To understand Kelly McBride--or at least a large part of her--you merely have to walk up the driveway of her house in Haverford, Penn.

Your first impression is that this is the home of an athlete.

Your second impression is that this is the home of a fanatical athlete.

"I have a lacrosse net in my backyard," says McBride, the captain of the Harvard women's lacrosse team, "and a basketball court with lights. In the garage there's 13 lacrosse sticks, lacrosse balls all over the place, field hockey sticks, field hockey balls, basketballs."

"Sports always came naturally to me," McBride adds. "I don't know what I'd do without it."

The athletic equipment does not belong to McBride alone. She shares it with her two brothers and two sisters and her father and mother. The McBrides take their sports seriously.

Don McBride, Kelly's father, coached high school football, basketball and golf. Her older brother Brian played basketball. Her younger brother Donnie plays high school lacrosse. And now the smallest member of the McBride clan, 13-year old Shannon, is skipping in her big sister's footsteps.

"She's the cutest thing," McBride says, "and she's incredible at lacrosse. My claim to fame is the ability to switch hands, being able to go either way. I really developed the talent in sophomore year [of college.] My little sister switches hands as well as I do, which is scary."

McBride has a garage-full of awards to accompany her garage-full of athletic equipment. In her sophomore year, she notched 27 goals and seven assists and earned second team All-Ivy honors. Last year, she netted 49 goals (an average of over three goals per game) and recorded 14 assists on her way to being named first team All-Ivy and second team All-America. She was named the best athlete in her high school, the Agnes-Irwin School in Rosemont, Penn.

But life--even on the playing field--has not always been easy for Kelly McBride.

McBride came to Harvard as a three-sport athlete, but was recruited specifically to play lacrosse. In her freshman year, she tried out for the field hockey team and made the JV squad. She went out for the basketball team a month after everyone else did. She made the team, but didn't play much.

In the spring, McBride had lacrosse to look forward to. At this sport, she would excel. Only one problem: stress fractures.

"I talked to the coaches and they told me that you can't play field hockey, basketball and lacrosse because the sports overlap," McBride says. "But I decided I would. If anyone tells me I can't do something, I'm going to do it."

"The basketball season was horrendous," McBride continues. "I didn't go home for Thanksgiving. I didn't go home for Christmas until Christmas Eve, but I really wanted to play. By the end of the season I'd developed stress fractures in my leg."

"After four days of lacrosse tryouts, [Harvard lacrosse Coach Carole Kleinfelder] told me, 'Get out of here, you can't run,"' McBride says. "It was a real disappointment."