Athlete uses faith and fitness to inspire

Kendall Kloza runs a half marathon in Austin. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Kendall Kloza didn't let the end of her collegiate athletic career derail her future.

The athlete played soccer for the University of Texas at San Antonio.

"It was the entire reason I was at the university," she said. "I originally was committed to Virginia Commonwealth University. I played there my freshman year. It wasn't a good fit as far as the school and the team culture. I wanted to come back home. So transferred back, played at UTSA. I had a Covid year, so I was able to play five years in college, which was amazing."

Kendall, now 26, needed to change her attitude, though, for coach Derek Pittman's team.

"I was one of the better players," she said. "I was starting and playing every game. But I didn't originally buy into the team culture that Derek was trying to build. Got a slap on the wrist and thankfully had really good leaders around me that brought me in, coached me up a little bit. They're like, hey, either get on or skedaddle. We actually uphold our core values here. And I was like, oh, wow, okay, this is good. I need to stop messing around."

Kendall's change in mindset paid dividends.

"Had a really good first year," she said. "Junior year was Covid, so that was a mess. And then my true senior year and my fifth year was the first time we actually made conference tournament. We made it to the semifinals in my senior year and then my fifth year we actually won the whole thing and got to compete for an NCAA championship. So second time in history, first time in Conference USA that UTSA was able to do that. Definitely a history making team and thankfully had a really good career, got all the accolades. I was captain in my fifth year and I was extremely passionate about it. It was my whole identity."

Kendall graduated in the fall of 2022.

"I've been playing soccer since I was 4," she said. "From the ages 4 to 22 years old, I knew nothing but soccer. And what happens to a lot of athletes that I don't think is talked about enough prior to it happening is the identity crisis. For me, there were lot of ups and downs that happened when I was still playing. Being an athlete, it's hard, especially at a collegiate level, and you're competing for a championship. There's a lot of pressure, all those things, but I loved it. I loved all of that. I loved the pressure. I loved competing. I loved learning things from losses. I love to win. The hardship came for me after I graduated, and I hadn't set myself up for success post-graduation. I had no goals outside of soccer. I had no job leads. I had no plan. I really did experience the crash of the identity crisis. Who am I without soccer? What's my purpose? Where do I belong? How do I implement a structure in my life? What do I do? It was this season of grief that I really had to experience, which was just accepting that the one thing I've known to be true my entire life has now been stripped away and go on this journey of finding out who I was."

Kendall initially turned to revelry.

"I turned into a partier," she said. "I went the drinking route, went down a really dark path. I was just unhealthy, wasn't working out anymore, hanging out with a different crowd. I had a job, but I was masking it. I was really showing up for my job and performing, but then hating it at the same time and going out every night drinking. So New Year's of 2025 was really when I hit rock bottom. I went out, got super wasted and actually ended up taking a pill from a stranger. Thankfully, it was just a really high dosage of Adderall. But had it been something different, it could have been a much different story. So I went home that night, wired on Adderall, drunk, and I woke up in the morning, just felt all the emotions of the shame, the guilt, the confusion. Like, who are you? Genuinely, what are you doing? You used to be so locked in, leader, healthy, you cared about life. And now, I'm at a point where I didn't care about life. I was just completely lost."

Kendall turned to faith for help.

"I remember that morning in the shower, on my hands and knees, like, God, I need help," she said. "I called out for the Lord. Jesus met me where I was. And from that day forward, I decided I was going to change my life. I completely blew everything up. I was supposed to move in with the guy I had been dating. I quickly realized that was not the best situation for me, so I broke our lease. I broke up with him two weeks before we were supposed to move in, canceled all of our family vacations. I went off the grid, got off of social media and started putting in the work to get better mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. And went back to church, opened my Bible and gave my life to Jesus. I'm a little bit over a year sober. I officially stopped drinking June 6 of 2025."

Kendall also opted for a change in scenery.

"I moved out to a small town for my job, got promoted," she said. "I live in San Angelo, Texas, now. Moved from San Antonio completely by myself. Led a youth group for a little bit. I now have my own women's Bible study that I host every Wednesday night, just with older women. I loved serving at youth. I joined a book club, started playing softball, got back into CrossFit. Just started things that brought me joy that I didn't know I could like or fall in love with because I thought soccer was going to be my only love forever. I essentially had to do a lot of inner work in finding my identity in the Lord rather than soccer or a job or a relationship and all the things that I was searching for of the world. It wasn't until then that I was able to actually live a fulfilled, joyful life and apply myself in every area that I can now. And it served me well."

Kendall then started employing social media to help other athletes adjust to life.

