Pine Bush, N.Y. native Kelsey Garmendia was a four-year member, and senior year co-captain, of the New Paltz women’s volleyball team from 2008-2011. Today, not even a year removed from graduation, she is the editor and main operator of an online art and literary magazine called
Behind Closed Doors, as well as a published author, with her debut novel titled
Burn Our Houses Down available on Amazon, CreateSpace and Kindle.
Since graduating from New Paltz, Garmendia moved out to Carbondale, Ill. with her fiancée, their dog and their cat. She plans on writing a sequel to her novel, which is due to the publisher by May 2013.
“Ever since I was 11, I knew I wanted to write,” said Garmendia. “I wanted to be an editor and a writer, and the only way to do that was to seize the opportunity. Honestly, I had nothing to lose--why not give it a shot?”
Garmendia credits much of her success to her four years at New Paltz with the women’s volleyball team. She said her experiences as a student-athlete helped teach her how to deal with deadlines and how to work under pressure.
“When I was on the court, I needed that urgency and played with it always in the back of my mind,” she explained. “I realized after graduating that it was the same thing; I had to always be pushing forward, leaving the fear of falling behind, for lack of better words, behind me.”
Garmendia was a part of a women’s volleyball team in 2008 that made a run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Championship Tournament with three tournament victories. The following season, the Hawks won their first-ever State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) title, once again advancing into the NCAA Tournament and winning their regional quarterfinal matchup before falling in the second round.
Over her tenure in the Blue and Orange, Garmendia amassed 592 assists for a 2.56 assists per set ratio to go along with 50 kills, a hitting percentage of .235 and 43 service aces. In her final year, she was named a team captain because head coach Matt Giufre saw her as a leader and someone her younger teammates could turn to for anything they needed.
“My coach told me it was because I listened,” said Garmendia. “After three years of feeling like everyone else had that skill, my coach told me that I was that same person for the rest of my team.”
She said that she had always been one to reach out to teammates when they needed help with anything. While she was officially given the title of captain in 2011, she had been a shoulder to lean on from her first day on campus.
Though Garmendia was a part of some very successful women’s volleyball teams, the sport itself was not the only highlight of her four years at New Paltz. She described her teammates as family, saying they were always there for her and she was always there for any of them.
“My experience at New Paltz on the volleyball team taught me that anything that I wanted to accomplish was within my grasp,” said Garmendia. “All I needed was to reach out and take it, and that I'd get by with a little help from my friends.”
