Alev Kelter is a jack of all trades and the master of many.

Arguably the most versatile athlete in Alaska history, she has played for Team USA in three sports — ice hockey, soccer and rugby — and won an Olympic bronze medal in rugby at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Fast, strong and gritty, Kelter was a multi-sport standout at Chugiak High, excelling in soccer, boys hockey and flag football.

At age 14 she became the first girl from Alaska selected to U.S. Soccer’s under-14 Olympic Development national training camp. She remained in the national player pool through the under-22 level.

In high school she collected gold medals with the U.S. hockey team at the 2008 and 2009 IIHF World Women’s U18 Championships.

In college she was a Division I dual-sport athlete, starring in hockey and soccer at the University of Wisconsin, where she was joined on both teams by twin sister Derya. As a freshman, she helped the soccer team to the NCAA’s Sweet 16. As a sophomore, she helped the hockey team win the NCAA hockey championship.

Kelter’s dream of playing in the Olympics never came to fruition in soccer or hockey, although she came close in hockey — she was one of the last players cut from the 2014 team that claimed the silver medal at the Sochi Olympics.

By then Kelter’s college career was over. For the first time, she was facing life without elite-level sports. Then the coach of the U.S. Olympic rugby sevens women’s team called and asked if she’d like to try something new.

Two years after she first touched a rugby ball, Kelter was a member of the U.S. team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Women’s rugby made its Olympic debut that year, and in a first-round game against Fiji, Kelter became the first American woman to score an Olympic try.

The 2016 Games marked the first of three straight Olympics for Kelter, a stalwart for the American team for more than a decade. At the Paris Olympics, at age 33, she helped the Americans capture the bronze medal with a third-place finish.

– Beth Bragg