Athletics and Discipleship: Katherine Ashley

The soccer career of Katherine Ashley ’25 is a testament to her passion for the game and her commitment to service. Recruited as a goal-scoring center forward, she’s earned the respect of her teammates and coaching staff by playing almost every position on the field depending on what would best help the team. Head Coach Patrick Gilliam describes Ashley’s character with the saying, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” In all the roles she fills, Ashley strives to do everything in a way that glorifies God.

In addition to being a student-athlete, Ashley volunteers as a coach for six- through eight-year-olds, where she uses her platform to impart life lessons and soccer skills. “It’s been nice to be able to subtly explain to the girls how to have good character on the field, like picking up your teammate if she falls,” she said.

Ashley also takes steps to develop her own character as an athlete. This past summer, she played on a women’s college summer league team affiliated with the Charlotte Eagles, an organization that offers a competitive soccer platform combined with Christian discipleship for athletes from all walks of life. “We learned what it means to live and play soccer as a Christian and how to act on the field—to reflect what you believe and what you’re doing it all for,” she said. To her, that often looks like giving all-out effort and putting others before herself.

As a health science major at Wheaton, Ashley hopes to put the gospel into action by pursuing a future career in a medical field. But first, she’ll use her final soccer season to live out the gospel on the pitch.

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Throwback: Jeremy Amos ’01

Jeremy Amos ’01 was a standout wide receiver and kick returner on the Wheaton College football team. In his four years on the field, Amos set records for career receptions and career receiving touchdowns and earned First Team All-American recognition as a senior. Amos also achieved the third-highest single-season receiving yardage total in program history at the time of his graduation. He contributed to Wheaton’s success by setting the program’s single-season record for kick return yardage, as well. There are two lessons that Amos describes learning from his time with Wheaton Football. The first lesson was “the value of hard work,” which helped him develop “a work ethic and toughness” that has influenced his post-college life away from the field. The second lesson was to “put the team over self,” which has helped him take better care of his current team, his family. Amos was inducted into the Wheaton Hall of Honor in 2016.