Graham Daniels:

So hundred caps, hundred caps for Ireland. Karen Kennedy played her first game for Ireland in 1993. Two World Cups, '94 in Dublin, and she ended a career Perth 2002. So you think good, solid, unbelievable actually. Add to that, the following. She retired from playing when her first child, Matthew was born. He's now 13. Then Emma, who's 11. Seven years ago, this doesn't happen often, returns to playing at a local club when she's in her own culture, a superstar, and now she coaches at the local school. There will be loads of people listening to this who fit the bill, loads of you. You'll fit exactly this bill. You loved it, you played. You may not have been as good as Cameron obviously, may have been, but now you're loving your sport and you want to get back into it. And the children are a big part of this.

And let me just throw one more thing in before I start talking to Karen. She had to combine all this with training to be a dentist when she started playing international hockey, she had a year in general dental practice, then hospital dentistry, and today she's a consultant in pediatric dentistry. Now she's more than this, so with that CV in mind, you won't want to comment on it, Karen. That's my job to talk about it. I'm going to open by asking you the question we ask right at the beginning always, which is what does it mean for you to have your sport and your faith connected? What does it mean to play connected Karen Kennedy?

Karen Kennedy:

Well, sport has always played a large part in my life really as far as I can remember. I was the second of five children. So we had a busy house and I think my parents found out the easiest way to keep us busy, maybe out of trouble, by just lots of sporting activities. But as well as that I was brought up in a Christian home. So from a very early age, taken to church, encouraged to be involved in faith. So there was sport and faith from an early stage, but really quite separate.

But then as I developed in my faith and became a Christian and was playing a lot of hockey, I suppose I really tried to live my hockey, or live my sporting life on the hockey pitch, in a way that reflected what I believed. So for example, the friendships and relationships you had with your teammates, the way that you reacted to the umpires, maybe took criticism from coaches, also the way that you managed not only the disappointments and failures, but also the successes. So yes, it was brilliant when there was success, but it wasn't everything to me. So I suppose I tried to live and combine my faith that way. And then as I grew and learned more, I realized that the talents that we have are given from God and that we can use these abilities and gifts really as a way of worshiping God as well. So I think really faith and sport changed and became much more interconnected for me.

Graham Daniels:

It's interesting that you do say that because often when we talk to somebody who's a little bit older than the current generation, they will say what you said at the beginning, but they wouldn't have elaborated. They'd say, well there was my faith, it was a Christian home, was my sport, they were kind of separate, but then you went on to weave them together. I think that's quite unusual for somebody in your generation. So what were the separate bits, now you've had big family, so you're all playing. Where were they separate, if you like, when you were growing up then?

Karen Kennedy:

Well, I suppose, and maybe it's partly the culture here in Northern Ireland, very much, you did church on Sunday, the activities, and then maybe I'm sort of an organized person, so I felt you had your schoolwork or your studies, you had your sport and you had your church and sometimes there wasn't much overlap there. But then you do realize that you can't separate it all out. But it was much, much later on, probably only over the last sort of 20 years where that extension and it was partly the Christians in Sport involvement and the teaching where you realize we're made in the image of God and these things can be used so differently to worship him in the way we play and the freedom to do that.

Graham Daniels:

Yeah, good. And I'd like to revisit that on the way through our interview because it's embedded in the way you think obviously. There was no clash, I'm assuming, when you were on the up as a young player at university and playing hockey, was there a clash with Sunday sport at all in that generation in Northern Ireland or didn't that exist?

Karen Kennedy:

Yes, it did exist. Not for me as a young player as much, but probably then around the 15, 16 age group when representative hockey started and there were weekend training camps that then did become Saturday, Sunday training and matches. So it wasn't even at that stage, it wasn't every weekend. But then as I progressed through, it did become most Sundays or certainly a lot of Sundays and a lot of time. So there definitely was that clash. And I think then that's the important time when you have to make sure that you are engaged in other things like Christian Union at university or the Bible studies which go in halls of residents and make sure that you're in with a local church, which there can be other things, midweek stuff going on as well.

