City College music professor Kathleen Poe sits in her office looking comfortable and casual wearing a brown blouse with earrings that sway every time her head turns. The brunette pianist sits in front of a keyboard that stands in her office, and explains that she teaches piano to City College students.

As she rocks her brown shoe back and forth, a shoe that almost perfectly matches the color of her blouse, Poe starts to talk about her extracurricular activities.

“It was the toughest game we have ever played,” says Poe. “It was just a knock-down, drag-out fight and I ended up catching the winning touchdown.”

Although perfectly poised and feminine, Poe leaves it all out on the field. As a former tight-end for the Sacramento Sirens professional women’s football team, she won two national championships. She also plays recreational softball and is currently on the Fleet Feet running team. She runs 40 miles a week while juggling her job, music activities and a 6-year-old daughter.

“I’m on a running team now and I can’t explain it. It’s about the most natural thing you can do, it’s just you and your legs and the earth,” says Poe. “I have to go outside and breathe the air and be in the world. It’s intoxicating to work hard and breathe hard and push yourself as hard as you can. It’s the most natural high you can get and it also balances out all the various aspects of my life.”

Poe has been playing piano since she was nine and her mother noticed she was one of those people who took to music easily and quickly. It was her parents desire that she become a musician.

“They didn’t let me play sports when I was growing up; my parents were kind of old school,” says Poe. “I’ve always loved sports and I would sneak out to play sports.”
Poe’s parents told her she was going to be a musician, so Poe practiced three hours a day and got so burned out that she quit.

It caused such a huge rift in her family she ended up leaving home her senior year of high school.

“I was totally into this idea that I was never going to play piano again,” says Poe. “I quit for about 2-3 years.”

Music professor and Department Chair Robert Knable said that Poe sets a great example for her students in the community of a well-rounded teacher with a positive attitude.

“I think it’s great, she’s interested in a lot of different things,” says Knable. “I mean I don’t think of musicians as being very athletic myself. She’s a good role model for the students and the community.”

Holly Kivlin, a social worker and student of Poe’s, is amazed with the type of energy that Poe brings to the classroom and how much she has learned from her.

“I don’t know how she does it,” says Kivlin. “She is superwoman. She’s an excellent music teacher, she always comes to class with energy. She never seems uninterested and She’s very thorough. I appreciate that because you need that as a beginner.”

Poe was trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life and ended up going to a private music conservatory in San Francisco. She started picking up the piano again, saying it was easier to play when she did it for herself.

“When I went through college, I was a theater major and the theater building was right next to the music building. I would go in and play music and think, ‘Oh well maybe I’ll just sit down and play,’” says Poe. “When I started playing it again, it was way more fun when I was doing it and there was nobody listening to me practice and I just discovered something in the music that compelled me to play it.”

Growing up in a family where playing sports was considered un-ladylike, Poe says there is no age limit on following your dreams, and it’s OK to wait before you follow those dreams because you don’t have to do everything right now.

“Your life doesn’t end because you become a certain age,” says Poe.“You always have to have something to reach for and something to aspire to.”