by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
A former All-American and six-year professional, Katie Kelly, is the new women’s assistant soccer coach at Kansas City Kansas Community College.
A Kansas City native, Kelly played one professional season with FC Kansas City and five years in Sweden, Germany and Finland before retiring at the end of the 2015 season to begin a career in coaching.
“We’re really happy to have someone as talented as Katie,” said Shawn Uhlenhake, who is in his first season as head coach. “She obviously has a tremendous amount of playing experience as well as working with countless athletes which will make her a tremendous asset to our program.”
Kelly also comes with coaching experience. While a member of FC Kansas City in 2013, she was the technical director of coaching for a club team in Lee’s Summit for 1½ years and served as an assistant at Johnson County Community College for one season. Since returning to Kansas City, she’s also started her own soccer camp company.
“I’ve sacrificed a lot of time with friends and family so it was time to come back home,” Kelly said. “I’m really looking forward to working with Shawn and our players. I love to learn. There are tons of different styles and I’m looking forward to learning.”
A Kansas City, Mo., native, Kelly helped lead St. Teresa’s Academy to three state championships in her four years, earning all-state and all-district honors in each of her final three seasons. Her play earned her a scholarship to Marquette University in Milwaukee where she played every game in her four years there.
“We made it to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen as a freshman and the playoffs every year,” Kelly said.
A right defender, Kelly was named to the NCAA All-America second team and the All-Big East first team as a senior in 2008. She graduated from Marquette with a major in marketing and public relations that following spring.
She began her professional career in Sweden, playing for a team in Kristanstad in 2010 and Stockholm in 2011. The 2012 season was spent in Liebstadt, Germany, before returning to Kansas City with FC Kansas City in 2013. Her last two seasons were spent in Finland in Kokkla and Aland. The seasons in Sweden and Finland ran from March to October; the season in Germany from January to June.
Generally, teams were made up of about half the players from the country in which the team played. The rest of the teams represented a huge melting pot of nations.
“Each coach had different connections,” Kelly said. “One of our coaches was from Iceland so we had five players from Iceland. Other years we had players from New Zealand, Italy, Nigeria, Ghana, Hungary and the U.S.
“There were a lot of language barriers but we learned how to make things work. It also gave me an appreciation of cultures,” she said. “You never got to choose your teammates or who you lived with. I was very blessed with good natured people.”