July 14, 2015
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFKnights.com) -- Seven years had passed since Shelly Frick spent time hanging out in airports alongside teammates waiting to board a flight to the next stop. Yet, here she was, sitting on the floor of Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados playing cards with a soccer player, football player and volleyball player.
Within the first hour of meeting 24 strangers, Frick was officially inducted as the first Varsity Knight to join a Knights Without Borders trip when the international service-learning group visited St. Vincent and the Grenadines in May.
“That experience there, working with the kids and seeing that the student-athletes are so passionate, striving and thinking about the next things and just always wanting to be better, it’s now motivated me, in my career, to work even harder than before,” the former UCF softball player said. “I think I wouldn’t have had that realization without going on the trip.”
While she was a Knight from 2004-08, Frick helped the softball team to the 2008 C-USA Championship title and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. She compiled nearly every academic honor achievable, including the Order of Pegasus, the university’s most prestigious honor.
The Jacksonville native received her bachelor’s degree in 2008 before earning her master of business administration in 2010.
Frick’s career at Protiviti, where she started as an intern while still a student, has taken her around the world. After four years with the company in the Orlando office, she moved to San Francisco where a new practice was starting up. The idea of building up the practice appealed to her, as did diving into the Risk and Compliance solution line to work more in financial services.
After a year in California, she transferred to her current home in London where she works in financial crime, specifically focused on policy development and remediation work in anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing.
While she is thankful for the experiences Protiviti has afforded her and is excited for the opportunity for growth still ahead in her career with the company, Frick will always bleed Black and Gold.
“UCF is really my heart. It was so much more than I could have imagined, coming here and being a Knight,” she said. “Being in London now, or being in California before, when you come back, this is home. This is where so much of me was formed and formed the basis of what I’m doing now.”
Knights Without Borders didn’t start until 2013, so Frick, an avid traveler (she visited 14 countries in 2014), was ecstatic to learn she could take part as a Varsity Knight.
Senior Woman Administrator Jessica Reo knew Frick would be a perfect fit.
“Shelly is one of those student-athletes who stood out to me from the first day I met her,” Reo said. “She is very adventurous. She takes on challenges. She’s really not afraid of anything.”
Reo also had a gut feeling that Frick may be interested in helping out a new initiative long in the works for UCF: a fund specifically for women’s sports. Frick wrote a check without hesitation and effectively became the first to donate.
“I can’t see it going to a better cause,” Frick said. “There are so many opportunities out there for women; it’s just getting them to the right places. By supporting it financially, you can help create those opportunities for them.”
It’s fitting that Frick harped on the importance of opportunity.
Her Order of Pegasus photo hangs in one of the hallways of the UCF Athletics administration building. Her megawatt smile is accompanied by her own words:
“UCF definitely stands for opportunity: the opportunity to grow as an individual, learn as an academic, define my character as a person, and be prepared with the necessary knowledge and skills to guide my future.”
Story by Jenna Marina; Video by Chip Fontanazza