{"id":121854,"date":"2020-04-20T16:11:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T22:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=121854"},"modified":"2020-08-27T11:28:37","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T17:28:37","slug":"commencement-profile-aleesa-muir-preparing-to-trade-soccer-pitch-for-medical-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=121854","title":{"rendered":"Commencement Profile: Muir preparing to trade soccer pitch for medical school"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Aleesa Muir is proof that good things come to those who persevere. Since starting at UCCS in 2017, she\u2019s become an outstanding women\u2019s soccer athlete, biology student and research assistant. Now she is being honored with a Thomas F. McLaughlin Award. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The McLaughlin Award is presented annually to the best male and female student-athletes who have maintained a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher. McLaughlin recipients have demonstrated not only excellent athletic abilities, but an outstanding commitment to fellow student-athletes, and their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month Nathan Gibson, executive director of athletics, emailed Muir about the merit and she was happy to get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there are a lot of athletes that deserve this award, so it\u2019s a big honor,\u201d Muir says. \u201cIt\u2019s a culmination of all the different aspects I\u2019ve devoted my life to.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t the first award Muir has received. During her time at UCCS, she has been recognized as an Academic All-American by the College Sports Information Directors of America and an All-American by the Division II Conference Commissioners Association and the United Soccer Coaches organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all of her achievements, Muir almost quit soccer for good four years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Colorado Springs native, Muir picked Colorado College as her first choice to study and play soccer, but it wasn\u2019t the right fit. Her degree and schedule just weren\u2019t flexible enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the time, soccer felt like a job, so I fell out of love with it,\u201d Muir explains. \u201cI just wanted to focus on academics.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But with encouragement from her mother, Muir enrolled at UCCS and began working with new Head Coach Sian Hudson. Along with UCCS\u2019 welcoming atmosphere, Hudson motivated Muir to become an exceptional student-athlete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI realized that my love for soccer wasn\u2019t gone, it was the environment that tainted it,\u201d Muir says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After getting back into the game, Muir also devoted herself to obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Biology and graduating with a 3.958 grade point average. Although it was hard balancing academics with athletics, science has always been her biggest passion, ever since her first middle school science fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mom was a science teacher so it was just ingrained in me,\u201d Muir says, with a laugh. \u201cI always knew I wanted to do something with a science or health focus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next year, Muir plans to take the MCAT and go to medical school. With one year off to prepare, she will continue to do immune system research with James Kovacs, assistant professor of biochemistry. In between, she\u2019d like to see her soccer teammates one last time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a hard transition, with how the year has played out,\u201d Muir concludes. \u201cBut I\u2019m definitely going to keep in touch and enjoy having one year off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aleesa Muir is proof that good things come to those who persevere. Since starting at UCCS in 2017, she\u2019s become an outstanding women\u2019s soccer athlete, biology student and research assistant. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":121864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53,107,93,86,42,106,332,60],"class_list":["post-121854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","tag-academic-affairs","tag-alumni-relations","tag-athletics","tag-college-of-letters-arts-and-sciences","tag-commencement","tag-department-of-biology","tag-more-news","tag-student-success"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Muir_Aleesa.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-vHo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121854"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121868,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121854\/revisions\/121868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/121864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}