Chelsey Gregg always knew she wanted to make a career out of sports. Since she can remember, sports have played a major role in her life. A soccer and basketball star growing up, she learned so many life lessons from her coaches and teammates. She poured her heart into sports; she gave it everything she had, and sports gave her so much in return.

Now the associate head coach for the Portland State women's basketball team, Gregg had a chance to speak to a crowd of 100-plus young girls last Thursday as part of a National Girls and Women in Sports Day celebration.

The nationwide celebration has been happening for 33 years and this year the theme was Lead Her Forward. The NGWSD website says the day is "to honor the many ways that sports push girls and women to achieve excellence and realize their boundless potential." It began in 1987 in Washington, D.C. as a way to bring more national attention to girls and women in sports.

Gregg shared her story, telling the girls that the biggest thing that sports has taught her is self-confidence. She stood in front of the crowd as a role model, an encouraging sign for someone who didn't have many female athletes to look up to when she was younger.

"I don't know that I ever had, at that time, somebody that I looked up to," Gregg said of growing up in the 90s. "I mean at that time it was Michael Jordan, for a lot of players it was him. When I was younger it was Michael Jordan and it wasn't a female athlete."

Gregg now helps inspire the Viking women's basketball team, one of the best in school history at 17-4 with eight games remaining, on a daily basis. The team is incredibly diverse not just geographically — there are six foreign players on the team — but also in the roads they took to get here. Still, they have meshed into one cohesive juggernaut this season.

For Gregg, and for many coaches, the goal waking up every morning is to help her student-athletes achieve their full potential.

"You hope that you can help inspire them to be better every day, that is really what it is," Gregg said. "I think in all sports you try to take that away but I think for female athletes it is something special, something different, just empower them and they can be anything that they want to be and sports can help them fulfill that."

Over 100 local girls joined us for a great #NGWSD event last night. #LeadHerForward pic.twitter.com/MIROqdAgQ1

— Portland State Athletics (@psuviks) February 8, 2019

Thursday's event is part of a changing narrative. Men's sports tend to dominate the national news, traditionally, but there is a push for more of a balance.

It is the United States Women's National Team in soccer, not the men, that have raised three World Cup trophies. Still, they have to fight for equal pay. Chloe Kim, a 17-year old American, won gold in the Women's Halfpipe at the 2018 Winter Olympics and inspired the nation. Lindsey Vonn just retired after winning four World Cup overall championships.

Serena Williams, 23-time major champion, won the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant, took the rest of the season off. She returned in 2018 to reach the finals at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

Maya Moore, a four-time WNBA Champion who couldn't fit all of the trophies she's earned throughout her storied career in a single room, recently announced her retirement to focus on her family and ministry dreams. The success that these athletes have had both in sports and in life is inspiring to Gregg, who noted it used to be rare to see women succeed in sports while also living their best lives outside of the competition.

"I like to see that now you can be a successful athlete, but you can also be something on the side," Gregg said. "You can have a family, you can go have a ministry like Maya Moore, you can go do different things and still have a balance."

The staff and athletes at Portland State used their platform to help try to inspire more young women to pursue their dreams on Thursday night. There were athletes representing every women's sport at Portland State. They spent the hour leading up to the game running drills, playing games and just talking to the participants.

Trinity Gibbons, the Associate Athletic Director for Sales and Marketing at Portland State, organized the event. She said that one of the core values of the department is bringing people together and that Thursday was a chance to do their part and inspire people.

"Particularly on National Girls and Women in Sports Day we wanted to host an event where we could get some young women in the building, have an opportunity to show them what our student-athletes do on a day-to-day basis and hopefully inspire them to be powerful, confident, strong women through sports, but also show that those skills can transfer to their lives," Gibbons said.

The importance of the day could not only be seen on the smiling faces of every girl who participated, whether attempting a putt on the mat the golf team brought out or bouncing around a tennis ball happily.

It could also be seen on the faces of those helping, the student-athletes and staff that once upon a time were in the opposite shoes.

"Both for me personally and for our department, this day is absolutely important," Gibbons said. "We are serving 150 young women as well (here at PSU). This is core, it is essential to what we do and I think that now more than ever, everything that we can do as a community to empower young women to get involved in athletics and stay active in their life. I consider that almost essential to what we do every day in athletics."

The future is bright with these confident leaders of tomorrow! #NGWSD pic.twitter.com/NQDRyHwIb9

— Portland State Athletics (@psuviks) February 8, 2019

Kaila Gibson broke the school record in the women's indoor 5,000 meters just two weeks ago. It has been an exceptional year for the runner, who also cracked the top 40 at the NCAA West Regionals in cross country.

Thursday may have been a change of pace for her, but it also gave her a chance to be a role model to the younger generation. When Gibson grew up, she took inspiration from her mom.

"I think having role models is really good because you can see that your dreams are attainable," Gibson said. "You have people to look up to and you can see the paths that they have taken. I know with my mom, she played sports when she was little and played through high school and so I knew that was something that I wanted to do."

She started playing soccer at a young age, but competed in a number of different sports growing up. She said she always loved being in sports. When she reached high school is when she fell in love with the competition and knew she wanted to compete at a higher level.

Sports taught her to work hard, but it also gave her a sense of community. Growing up with a team around you, she said, helps to inspire self-confidence both in competition and in life.

She also had a message to any young women that couldn't be in attendance on Thursday.

"Start with having fun and enjoy being outside...There are a lot of fans out there and a lot of excitement about women's sports and it is only getting more exciting, so chase those dreams," Gibson said.

Women's athletics have come a long way, but still have so much further to go. Chelsey Gregg is proof. She grew up wanting to be like Mike. Now, girls can grow up wanting to be like Maya instead.

"I know I had conversations with my grandma and she would have loved to have played sports but that wasn't an option," Gregg said. "She would have loved to have maybe gone to college but that wasn't an option. She had a wonderful family and I think everything worked out the way it was supposed to, but the opportunity wasn't there. Now, how cool is it that even growing up in the 90s, it wasn't a question that I could go play sports and play with the boys. It wasn't ever questioned. I just knew I could do it."