Feature
Brains and Brawl
Photos courtesy of Sean W. Jacobs (www.heavyintodesign.com).
College Professor Crystal Starkey
Fuels Competitive Fires as a Mixed
Martial Artist Fighter
What do English composition and mixed martial arts fighting have in common? More than
people think, according to Crystal Starkey ’00.
“I would say the deliberateness,” said Starkey,
who is a college professor, a soccer mom, studying to complete her doctorate – and training to
be a MMA cage fighter. “I don’t teach how to
write in a nilly willy sort of way. It’s supported by
academic research and scholars I have read. (In
MMA fighting) it’s like writing little ideas that
carry through to a final essay. You develop tiny
moves to build yourself.”
So far, the former Siena Heights basketball point
guard and distance runner is a fast learner both
in and outside of the classroom. The 31-year-old
Starkey is just a dissertation away from earning
her PhD in philosophy from Wayne State University. And the 5-foot-5, 135-pounder recently
won her first MMA fight despite having just
six months of training. She said her newfound
“hobby” balances her academic and athletic sides
very nicely.
Crystal Starkey ’00
She said she initially had to overcome the fear
of getting hit. That fear quickly faded after
knocking out her first opponent in just 17 seconds. “Everyone has that fear that someone is
going to do damage to them,” Starkey said.
“You don’t have to be (just) an academic person
or an athletic person, you can be both,” Starkey
said. “That’s always been a goal for me, to have
balance in my life.”
And that balance is a very delicate one. Besides
her full-time duties as an assistant professor of
English at Delta College in Saginaw, Mich.,
Starkey also is a single mother of a 6-year-old
son, Griffin. When not teaching or coaching
her son’s soccer team or following him to T-ball
games, she finds time to train at the Charlie
Cosens gym in Bay City, Mich.
“(Griffin) goes with me to the gym on Saturday
mornings,” Starkey said. “I think he thinks he’s
doing what I’m doing when I’m there. But I don’t
want him to really know, because he’s too young.”
Starkey said a work colleague first introduced
her to the sport, which she initially knew very
little about.
20
Reflections Summer ’10
“It’s like no other sport I’ve ever done,” said Starkey, who besides her college sports has also competed in soccer, triathlons and three marathons.
“In some ways it’s similar to swimming and track.
In those sports it’s just you against the clock. In
this sport, it’s me against the opponent. It still
takes just as much work ethic, determination
and focus, which can be difficult as a full-time
teacher, PhD student and mother. But it keeps
me young.”
MMA fighting requires learning several different fighting styles, including boxing, Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu (rolling) and Muay Thai (striking)