From school and exams to practice and competition, the life of a student-athlete is not something that just anybody can handle. LSU junior all-arounder McKenna Kelley took up video blogging, or vlogging, this past September to change that.
Her older sister Shayla, who had been vlogging for years, had often tried to convince McKenna to join her, but failed to do so until recently.
“She was a student-athlete, too, but she never incorporated that whole side of it,” Kelley said. “I thought that it’d be cool to give people an inside look at a student-athlete’s life. I think, in particular to myself, people see me as Mary Lou Retton’s daughter or a gymnast and you know I want them to get to know me and who I really am besides the sports and my mom.”

The tendency of sports fans to both criticize or glorify college athletes is what finally convinced McKenna that doing vlogs could be a good thing.
She want to remind fans that all athletes are human and they’re not perfect.
“We’re college kids,” McKenna said. “We are 18-22-year-old kids. You know, we’re learning so much and college is such a big adjustment time. They don’t know what’s going on in our lives besides sports so I really wish that they could see that side and see the full perspective of that.”

McKenna’s experience with her mother, Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton, and how she reacted to her own celebrity influenced how McKenna interacts with LSU fans.
Those type of things, McKenna explained, keep people drawn to the program and keep them invested in the fan base.
“I want to make a moment special for them,” McKenna said. “It takes zero seconds for me to respond back or like their message or give them a follow back. If I can do that for them, then I’m absolutely going to.”
McKenna’s roommates, juniors Lexie Priessman and Sarah Finnegan, and the rest of her teammates were not surprised with her new idea. They even encouraged it as “just McKenna doing McKenna things.”
After a few months of vlogging, both McKenna and her teammates have gotten less awkward around the camera.
“A lot of them want to feature in it now,” McKenna said. “I just made of video of me, Sarah and Lexie doing like a ‘Most Likely To…’ video and it was so much fun to get them involved in it.”
McKenna has done a variety of different types of vlogs since starting her channel, from “A Day in the Life of a Student Athlete” to simpler things like “Mom Comes to Town.” She is never set on one specific idea.
“I like to vlog knowing what my initial theme is and what I’m trying to capture that day,” McKenna said. “I think the most fun part about it is how spontaneous things are and how crazy the girls will be and unexpected things can happen. I do like to have a theme in mind, though.”
After tearing her Achilles tendon in November, just two months before the start of her junior season, McKenna began to use her vlogs as a tool for other athletes going through injuries. She wants people to be able to use it as inspiration to get through whatever emotional place they are in life.
Even more, it has brought of encouragement for herself from her viewers. McKenna has gotten messages from people who have been through serious injuries and others who are going through them that can relate to what she’s going through.
Her family and her teammates have also been shoulders for McKenna to lean on during this transition period in her career.

“They’ve just been there for me and I think that’s enough in itself,” McKenna said. “I think everyone handles their injuries differently so I think just knowing that I have a shoulder to lean on and they can understand. They really do get it and that’s been really nice.”

But despite a season ending injury, Priessman said that McKenna has dealt with the injury better than anyone could have expected. Personality wise, McKenna hasn’t changed at all.
“Everyday, we wake up to her positive energy every day so that’s just something that we feed off of,” Priessman said. “McKenna’s the first person to come in here, into the gym, and have something positive to say to us and she motivates the team all the time constantly.”
LSU coach D-D Breaux said she wasn’t surprised with the level of maturity and acceptance that McKenna presented, but she was impressed by it.
McKenna has always been known as a fun and enthusiastic person during meets, and her being on the sidelines hasn’t changed that.
“I just love these girls so much and I know what it feels like to be competing,” McKenna said. “I can’t imagine not being hype. I literally could not just sit there like this, there’s no way.”

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm and excitement from her on the sidelines and that’s always contagious,” Breaux said. “You know, momentum is an important thing and she senses it and feels it and really kind of strokes that fire.”
McKenna said that she made a decision the day she got hurt, that she could sulk about her injury and be miserable or she could take it day-by-day and turn it into something positive.
She credits LSU and the support system that they have built around their athletes with fans and coaches that has allowed her to stay positive through all of this.
“I’m just really grateful for the sport of gymnastics,” McKenna said. “I think I’m just really grateful for the lessons it’s taught me. It’s so much that I love LSU. I understand what people say when they bleed purple and gold because that’s what I do.”