Mindy grew up in the small town of Grand View, Idaho and went to Rimrock Jr/Sr High School. The summer before her freshman year she qualified to go to the Junior Olympics in Provo, Utah in the high jump.
She placed 2nd in her age group of 33 girls. In high school Mindy lettered all four years in volleyball, basketball and track. In volleyball she earned 1st team all‐conference honors her sophomore through senior years and broke 13 school records. In basketball she earned 2nd team all‐conference honors her freshman year, 1st team all‐conference honors her sophomore year, 1st team all‐conference and 1st team all‐state honors her junior year and was league MVP, all‐state A‐4 player of the year, and a Converse All‐American her senior year. She also broke 4 school records, 2 state tournament records (45 points in a game, 100 points in the tournament) and tied another state tournament record (17 field goals in a game).
Mindy accepted a scholarship to play volleyball at the University of Idaho. She was a Big Sky 2nd team all‐conference selection and MVP of the conference tournament her junior year. Her senior year she was named league MVP, conference tournament MVP, All Northwest Region 1st team, American Volleyball Coaches Association 2nd team All‐American (1st All‐American in conference history), Volleyball Magazine 3rd team All‐American, was 5th in the nation in kills per game, named the Idaho Woman Athlete of the Year and the Inland Empire Amateur Female Athlete of the Year. After the volleyball season was over Mindy walked onto the basketball team and was a 1st team all‐conference selection that season as well as the next season (1st player in Big Sky conference history to be named all‐conference in both volleyball and basketball).
During the summer of 1995 Mindy participated on one of the 4 volleyball teams in the Olympic Festival in Boulder, Colorado. In 2007 she was inducted into the Idaho Vandal Athletic Hall of Fame as a charter member, and was part of the 1994 volleyball team that was inducted in 2011. In 2004, after teaching and coaching for 9 years in Emmett, Idaho Mindy became a stay at home mom to her 3 greatest accomplishments: Dane, Dallan and Brooklyn.