Cold Spring has produced its share of athletes, but every once in a while, one comes along who seems to move through the world with a different operating system. That’s Rachel Shewmaker, Bishop Brossart’s all-around three-sport dynamo heading to Bellarmine University on a soccer scholarship.
Shewmaker is currently tearing it up on the softball diamond with a .412 batting average and a home run for the 8-1 Mustangs. The fundamentally sound senior has yet to strike out this season in 29 plate appearances and doesn’t get caught stealing bases.
Similarly, the Bishop Brossart straight-A student has never been caught with anything less than a perfect grade-point average on her report card. But she’s been caught catnapping because it seems like she’s always on the run and doing something related to softball, soccer, basketball, schoolwork and home life.
“I like keeping my schedule full,” she said. “It’s fun and keeps me organized, and sometimes I need a little nap.”
When you live in a virtually constant state of motion, as Shewmaker does, a power nap isn’t an indulgence — it’s fuel.
A big plan and a long résumé
Shewmaker’s secret weapon as an athlete isn’t speed or strength or touch — though she has all of those. It’s her ability to manage a schedule. She has played three sports year‑round for more than a decade, sometimes with days that looked like this: school, high school softball practice 3–5 p.m., AAU basketball practice 6–7:30, club soccer 8–9:30. Downtime, then bedtime.
No wonder Shewmaker needs the occasional nap.
“Girl’s got to get her sleep,” she said.
Opponents know better than to sleep on Shewmaker. She’s a bona fide .400 hitter for the Brossart softball team with 11 career homers, including seven last season. Her latest, a March 20 home shot against Dixie Heights, was hit over the center field fence. That’s real power and merely one of a full range of superpowers on display from the moment she wakes up.
Shewmaker finished with nearly 800 career points and 600 rebounds for the Brossart basketball team, where, like softball, she earned all-district, all-region and all-conference honors. Shewmaker led the team in rebounding as a senior. She led the Mustangs in scoring as a sophomore.
In her Brossart soccer career, Shewmaker scored 72 goals and assisted on 53. She led the team in scoring and assists twice each. She earned all-district, all-region, all-conference honors and was named all-state as a senior.
Shewmaker was a team MVP in both soccer and softball. She has earned well over 100 honors with about 20 trophies, 40 plaques, 40 medals, 15 rings and 50 certificates. Many accolades mean lots of people to please, and Shewmaker has managed to thread the needle.
“The coaches at Brossart were extremely understanding,” said her mother, Emily. “They knew when she missed things, she wasn’t sitting around.”
Sitting around? Not Rachel Shewmaker.
In addition to all the sporting involvement, the high achiever is a KHSAA Academic All-State first teamer with a weighted GPA of 4.31. Shewmaker is a National Honor Society officer at Bishop Brossart and an officer of the school Kindness Club. She’s also a member of the Drug Free Club and National History Club.
Origin story
Born in early March eighteen years ago, Rachel is the second daughter and second of three children. She has always had a March kid’s temperament — gentle as a lamb until she decides not to be.
That switch is flipped on the field of play where Rachel becomes a lion. It can be exhausting for a teenager, but not for a teen that knows how to lean into grabbing some Zs.
“For being the busiest person I know, she definitely gets her sleep in,” her father Bob Shewmaker said.
Otherwise, she’s the kid who can score three soccer goals in a state championship match, then go home and clean her room while watching Netflix.
She’s also the kid who at age 3 in her first YMCA soccer game, blasted through the defense, knocked over multiple children, scored, and looked back at her parents with a face that said, “Oh. This is easy.”
“A big smile,” her dad recalled Rachel giving that day. “I remember thinking, she might be a good athlete.”
The magic of Rachel Shewmaker isn’t just the athleticism. It’s the way she carries herself. Off the field, she’s unassuming, well-mannered and mighty efficient.
Bishop Brossart girls soccer coach Andy Smith has said it: when the whistle blows, Shewmaker becomes something else entirely — a gamer who doesn’t mind doing the dirty work.
Family that made it possible
The Shewmaker household runs on a kind of joyful logistics chaos that only sports families understand. Bob is a vice president of business finance. The former Emily Kleier, a Bishop Brossart alum, is the chief operating officer of a Covington firm.
Emily also played three sports at Brossart and played soccer at Thomas More. She has a special appreciation for her youngest daughter. “I’m in awe of Rachel,” she said. “She amazes me with her natural, pure talent.”
Bob grew up in Louisville and played baseball at Eastern High. He also played baseball at Thomas More, where he and Emily met. These are busy people with three kids in and out of the house going on 16 years. Oldest child Brooke traveled from Bellarmine University on Saturday.
The Shewmakers have spent the last decade in a perpetual divide‑and‑conquer formation in support of their three athletic children. There have been several occasions when all three were playing in three different states at the same time. The couple once showed up to their son Brandon’s baseball game together and other parents assumed they weren’t married because they’d never seen them in the same place.
The old family van — a 2007 Honda Odyssey with 340,000 miles — was older than Rachel. It was a workhorse, hauling athletic equipment across roughly 12 states, from New York to Mississippi. It also served as Rachel’s personal sanctuary. While Brooke and Brandon irritated each other in the captain’s chairs, Rachel sat alone in the back with the bags, blissfully unbothered, sometimes napping.
The van eventually broke down in 2024, so the grandparents logged miles too, visiting Columbus, Indianapolis, Lexington. “Bob and I did the long drives,” Emily said.
By conservative estimate, the family has driven 150,000 miles in service of Rachel’s athletic life alone. That’s not a statistic; that’s a love language.
Sister power
Included in the love is the older sister who sharpened the younger. Brooke, a one-time Brossart athlete extraordinaire herself, is three years older, and really brings the big‑sister energy. Their dynamic is competitive affection at its purest. They play for each other, root for each other and inspire one another.
“I’m really excited she’s coming to Bellarmine,” Brooke said. “We’ve got a really good bond.”
The sisters played high school sports together. They built a shared highlight reel that includes Brooke hugging Rachel first after Rachel scored a go‑ahead run in Brooke’s final high school softball game. Brossart ended up losing. After the contest, Rachel told her mom she was upset she hadn’t done enough to continue her sister’s season, even though Rachel went 2-for-4 with three RBI and two doubles.
“She always seems to keep her cool, but she hates to lose,” her mom said. “She’s a great teammate. Not selfish. Makes others look better.”
For dad, it was one more memory in a stack that keeps growing.
“It was the first time we saw our competitive girls show emotion for each other,” their father remembers. “In Rachel’s eighth grade year, Brossart lost in the first round of the 10th Region. Brooke went 1-for-2 with a walk and Rachel also went 1-for-2. Rachel was named all-tournament. To this day, Brooke is still irritated about this, and Rachel enjoys hanging that over her head; still competitive to this day.”
And now, after three years, they’ll be on the same side again — at Bellarmine — Brooke in softball, Rachel in soccer, for a year together. Brooke, studying to be a nurse, is thrilled. Rachel, interested in dermatology, is relieved. “Brooke is definitely someone I look up to in all aspects,” Rachel said. “From clothes, to relationships, sporting advice, she’s my built-in best friend.”
The parents are happy in ways that go beyond sports.
“Just so proud to have two Division I athletes that have worked so hard,” their father said. “It’s crazy how it worked out. We love the proximity so that we can see games and the kids can come home when they have a day or two off.”
Word of advice — don’t sleep on Rachel Shewmaker.
“I can’t wait to get going,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of work and so much fun.”