Graham Daniels:

On that front, many parents listen to the podcast, watch the podcast and meet, if their children are in Performance Pathways as they're now called, meet together with Christians in Sport to think about these issues. So I wouldn't mind you unpacking that a little bit. How did your mom and dad play it with you then at 16, 17 actually, what advice were they giving you?

Karen Kennedy:

So at that stage, that was our decision. They were very encouraging at home and the importance of Christian faith in every aspect of life, not just sport was reinforced there, but at that stage they let us make our own decisions but supported us in those decisions. And I think it is very difficult. It is a time when you can easily drift. So having support from home was important. And then I think moving on to university, again, having Christian friends around you, people that you have to be accountable to. And I think then perhaps now with all the online resources and podcasts and different things that getting out of the routine of Sunday, there might be other ways that you can cope with that. And then there are more or there appear to be more flexibility with service, times of services. And I know on the training weekends, if I'd missed morning church, I would've tried to get to an evening service if that was possible.

Graham Daniels:

Would you replicate what your parents did with you, with your children? Because they're both sporty. They're both able. Was that a good paradigm as you look back?

Karen Kennedy:

I think it has to come down, once that occurs, then yes, I think you have to let the children make their own decisions when they're at an age, maybe teens, earlier on I think they have to be encouraged to be involved in something. But again, I'm thinking of there are youth groups that meet Friday nights, Sunday nights, so there has to be something. You can't just miss church.

Graham Daniels:

You made your debut for Ireland in '93 against Italy, so it's the best part of a decade through to 2002 that you're an international player for those hundred caps. Talk us through finding out that you were going to play for the first time. Talk us through the experience of making a debut.

Karen Kennedy:

Well obviously that was a really exciting time for me. I was a student at that stage and I remember getting the call from my mom that there'd been a phone call to her to say that there'd been an injury, so I was going to go as a replacement. As a little bit of background to that, I had been involved in the training panel for around about 18 months. A few of us had been called up as quite young players because the Irish Ladies Hockey Union, as it was known then, had put in a bid to host the World Cup in Dublin in 1994. And they'd been successful because they were actually celebrating their centenary.

So because you knew that was looming, there was a lot to train for and play for. I was very pleased to be called up at that stage with this not too far away. I was in Dundee and I flew to join the team in London and then onto Rome. But of course even at that stage, you're not sure you'll get your cap because we didn't have ruling substitutions. So depending on the way the game's going, there's a chance you could just be on the bench the whole game. But I came on as a substitute on a nice sunny afternoon in Rome and got my first cap and actually there was a win that day. So lovely.

Graham Daniels:

Can you remember it clearly?

Karen Kennedy:

Can clearly remember going on, but actually the rest of the match now is a little bit of a blur. Yeah, but it is quite some time ago.

Graham Daniels:

So the timing of that then is perfect because the World Cup's coming in less than a year, more or less, so it's a year away.

Karen Kennedy:

Yeah, it was the summer then of '94.

Graham Daniels:

Did you stay on the team?

Karen Kennedy:

I did. I managed to cling on in there.

Graham Daniels:

From that first game, you were picked after that. You're in.

Karen Kennedy:

So that was very exciting then managing to stay in and be involved in all of that with the excitement of that. And that really, I suppose comes on to one of the biggest highlights, being involved in a World Cup, really my first major tournament and at home in Dublin and Ireland with all the family support and friends coming down, an unbelievable experience really.

Graham Daniels:

So talk about actually moving from being might be in, she's good, she's a good youngster, you're in, you're in and you're going to be playing in the World Cup. How did you adapt to that? Because the challenges, the levels, the staying in the team, the training, all that's a demand now, how did you manage that transition?

Karen Kennedy:

Again, that was a really exciting time. There was a huge step up with regard to the commitment, the training, the traveling. And so it became very busy juggling studies and hockey, but knowing there was a World Cup there, knowing it could be a once in a lifetime opportunity for us, for me, it was worth giving up some of maybe the social things and other parts of university life that you can enjoy. So the training was hard, but it was really very rewarding. And of course the buzz you get from competing and the highs are brilliant, but of course there's always that pressure that you don't make it, you don't get selected, you've given up quite a lot to try and make it and is it worth it? But it was worth it for me.