"Just getting out of that funk, I now have an account on Instagram," she said. "I got back on social media. I now have an account on Instagram that has a huge following called faith.by.kendallk. It talks about my fitness journey, my faith journey, and then it also just speaks to all of the athletes in transition season. My goal is to help athletes be more proactive in finding their identity outside of their sport. Prior to retirement, graduation or, hopefully this is never the case, but unfortunately it happens, medical retirement. Having to stop playing earlier than expected due to injury, that affects a lot of athletes as well. So helping athletes with their identity and allowing them to find who they are outside of their sport, make sure they have a good foundation there, whether that's through God or through other ways. I don't want anybody to have to go through the things that I did. And a lot of athletes do. So just trying to be a voice in that realm and connect with athletes and help them during their transition seasons is what I've got going on now."

Kendall found other avenues to utilize her athleticism.

"I didn't enjoy running, but I enjoyed reaching for another goal," she said. "I signed up for half marathons, started training for those, and then I was like, you know what, let's really challenge ourselves. That's what a lot of athletes miss is having a goal and training for it. I know that was something that I really missed. Signing up for a marathon gave me something to train for and gave me something to push myself for and then gave me something to strive for. It was less about running a fast marathon and more about what does the process look like and falling in love with the process of something again. I won a championship and I look back, training for that was the best part and it was worth it because we put in so much work. So that is something that I recommend, whether it's marathons, whether it's Hyrox (indoor fitness completition) or a CrossFit competition, doing something physically that you can train for again that gives you a goal. It's less about being really successful. I could care less what your marathon time is or what your Hyrox time is. What does the process look like? Can we say that we put all of our effort into that and define success around the training again and around consistency again? I had a goal of sub-4 marathon and I ran 4 hours and 58 minutes. Things happen on game day that you can't always control. But I still was proud of myself because I based success around the process of training for it rather than the actual marathon itself."

“The first step is strip your identity from your sport and find it in something that's stable, a foundation. Knowing that your sport doesn't define you.”

Kendall runs in a half marathon.

Kendall said athletes need to realize sports are what they do, not who they are.

"I didn't have anybody," she said. "People are like, yeah, sorry, you don't have your sport anymore. Go find a job. You're in the real world. Good luck. Change is inevitable, but I don't think that athletes are truly given the space to grieve what they've lost. They just go join. I had so many people say just go play in a league. Tried that, thanks, but it's not filling this hole. I don't have a purpose anymore. When your entire identity is wrapped up in your sport or a job or a career or whatever it is, that's going to happen. The first step is strip your identity from your sport and find it in something that's stable, a foundation. Knowing that your sport doesn't define you. But two, when you are in that season, it's giving yourself the space to grieve. For athletes that I've spoken to, it's not just grieving, not playing. It's grieving the community. It's grieving the structure. Everyone always said athletes must have great time management because they're so busy and they manage school. No, we don't. I don't. A lot of athletes don't. We were just told where to be and what we were really disciplined in following instruction. When you get into the real world now, you have to find time to work out. You're juggling a career, you're having to make new friends. All my friends were my team. And then we all just move away and go back to our respective states and we're not living together anymore. These are people I suffered with, these are people I won with, and now they're gone. That's the hardest part is finding a structure again and finding a community again that makes you feel like you're a part of something bigger than yourself, which is exactly what team sports is and it's exactly what it teaches you."

Kendall also found a career path in medical device sales.

"I am a territory manager for Boston Scientific and I do GI (gastrointestinal) endoscopy," she said. "Occasionally in the O.R., all the pancreatic biliary tract, so bile ducts, liver, gallbladder, pancreas. Lots of cancer patients unfortunately. I do sales for that. It's been almost three years now. I am in all the surgeries, I'm in all the cases. My schedule is not a typical 9 to 5. I'm usually up 4:45 in the morning, in cases by 6 a.m., and then cases can go from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. sometimes. It depends on where I'm needed. It's not a big territory but it's very spread out. I'm in West Texas so Midland, Odessa to Abilene to San Angelo. It's all two-hour drives. I could be in a case at 6 a.m. in San Angelo till 3 and then I have to book it over to Midland to do cases until 7 p.m. or whatever. It just depends on where I'm needed and what the schedule is for the day."

“It's crazy to think that a patient's on the table and 26-year-old me is telling a physician what to do. But we are trained and we are equipped enough to handle those situations.”

Kendall explained the need for her to be present for surgeries.

"A lot of it is case support," she said. "I do a lot of education with the staff on my products, so it's educating them on how to use it. But then case support. A lot of times, we can go in and what we think is the case is actually different. And they look to me to be like, okay, what do we do? What do you have to help fix this problem? Those are my favorite cases where everybody looks at me and is like, all right, what do we do? Kind of my time to shine and direct traffic a little bit. It's crazy to think that a patient's on the table and 26-year-old me is telling a physician what to do. But we are trained and we are equipped enough to handle those situations. Just explaining to the doctor either how to use our stuff or finding solutions, depending on what the patient is presenting with, it could change at any moment. And then it's my job to say, hey, I have 1,200 plus products in my bag. How can we find this solution? Thankfully, I see so many advanced cases, just with all the different doctors I cover, I could see something in one case that we did, it comes up with another doctor. They're like, I've never seen this, have you? And I'm like, actually, yeah, last week we did this with Dr. Whoever. And so I can help them figure that out as well. So it's pretty fun."

