, so it’s something that I will do for as long as I can.”
In the meantime, Kyla and her teammates have begun the taper for the Patriot League Championships, which will be at Navy’s Lejeune Hall Feb. 18-21. A week later, Bucknell will host the ECAC Championships for the first time, and the Bison women will be looking to repeat as team champions. After a 7-2 dual-meet season with some terrific swims along the way, optimism is high that the team can once again contend for both titles.
“I’m feeling very good about Patriots this year. We have a really good freshman class, and our depth is definitely a strong point.”
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