“My sister and I got put on different Provincial Team’s in grade 11, and we flew all the way to Toronto, played each other in the finals for the gold medal. It was double overtime, my sister scored the winning goal so we flew back home and she has a gold medal in her room, and I have a silver medal. It was my favorite memory because our friends would come over and she’d always come to my room, swing her gold medal around. I felt like that kind of lit the fire that wanted me to push harder, and that was kind of the turning point where I was like, ‘this is competitive, I want to win.’ And it was my own sister who inspired me to do that. I was never upset or mad at her so.
And the day we found out we got our scholarship together at Ohio State. We had the Tri City news come to our high school, they made a big deal about it, ‘ohh twins.’ We sat down around the dinner table that day, she got offers from other schools, she got offered from Canadian schools but Ohio State was the only one that wanted both of us so we had to pick where we wanted to go. And she said, ‘I’m not going anywhere unless Mercedes is coming’, so Ohio State was why we went there. That was so special and one of my favorite memories.
She’s like my role model, we are the same age, we are 26 minutes apart but I look up to her so much. She’s always been faster than me, always been stronger than me but that pushes me to become a better person and athlete. To see what she’s gone through with injuries and stuff, that just inspires me so much. I figure if I were ever to get hurt like that, I want to be just like my sister, I want to be exactly how she handled everything, so modest, so humble about everything and she never speaks poorly about anybody and just focuses on her and her own thing, she’s my role model.
I would say thank you. I don’t think she knows this but she is literally my biggest role model. Not to be all cheesy, but I would thank her for being there for me, being through there for everything.” – Mercedes Hamilton, Former Division 1 Field Hockey Player. (3/8)
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