Graham Daniels:

And I think in these podcasts, we'll interview people in full-time professional sport today and invariably what comes out is the intense pressure. Intense pressure, I think usually because they don't have anything else in their lives and it seems very, very glamorous indeed to be a full-time, totally paid professional. But anybody who ever interviews in it, that pressure is exponential because of their job. Do you think in hindsight, actually the demands of doing your shopping, washing, studying dentistry was actually something that brought equilibrium to it? Or if you had the chance and I said, well you could do your dentistry later, you're going to be a full-time pro for 10 years, which one would you go with do you think?

Karen Kennedy:

I think you look at it and think, I'd love to be a full-time athlete. But actually the reality of all those pressures, I think for me the work or the study life balance brought with it the advantages that I knew that if sport wasn't successful, I still had a course and a career that I was going to enjoy. But also the pressures of the studying and the work, hockey for me because of the enjoyment that I got out of it was a release you could go and play hockey and it totally distracted you from the pressures of your studies.

So for me, yes, actually the balance worked very well. But then I also had a lovely time before the World Cup in Perth in 2002 where I did take six weeks out of my studies and it was absolutely brilliant going and living life as what would've been a full-time athlete. And I think the big problem when you're doing your studying and your sport is it's actually sometimes the recovery time is difficult. You don't just get that downtime. But I think it's more romantic view of a full-time athlete, but the reality of those pressures is definitely there for them.

Graham Daniels:

That's really helpful, Karen, because so many of the conversations we have with young athletes at that 16, 17, 18 age group with their moms and dads where it is paid professionally, the vast majority of people at 16 aren't being paid professionally in 20. So the emphasis on saying you're more than a hockey player, rugby player, soccer player, netballer for us is very, very big. It's a gift from God that you can play, but don't make it the idol because you can't bank on it for your ultimate equilibrium or satisfaction.

But that's a bit preachy for me, but there's something in this that really matters to be whole. You can comment on that of course, but you've just taken us forward to 2003 and your last major tournament, the World Cup in Australia. Give us a broad brushstroke to '03, no, give us a broad brushstroke of your debut, '93 through to '03, you missed the World cup in the middle. Pick us up on that career path and how it went.

Karen Kennedy:

So there were lots of highs of being involved. Ireland wasn't always at that stage, the most successful hockey team on the world stage, but we missed out on that World Cup, but there were Olympic qualifiers that we played in and actually that was probably one of the most vivid memories I have. We were in, actually, we got to the Olympic qualifier and it was held in Milton Keynes. So there's a little bit of disappointment maybe where the venue was, but we did very well there and nearly did better than was expected. And that was going towards the Olympics in Sydney. But we just missed out. We were beaten by a golden goal and you still remember the crushing disappointment of thinking you were almost going to make it. And I know we chatted in the team about taking time out to try and be more full-time athletes.

So there were some lows in there as well. But then again, the hockey, the Europeans, the World Cups, the problem is then you're always using up annual leave, holidays for your hockey, which is brilliant. You can do that as a young single person. But I think again, that gets much more difficult as you move on in your career as well. It's more difficult to get time off work, but balancing work again then, I think there's lots of aspects of time management, of building really good relationships with people, being professional in your work that you can then manage to change your R slightly or change your routers to let you get away to play this competitive sport. So it's all a bit of a balance in there.

Graham Daniels:

Incredible demands, which is the normal demands of people who are part of Christians in Sport, hardly anyone's professional. Most of us in some way, shape or form have to balance life if we're going to be stuck into sport. What about the way your Christian faith alleviated the pain, for example, of that golden goal on route to Sydney? What would you say to others who are listening to us or describe the way you handled disappointment because it's bitter. Being a Christian makes no difference, it's bitter. What do you draw on?

Karen Kennedy:

I think being a Christian, you realize what Jesus has done for you. You realize the forgiveness you have, the unconditional love you have, and then the new identity that you have in God. In sports so much we train hard, we play hard, we try and achieve so much. But, complete different way than your Christian faith is, this is something that you can't study harder for, work harder for, something you can't achieve. This is given to you. And when you realize that your worth before God does not change depending on failures or successes, then it does help you to cope with those high times on the low times.

