Katie Kutz
Bishop O’Connell High School
“Disciplined” may be the best word to describe Katie Kutz. On weekdays during the school year, the star pitcher for Bishop O’Connell’s softball team would rise at 3:30 a.m., eat breakfast, take her vitamins, work out and arrive at school at 7 a.m. She’d finish most of her homework at school and then head to softball practice from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. She was usually in bed by 7:30.
The hard work paid off: Kutz led her high school softball team to the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Division I championships two years in a row and was named Virginia Gatorade Softball Player of the Year. This fall, she heads to Oklahoma State on a full softball scholarship, after graduating with a 4.5 GPA.
“She does everything with intent and purpose, probably more than I’ve seen in other athletes,” says Bishop O’Connell’s head softball coach, Suzy Willemssen. “Her attention to detail is unmatched.”
Kutz tried soccer at an early age (it wasn’t her thing), then switched to T-ball. At 8, she joined the Vienna Stars 10U fastpitch softball travel team and started playing in tournaments, keeping up with the sport through middle and high school.
She likes that it’s a game of strategy. “There are no cookie-cutter games; everything’s different,” says the McLean resident, now 18. “With every individual batter, you’re trying to almost deceive them into swinging for pitches.”
She’s also a competitive bodybuilder, having entered her first amateur competition at 16, winning every class she entered and leaving the contest crowned overall bikini champion. Her bodybuilding interest began during Covid quarantine. She tried a 30-day home fitness challenge on TikTok and was hooked. Once the world reopened, she started going to a gym and lifting weights.
But the newfound obsession had a downside: Kutz developed an eating disorder, became tired and weak, and her pitching began to suffer. She credits her recovery to “God’s grace” and a fitness coach at the gym who taught her the importance of proper nutrition.
She became so fascinated by the connection between nutrition and wellness—and so alarmed by the fad diets she kept seeing on social media—that she decided to become a registered dietitian. She plans to major in nutritional sciences in college.
“A lot of girls look up ‘How do I get thin?’ online,” she says. “I want to be part of a movement to teach people the right way to fuel their bodies.”