Kasey Renshaw’s initial motivation to throw a shot put was a milk shake from her eighth grade gym teacher. Now, as a senior at Siena Heights University, the motivation is a little bigger: the Olympics.

“I was in gym class in eighth grade and my teacher, who also working with the track team here, said, ‘Hey, Kasey, if you can throw this shotput in the air this high, I will buy you a milkshake,’” she said. “That was the first time I ever touched a shotput, but I got the milkshake. After that they pretty much started recruiting me to Siena.”

While Renshaw was not as highly recruited as current NCAA Division I athletes out of high school, she’s proved to be one of the top indoor weight throwers in the country. Among all NCAA and NAIA divisions, Renshaw currently ranks as the fourth best thrower in the nation following her 70-foot, 10-inch performance at the Indiana University Relays, where she placed first in a meet full of Division I athletes.

In fact, Renshaw was the only NAIA athlete competing in the event.

“No one knew who I was,” she said. “I was the only NAIA athlete there. I felt like because nobody knew me, I had something to prove. I walked in and sat in the bleachers and kept to myself the entire time, but they made fun of me because I put my shoes on too early. Every athlete has their own rituals and stuff, but it kind of pushed me more to make a name for myself. Yeah, you may not know me, but you’re going to know me.”

According to Siena Heights women’s track and field coach Kirk Richards, it is that strong will and determination that has gotten the small-town Litchfield, Mich., native to where she is now.

“She is gentle, always positive and you would never know Kasey can bench 235 pounds more than once and squat 445 pounds,” he said. “The hard work and perseverance has paid off big for her. She is another amazing example of the kind of induvial that Siena Heights University produces year in and year out.”

Renshaw’s path to where she is now has built year-by-year. Her freshman year she placed sixth in the NAIA Indoor National Championships. During her sophomore season, she competed at the championship event once again but fouled out of the ring on her three throws and didn’t qualify for the finals.

“That was a turning point in her career,” Richards said. “That meet instilled in Kasey the determination, discipline and maturity an athlete needs to become a national champion. Kasey learned from her failure in 2014 and came back to win the national title in her junior year in 2015 with a throw and PR (personal record) of 63-10 ¼.”

As a senior, not only is Renshaw going for back-to-back NAIA national titles, but she has also qualified for the 2016 U.S. Track and Field Indoor Championship at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Ore., on March 11-12. There, she will have the opportunity to begin her quest in becoming an Olympic athlete.

For Renshaw, the whole experience is surreal.

“I never had any kind of ambition to go to the Olympics or anything,” she said. “I really didn’t see much out of track, because it’s not like basketball or football where you get a contract and get paid. You have to find your own sponsors.

“It’s very exciting. I really don’t know how to feel about it because I know there will be Olympic sponsors there, people scouting for athletes, and pros who are still competing, so it’ll be a fun experience. It’s kind of nerve-wracking, but exciting at the same time.”

In addition to her Olympic quest, Renshaw is currently completing an internship for her accounting degree. As for what’s after graduation, she’s leaving that up to faith.

“I never saw myself going this far to the USA meet,” she said. “I always told myself I wasn’t going to be the person that trains five or six years after college is done and I was done throwing. But I never saw myself going this far, so now I’m just kind of leaving it in God’s hands. If I go to the meet and some scout really does like me, then sure, but if not I’m not going to let it affect me personally because I know I have plenty of other routes to go.”

There is no doubt that sky’s the limit for Renshaw, not to mention the rest of the NAIA’s third-ranked women’s track and field team. But the question remains: Does she have a better throw left in the tank?

“Definitely,” she said. “My warm-up throws are way farther than that, and I actually had a throw at a meet that went so high it hit a pipe and came back at me because the ceiling was low. It’s really just the beginning. It’s the end of indoor, but I feel like I have so much more to give to it.”

Renshaw and the Saints are back in action Feb. 5 at Hillsdale College and Feb. 12 at Grand Valley State University before the Wolverine-Hoosier Athlete Conference Indoor Championships Feb. 20. The NAIA Indoor Championships are March 3 before she begins her Olympic quest in Portland.

“My main thing every meet is I don’t focus on getting excited or focusing on throwing big,” she said. “I just focus between every throw on staying calm.”