Graham Daniels:

You've had to face that high achiever factor in all sorts of ways. As a consultant now, pediatrician dentist, so you're high achiever, high achiever in sport, you speak articulately about your identity being received, not something you achieve. How long did it take you to really work that out? Did you work it out quite young, that Christ's gift of acceptance for you transcended everything?

Karen Kennedy:

No, I think that does take time because I think in sport, so much of identity is your success. Are you selected? Are you playing well? And then if that's not happening, you do start to doubt yourself. You do doubt your identity. And I think it can become really quite skewed. I mean I think top level sport for a lot of people are trying to play as high a level as you can. It just becomes everything. It's all about you. It takes over every aspect of your life. So I think once you recognize that whole identity, that it doesn't matter whether you've played well, whether you've been selected, that you're loved by God, no matter what, does help you then to deal in those situations. Because when you have given up so much, it can be really disappointing and it can get you down and you can see why you could become really quite disillusioned. So it's trying to not let that identity get completely skewed.

Graham Daniels:

As your career ended then, did that ever waver? Because when you're not Karen Kennedy, the international hockey player, most athletes find that, a funny combination you hear with top athletes, a relief to be out of the stress and the sadness that you'll never be that person again. I'm not suggesting it was either or both of those for you, what's the transition when you stop playing at the highest level?

Karen Kennedy:

I think it is a very difficult transition. I had decided I was stopping at a certain point because it was getting more difficult with work and with family. So I stopped the international hockey, but I continued to play club hockey and the club was still playing at a high level, so we still had a lot of training. And the discipline of a routine of life, of work, of training afterwards, of going to the hockey. So there was still some structure. And then it was just when I had my children that I stopped playing hockey altogether, so I feel like I sort of phased down rather than an immediate stop because it is very difficult going from a life of being so busy and everything very sort of timetabled and structured to then having all this free time.

Graham Daniels:

How hard then was stepping down from club hockey, which is still a very high level. So move the question forward, was it hard on a scale of naught to 10, 10 impossible, naught easy. How hard?

Karen Kennedy:

In this case, it was actually probably closer to a zero because I was pregnant. So then there's the excitement of a young family. So in that way it was a natural break. I still missed the hockey. And when I went to watch, I found it very hard at that stage just to watch the hockey because you want to be playing. But it was a very natural break for me at that stage.

Graham Daniels:

How you speak, when we interview elite players, there's a clear demarcation if a player feels their career, they achieved what they wanted to. I mean, no one's perfect, but if they really feel they achieved what they wanted to do in their career, in hindsight, they're very, very relaxed about the rest of their non-playing career. It's those of us who don't feel we were anywhere near what we wished we'd be, are the ones who think the most about their previous career and wish and feel disenchanted with it. Therefore, you could tell straight away you are a high achiever as a player because you were relaxed about it all. When you went back in then, when the children were a bit older, was that strange, weird, exciting? Because so many people listening now will be of an age and stage of thinking, I'd love to get going again, but could I? What was it like?

Karen Kennedy:

I hadn't really planned to go back and then I played once after the first child was very young and it just didn't really fit for various reasons at that stage. And then a few people said, you should go back. And I thought, well, I loved hockey so much and it was an enjoyable afternoon or session, so I thought, well, it beats the gym. So I went back to play and I thought I'll just train, I'll not play matches. But then of course once you're back in and you start to train. And I mean, getting back and the enjoyment of competing, I have no regrets. I mean, the day afterwards I was so stiff and sore, I thought this is ridiculous. I could barely bend down to dishwasher.

But getting back into that, it has been a time, it's been fun. It gives you headspace and there's so much chat now about wellbeing, mental health, and it is a great way of just getting out and forgetting all about the other parts of life. Obviously there are friendships that you pick up again and then there are new friendships and hopefully then even opportunities to share faith. So I would encourage people to go back to sport and especially I suppose moms who have young children because it is just a great break from the routine of all of that.

