Career advice from Modesto's first Winter Olympian: 'Give it everything you got.'

Kendall Wesenberg lives life at warp speed, whether she's sledding head-first down an ice track at 80 mph, or flying between far-out destinations.

Modesto's first Winter Olympian is rarely idle, which made Friday's experience at Central Catholic High School special for both student and speaker.

Wearing a USA jacket and showing off her competition spikes, Wesenberg, a member of the U.S. Olympic skeleton team, served as the main attraction for her alma mater's Career Day.

She finished 17th in Pyeongchang, South Korea, her Olympic debut foiled by Turn 2 at the Olympic Sliding Centre.

"Any athlete knows that's not a fun feeling. It's not a fun feeling to lose and under-perform," she said. "To have that race, to have the time I had was really, really hard. It makes me hungry for another opportunity."

In the month since, Wesenberg has found soft places to land. Like Friday's warm ovation from the Central Catholic community, a collection of students, teachers, administrators and president Jim Pecchenino, who escorted the Olympian around campus.

"Being back on campus is great. I got to catch the boys basketball game on Tuesday night, which was an awesome game and so fun to be a part of," said Wesenberg, a 2008 graduate who now lives and trains in Park City, Utah. "Growing up, Central was home for me. I lived 20 minutes away and I played sports. ... It's such a family community here, so it's nice to be back."

Wesenberg shared the highs and lows of her Olympic experience with the student body, tailoring her message for the Raiders' senior class, the next set of students to take flight from the Carpenter Road campus.

"Find something you can excel at and be passionate about, and go for it," she said. "Give it everything you got. Have at it."

Wesenberg implored the students to identify their strengths and use them as beacons in their journey through school and life, but she also encouraged them to be curious and adventurous.

She used her story as an example.

Wesenberg wasn't scheduled to be a Winter Olympian.

Her adolescence was scripted around soccer, and once she reached high school, her world was dominated by academics and traditional sports. Wesenberg did everything she was supposed to do, she said: She got good grades, and played soccer, volleyball and basketball for the Raiders.

"Those of you who play competitive sports, you know that's the route you're expected to take at that point," she said. "You grow up playing the sport and everyone expects you to go to college for that ... and keep carrying that on for the next four years."

As graduation loomed, she applied to every picturesque campus west of the Mississippi River, including the University of Washington and University of Colorado-Boulder, whose poster hung in the school library.

"Any school that sounded cool, I put that down and applied to those," she said.

It wasn't until her junior year at Colorado that Wesenberg began to look beyond everyone's expectation for her. She had just watched the U.S. four-man bobsled team win Olympic gold for the first time in 62 years, when curiosity picked a new adventure for her.

"Maybe you know what you want to do," she said to the students. "Maybe you don't know what you want to do. I was there."

Wesenberg typed "bobsled" into Google, and soon found herself halfway up a mile-long ice track for her maiden run. Soon, she became the first American woman to win a European Cup race (2014) and season title (2015), and will return to the national spotlight in October at the USA Bobsled and Skeleton team trials.

The Olympic dream isn't without sacrifice, and she imagines the same is true in the working world.

With a nod to the other speakers in the gymnasium, Wesenberg framed the commitment and dedication it takes to be good at anything, whether its skeleton, firefighting, accounting or martial arts.

"You can love anything you want, but it all comes down to what you're willing to sacrifice for," Wesenberg said. "That was one of the biggest things for me. Being an Olympic athlete looks really glamorous from the outside. You get all this cool gear and you get to travel the world, and those are really great things and I love sliding. But at the end of the day, there's still a lot of things to be given up.

"It's not as glamorous as it looks. We fly coach, (and) all the time we're on the road, living out of a suitcase six months out of the year."

Wesenberg's sacrifice was rewarded in Pyeongchang. Though she finished far from the podium, she competed for her country on the world's biggest stage.

"I was never the kid that wanted to go to the Olympics," she said. "I wanted to medal. I'm still getting over that, but in hindsight, the opening ceremonies were so cool. ... The whole experience was incredible and that's something I'll have forever."

This story was originally published March 16, 2018 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Career advice from Modesto's first Winter Olympian: 'Give it everything you got.'."