The University of Kentucky women are the reigning SEC champions, led by head coach Kyra Elzy, who spoke during chapel this week.
On Monday, students were able to hear Elzy speak about her experience with God and church and how it shaped her life.
Elzy has spent nearly a decade with the program. The Oldham County native started in 2008 and worked as an assistant coach and an associate head coach for eight seasons before being named the head coach in 2020.
With just two years as a head coach under her belt, Elzy has made great strides in rebuilding the program and has an impressive resume.
“Elzy became the first head coach in program history to lead Kentucky to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in their first two seasons. Before earning their second straight bid to the tournament, the Wildcats accomplished something perhaps even more exciting under her tutelage. Elzy led Kentucky to its second SEC Tournament title in program history, and its first since 1982,” according to UK Athletics.
However, Elzy was walking through a much more difficult journey. Last week, she shared with WLEX about the private pain she was suffering from during her career highs.
Starting in 2013, Elzy began to cope with the great sense of loss that follows a miscarriage.
“I just could not get out of bed, I could not sleep, I could not eat. It was a tough time. It feels like you have failed. My body has failed, I have failed,” Elzy told WLEX
According to the Washington Post, 1 in 4 pregnancies may end in miscarriage, leading to devastation for women, which is hardly discussed.
However, for Elzy, her loss was greater than just one miscarriage.
“For me and my husband, we’ve had six miscarriages,” Elzy told WLEX. “And even saying that out loud makes me very emotional.”
In 2014, Elzy had her second miscarriage while she was on the sidelines as the women’s associate head coach.
“I was actually coaching a game at Tennessee. I stood up on the bench, and I had a sharp pain, and I said, ‘This is not good,'” Elzy told WLEX. “We had a miscarriage there at halftime. So it always sticks in my mind.”
The miscarriages continued, and by 2015 she had been through four.
“And then the fourth one [in 2015]… that was the one that probably just broke me,” Elzy said.. “We went in to get the ultrasound and hear the heartbeat, and there was no heartbeat. And at that moment, I was literally like… I thought I was going to die.”
Elzy was unable to sleep or get out of bed with the crippling pain of her loss and was later placed on suicide watch.
A beacon of light came into her life on June 13, 2016, with her adopted son, Jackson. He gave Elzy the motherhood she craved and a “reason to live.”
After the happiness of having a son, Elzy experienced another life milestone, being named head coach for the women in 2020.
Shortly after, she felt under the weather and wrote it off as stress until she found out she was pregnant again, only to lose that baby and later another.
However, none of that was visible to the public. All that was visible was a winning season and missed games due to “illness.”
Elzy’s struggle was kept private.
For many women, after a miscarriage, this is common. The hardship coming from that level of loss is hard to share. But, after praying about whether or not to share her pain, Elzy decided to come forward in an effort to open the topic and help any woman she could with her message.
“If I could help just one woman, then I have walked in God’s purpose,” Elzy said.
In chapel —
Elzy is leading her team on Monday as they take on Virginia Tech at noon.