Kendall gains satisfaction helping others through her job.

"Not to toot my own horn, I do a good job," she said. "I've built a lot of relationships. All of my accounts are 85 to 90 percent market share with just me. We have everything we could possibly need in the room, which is good. It's just a matter of explaining. Okay, now we can pull this. If we can't get into the bile duct for whatever reason, I'm like, okay, I have this smaller tome with this smaller wire. We can use this. We have this technique we can use. It's problem-solving, which is really fun for me. So I enjoy it."

Kendall is grateful to have landed the job.

"I had no job offers, no leads, nothing," she said. "I didn't even have a LinkedIn, which this is really just by the grace of God. He was like, here you go, let me help you out. For a year after graduating, I was piecing together part-time jobs, just trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was coaching a lot. I was nannying, all sorts of stuff just to pay rent. And I got a call one day from my teammate, now my sales teammate. His name's Casey Selsor. He actually played at UTSA, played baseball at UTSA 10 years before I was there. We like to joke he's old. But he called me because they were looking for an associate on our sales team, and all of our sales team are athletes. So he was like, let me look at UTSA, do some research on who people might recommend. He made some calls. My name came up. He's like, hey, would you be interested in a field ride? At that point, I was like, yeah, I need a job. I need a better job. So went on the field ride. Absolutely loved it. Got to watch him work the room, have conversations with doctors, get very clinical. I was like, how did you learn all this? He's like, they train you, man. I didn't know anything either. I was a car salesman right out of college. They come in and they teach you everything. And I was like, wow, yeah, I'm interested. Made it through six interviews in one week after that initial panel interview and got the job by the end of the week and have been here for three years and have had two promotions since. So really worked out for me."

Kendall's customers are hospitals.

"The provider has to buy into your products, so the provider has to want it," she said. "Once they give me the green light, I work with a nurse manager, supply chain, CFO, CEO, whoever's a part of that process to actually get products cleared into the accounts, and then from there the physicians are able to use them."

Kendall has no trepidation sharing her faith with the world.

"Jesus saved my life," she said. "I owe everything to him. It's the only thing that was able to bring me out of the darkness that I was in. It has changed my life entirely. My view on things, everything. People say this, they're like, dude, you were the partier. You were the life of the party. You were drinking, smoking cigs and hooking up. You were so much fun. What do you mean you don't drink anymore? The only thing I can tell them is Jesus and God. It's my testimony. If sharing my testimony means helping other people, which is what we're called to do, is disciple other people, bring more people to God and get them into heaven, then that's my calling. My parents, my friends, everybody's always said I'm the most stubborn person. I was a leader of every group, and I could have been leading them in the horrible direction, but I was firm on what I was doing. I don't take crap from anybody. And that's just served me so much better for the glory of God and his kingdom. I don't care what anybody thinks about me. I've lost friends. I have judgment from family members, and I don't care. I'm changing people's lives. I'm just a vessel, but I've seen God work through me to change other people's lives. I've seen what He's done in my life. There's no other explanation for where I am today other than God. So I have no shame in shouting that from the rooftop and sharing my testimony. Whether it's social media or in person, I do not care. He gave me a platform and I'm going to continue to use it for him and try to reflect Jesus in my daily life."

Kendall was destined for the sports field.

"My mom was a dance teacher and my dad was a football coach," she said. "So my mom put me in dance. I was in ballet and tap. From the age of 2 to 4, I was in tap and ballet every week. I remember hating it. She would tell stories about me throwing my tap shoes at people. She's like, let's just keep going, please. I'm gonna have my little dancer. She was determined. And one day, I came home from Pre-K. They had put a flyer in my (classroom) cubby for the YMCA. There was a basketball, a volleyball, a soccer ball, I think a tennis ball. All the sports they had to offer. I came home, and I was like, mom, I want to play this sport right here. This one where you kick it. She made some calls to some of our family friends that had girls same age as me that she knew were playing soccer. I went to my first YMCA practice and fell in love with it. My mom bought me my first soccer ball. I slept with it for a month. I don't know why I wanted to play, but I just knew I wanted to play. I've played other sports my whole life: volleyball, basketball, ran track, all throughout high school, but soccer has my heart."

Kendall stressed the importance of keeping in mind the role sports should play in people's lives.