Graham Daniels:

Karen, I really like that. Very much the conversation of the age, most of our listeners will go, I get that, because we are talking about mental health, wellbeing, balance, equilibrium, alternative ways of spending time where you relax, your job is not demanding on everything, great conversation and very much a healthy conversation to be in these days. So I'm going to flip that back to you and we'll go out where we came in. Your husband, a busy professional life in the same field as you, broadly speaking in dentistry, yourself in a consultant role, two young children, very committed to your sport, how do you manage this especially when David Kennedy's made a bit of a cricketing comeback, I gather?

Karen Kennedy:

Well, he might think comeback's a bit of an exaggeration, but I suppose we're just juggling the children's sport and our own sport. The seasons work quite well with the hockey and cricket being different. But last year then he was going along helping with some of the juniors, maybe doing a little bit of scoring. And then as my son has become older and started to play senior cricket, he has decided to go along and play a little bit as well. So it's been interesting.

Graham Daniels:

What does that mean, that it's been interesting?

Karen Kennedy:

Well, he dropped a catch off my son's bowling, so there's plenty of discussion about things like that later on. So there's a lot of fun, but it's a great opportunity to spend time with your children in that environment and I suppose hopefully then show them how you can be very competitive, how you can enjoy sport, but that it isn't everything. But at the same time you can share faith and sport and it can all be, as we went from the start, interconnected.

Graham Daniels:

Oh, as you said that about David dropping a catch-

Karen Kennedy:

I'm sure he'll be delighted.

Graham Daniels:

No, but this is, you've just awakened something in me, have so many conversations with parents when their children are coming to an age. It's never occurred to me before. The child's coming to an age where they can play senior and when a parent gets to be on the same field or pitch or whatever it might be as their child, it is awesome. I mean, obviously for your boy, he's going, oh, dad's playing. But for David, brilliant.

Karen Kennedy:

Yes. And I think there are a few of them, a few parents doing that. And it is a great way to build relationships, well, family relationships as well and keep in contact and I suppose even encourage them and coach them in their sport to improve.

Graham Daniels:

Well, what excites me about this last part of our conversation, Karen, is it's one I haven't been in formally before in the podcasts, but it brings echoes. That's what happens. It brings echoes, and maybe for the listener, echoes of things that we all know that Christians in Sport work's been around long enough now for people who are deeply embedded in it in their teens and twenties and so on to be moms and dads. So we go to Christens in Sport camps and then numerous parents now bringing their own children. What a chance this is for a mother or father to invest in their child in an unusual way by modeling faith and sport. As you coach sport now as well to young people, do you find that a really thrilling opportunity to pass on value almost by feel and touch?

Karen Kennedy:

I've coached at Christians in Sport over a number of years and I've just started to coach more at local school and a little bit at club sometimes. And I'm beginning to enjoy coaching more and more. I mean, you always hear people say, put something back into your sport, but it actually is lovely to be able to go back and try and give something back to hockey by coaching. And I also think many of us who have played sport remember and realize the impact that coaches can have on you as a young impressionable person. And you do remember the coaches that were encouraging, who were positive, and I suppose I hope that I could go along, it can be fun, it can still be competitive, but it can be a positive experience for young people. And then as well then with the involvement in Christians in Sport, you also have the opportunity to try and help young people combine their sport and their faith.

Graham Daniels:

This is an unprecedented podcast because I often find myself thrilled at the end of a podcast, but this is a different kind of thrilled. We're at a stage in history, aren't we where the Christian faith in so many ways has declined in the UK in general, and yet there are maybe just thousands of men and women who have young families, who are people of faith themselves, who have faith from when they were young, maybe from a Christian home or faith at university or youth groups and so on, in their teens and twenties, who now have children and it's just opened my eyes today. That's something that we see so regularly now, the modeling of following the Lord Jesus Christ by a mother and father to their children, by engaging in their sport with them and ensuring that their balance of life and home and study and church and sport gets an equilibrium of 30 or 40 years of experience of the parent.

This is a whole new stage in our history at Christians in Sport and something we can absolutely maximize so that our children get the chance to learn from us what to do with their children and the kingdom of God advances.

Karen, you made my day letting me talk this through with you because it's actually very inspirational. I'm really grateful to you. Thank you very much indeed. It's been a pleasure meeting you.

Karen Kennedy:

Thanks very much.