Competitive fire has never been a question when talking about Chelsea Winters.

The senior three-sport letterman is no stranger to Lady Dog sports fans, and she has been honored as Miss Bulldog 2002 by coaches at Artesia High School for her leadership and dedication to sports for the last three years.

"She’s been a great leader," said Lady Dog basketball coach Billy Mondragon. "She always worked hard and she wanted the team to do well. She was a captain the last two years for us because she could always be counted on for leadership and you always knew she would give everything she had to win."

Winters, who played three sports in each of her three years at Artesia High School, said that the adjustment to just becoming just a student will be tough.

"It’s really weird to not have to go lift weights or practice in the morning," she said a week after finishing her career as a Lady Dog. "I’ve gotten so used to it, I have to stay busy or else it will drive me crazy."

Winters will move on to college next year at Texas Tech University, and although she won’t be playing for any of the Red Raider programs, she said she will most likely join an aerobics class or play intramural sports to "stay busy."

"I have to do something because I know I’ll really miss sports," she said. "I mean I’ve lived for sports since I started playing them, and it’s going to be hard to not be playing and spending time with my friends."

Staying busy shouldn’t be a problem though with the career path she has chosen for herself.

Winters will study to be a chemical engineer, a field which will require her to take courses such as Organic Chemistry and various mathematics classes that would make the average student cringe with fear.

For a competitor like Winters though, there’s no challenge too hard and no hill too steep to climb.

Take volleyball for instance, Winters said she always liked the game, but when you have a "vertical like a credit card" it’s tough to be very good at it.

That’s why she spent last summer working on her vertical leap and on getting better so she could play more this season.

"I was tired of sitting the bench, so I worked really hard last summer on getting better so I could play," said Winters. "Volleyball wasn’t my best sport, but I had a lot of fun with it and it felt good to contribute to the team as a senior."

Volleyball and track coach Pam Allen said that she earned a whole new respect for Winters this year.

"She’s a great listener and a great competitor," said Allen. "Because she is such a great listener, she was able to make adjustments in game situations that not many athletes can make. She’s so intelligent I came to really admire her this past volleyball season because of the enthusiasm with which she played and the tremendous work ethic she exhibited."

Basketball was definitely Winters’ love though, and she said her favorite moment in sports was making it to state in basketball in 2001.

"That was a great experience — it was so much fun," she said. "We got beat pretty bad by Kirtland when we got there, but it was still awesome to be there playing against the best of the best."

By contrast, her worst sports memory was not making it back to state in her senior season.

"You know we just never really came around until the last three games," she said. "But we played a lot better at the end, and we almost beat Goddard in that last game. It just wasn’t meant to be I guess."

In preparation for becoming a chemical engineer, Winters has taken a summer job at Marathon Oil Company’s Indian Basin Gas Plant, where she works along her dad, Tim.

She said that although she is starting off by learning oilfield operations, her career is not destined for the oilfield.

"It’s a vast field," she said. "My dad was saying at work how he wished he had gone into chemical engineering because there are so many different areas you can work in. You’re not just stuck in the oilfield."

As far as her choice of schools, Winters said that Texas Tech is good fit for her.

"I like it because it’s not too far from home, but it isn’t too close either," she said. "Also the chemical engineering department there is great. I had a $20,000 scholarship to go to Baylor, but they don’t have chemical engineering and it would have been hard to transfer later."

It’s obviously hard for a competitor like Winters to stop playing sports, but she said what she’ll miss the most about sports is the friendships she had.

"It’s going to be different because I won’t be able to hang around with all the people I’ve played sports with," she said. "That’s what I’ll miss the most — all the friendships you make through sports. That’s what makes sports so fun."

She’ll be missed just as much.

"As a human being, she’s as good as they come," said Allen. "She’s thoughtful, caring, responsible and has a lot of initiative. I have no doubt that she’ll succeed in whatever she chooses to do."