Hi Everyone!

Thanks for taking a moment to browse our intrepid site and learn a little bit about us. 

My name is Caroline, and I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself as the owner of Intrepid Athletics. 

I would be lying if I told you that opening a gym was a childhood dream, the gym kind of came to me by accident after i finished playing college soccer and pretty much just didn’t know what to do with myself after it became clear that I wasn’t going to be playing for the US Women’s National Team. Living an active lifestyle was nothing foreign to me, but the idea of the gym certainly was and little did I know that it would almost save my life at a time when I needed it most. 

My first love in life was soccer. I grew up eating, breathing and sleeping the sport. My older brother whom I wanted to emulate in every way was an incredible player, and my mom and dad spent countless hours driving us around from one state to the next playing the game. They also spent more money than we could ever repay replacing broken cleats, scrubbing grass stained jerseys and providing sideline snacks during blistering hot games. My Dad was quite the player in his day, but he dedicated our youth to coaching and from 1998-2008 he coached the Tonawanda Intrepid…a small youth travel team he started for my brother to have a team to play on year round and over that decade it flourished into not only a competitive and feared team but a group of young men that grew up together on the soccer field with not much else in common other than their love for the game. But that common love was enough to bond them together like brothers. Over that 10 years the same players continually returned, their parents became like our family and I remember thinking even as a child how cool what my dad had built was.  

Not too long before most of the boys graduated high school and the team was coming down to its last days of playing together I remember asking my dad why he named the team the “Intrepid” and he so confidently responded “well because it means fearlessness, resilience, endurance and excellence and that’s what we represent when we are out on that field together”. 

When given the chance to leave the corporate gym life behind and focus on what I would want my own facility to represent and emulate, the name was never even a question. I’ll never forget those words my dad muttered to me on that day, and I keep them in mind with every decision I make both big and small. He was the kind of coach to those young men who gave advice and guidance that was felt far beyond the soccer field, and I hope to one day have the opportunity to have the same impact on the staff and members of this place. I often think about my staff and the confidence I have in them, and the leap of faith they have taken on me in this endeavor and my gratitude really can’t be put into words. They are the sole reason that I had to give this a shot, there was too much potential and too much left for us to accomplish together for me to “hang up the cleats” as the saying goes. 

To everyone that has put any amount of their faith into me throughout this last year, all I can say is thank you for being Intrepid.