Kyleigh Hastings bought a car and accidentally found her dream school.

Her dad found a beat-up Charger for her older brother on KSL, they drove out to pick it up, and afterward found out whose car it used to belong to: Elisa Flake, then the star player at BYU. Kyleigh had no idea BYU even had a women's soccer program. That night the family watched the rest of Flake's season together. A year later, Makayla Kulahan's senior class went all the way to the NCAA final before losing to Florida State on penalties — a heartbreaking, unforgettable game that Kyleigh's family watched from their living room in Logan, right as she was entering the recruiting window herself. From that point forward, BYU wasn't a stretch goal. It was the only goal.

This episode is the first time this podcast has featured a Division I athlete, and Kyleigh — currently playing under a coaching legend in the final season of her career — brought a story with real range to it.

She talks about growing up in Logan, a bubble of its own but a different flavor than Utah County's, and how joining an ECNL club two hours away as a freshman changed the entire trajectory of her development. She talks about a strict rule her family lived by growing up: goals had to be things you controlled, never outcomes like making varsity or getting recruited, just the next tangible step forward — a rule enforced with soccer-ball stickers taped to her bedroom mirror for every goal scored.

She talks about going from a standout at every level to a guest player at La Roca who felt, by her own account, like the worst player in the gym every single day — and how learning to climb back from that exact feeling gave her the confidence to accept a bench role at BYU without it breaking her.

And she talks about her faith, honestly and without polish. A testimony that never quite felt like her own. A crisis triggered, of all things, by a large NIL deal and the question of whether to tithe on it. A prayer said in a parking lot outside the Provo City Temple — her temple recommend had actually expired, so she couldn't even go inside — where she heard four words that rebuilt her foundation from the ground up: "You are my beloved daughter."

She closes with advice she's already given to a cabin full of young campers: your identity is not your performance. It doesn't rise when you play well and it doesn't fall when you don't. It's fixed, because it was never yours to begin with.

Also — big shoutout to our newest sponsor, Good Candy: 70% less sugar, no artificial dyes or preservatives, and genuinely good. More on them soon.

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