"You listen to 45-year-olds who the only thing they can talk about is their glory days whether that's high school or college," she said. "I've had conversations with people much older than me. They're like, I still haven't shaken this feeling. That's sad because there's so much more to life. The last thing that I want for my life is for college soccer to be the highlight of it. I have so much more to look forward to, and so does everyone else. When you make it your identity, that's what makes it so hard to move on from. That's why you're still talking about your college career at whatever age you are. At some point, it's time to let it go. It can weigh on you so much when your identity is wrapped up in it rather than taking a step back and being like, this is literally just a game and it's gonna end. You're gonna win, you're gonna lose, you're gonna screw up, you're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna do a really great job some days, most days, but it's just a game. You're so much more than this game that you play. It's something you do. It's not who you are. Just flipping that mindset, it's been so healing and freeing for so many athletes to be like, you know what? Yeah, you're right. This is just something I do, and it's gonna end, and I need to have fun and I need to compete, but I don't need to make it my entire personality or something that I base my entire being on. Sports are amazing. But even as a spectator now, we're getting in fights after football games."

Kendall is embarking on another physical endeavor.

"I'm actually about to start getting into kickboxing and jiu-jitsu," she said. "I want to fight. I just think that would be so fun and it's something I think I'd be good at. I was pretty aggressive back in my soccer days, so I think if I can channel it in a way that's competitive, that would be fun. I want to learn how to defend myself. I've been researching some gyms and then I have a buddy through work who's been helping me out a little bit because he's involved with that. He used to be an NFL player. He experienced the same thing that I did. We bonded over that. And now he's doing the kickboxing stuff. So that's my next goal from a physical standpoint."

Kendall wants to have her own family someday.

"For life, my goal is to continue to serve in church," she said. "My biggest dream in life is to get married and have children. It's all just avenues and ways that I can worship God. But my biggest dream is to be a mom and to be a wife. I'm excited to step into that next chapter and see what that looks like."

Kendall hopes to her social media followers benefit from her content.

"I want them to first see Jesus through me," she said. "My testimony is pinned. I really want them to find a place where they feel heard, seen. I've had a ton of athletes reach out to me. My goal with that is to build a community around faith, but to also build a community around growth and a place where people can come and learn, but also just feel like, oh, she gets it. I didn't have anybody like that. I tried to talk to people about it and they were like, we didn't experience that or just get over it. You need to just move on. I don't want that to be what people experience. And so coming to faithfit, just realizing this is a grief stage that we have to go through, allowing to feel your emotions. Coaching people through that is my goal. Something that I've been trying to put out more is being proactive and find stuff now before it ends so that your transition is easier. Start practicing, making a routine, finding community outside of soccer, finding hobbies outside of your sport, whatever it looks like, do it now so that you have something to look forward to once you graduate and that transition period is a little easier. I don't know what I'm going to actually do with it yet. I think connection is a huge piece that's missing with social media. You can go look at my page and read my captions and listen to my story and resonate with it. But I think actually taking it to another level of whether it's one-on-one coaching or starting a nonprofit that partners with universities. I've even dabbled with the idea of an app. So there's more to come with faithfit. I don't just want it to be a page where people can go follow. I do want it to connect people more."

Kendall keeps her goals in sight.

"It's really easy to eat healthy," she said. "It's also really easy to eat like crap. It's really easy to go work out or go on a walk, but it's also really easy to stay sitting on your couch. Making the decision every day to just eat healthy, go on that walk, things that are really easy to do compound over time and help you reach goals and be healthy, both physical and spiritual. That's the mindset that I try to embody each and every day. It's not always perfect. Every once in a while, I'm going to go get that Chick-fil-A and not cook at home. But it's not an everyday thing that I'm making a habit. For social media, I post when I have something on my heart, so I'm not just posting to post something. I'll put a reel together to try to motivate. But for the most part it's like, okay, how real and authentic can I make this? And if I'm not feeling real or authentic that day or I don't have anything to say, I'm not going to post it just to get views or people to my page."

Kendall dispensed advice to athletes.

"Everybody should play a sport," she said. "It teaches you so many life lessons that you didn't know it could. Everything that I know now, I could tie it back to all the things that I learned just being on a team and playing soccer at a high level. It's character building. It's amazing. Definitely do it, but don't let it consume you so much that you base your success and your worth on outcomes of a game or practice or leadership roles. Let it be something that you do because you love it and it's fun and it makes you better. You can compete, but step away knowing that you've done everything you can and you're so much more than your sport. Your worth is not tied to anything that you do on a field or a court. It is tied to who you are in Christ and what God has for you and the plan that God has put on your life. If He gives you an avenue to go play sports and you're good at it, then use it for His glory. If that's not your thing, find something that keeps you grounded. Find something that holds your worth that is not in the results of what your sport brings you. Find new hobbies outside of your sport. Have friends outside of your sport. Have goals outside of your sport. Do other things. Don't make it your entire life now."

Kendall's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kendallrhea_1/

Kendall's faith and fitness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faithfit.by.kendallk/