Ben McCall/Sun photo
PUTTING OUT THE FIRES ... Olathe East senior Katie O’Keefe proved to be an expert in stopping opponents from scoring on the Class 6A state champions. She is the 2008 All-Sun Girls Soccer Defensive Player of the Year.
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Extinguisher
Lockdown defensive skills, selfless ways fuel athletic 5-10 senior for 6A champs
By: Mark Dewar, Sports Editor
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Take your bright lights and blinking marquee signs and shine and blink them someplace else.
Thanks, but Katie O’Keefe, the All-Sun Girls Soccer Defensive Player of the Year and most recently the lockdown senior center defender (or sweeper, depending upon one’s nomenclature) for Class 6A state-champion Olathe East, is that rare mix in 2008 of gifted and selfless performer who is simply looking to blend.
“I don’t necessarily like being the center of attention,” said the 18-year-old Olathe resident, who will continue her career next season for the University of Central Missouri. “The goal scorers, that’s the big deal, and I like being on the opposite end of that.”
Yeah, good luck with that, admirable as such a pursuit might be. When you serve as the defensive glue for a 19-1-1 championship squad, one that allowed only 11 goals all season while scoring 78, the accolades have their way of finding you.
The Hawks turned back Maize 3-2 in this year’s 6A title game at the Blue Valley District Activities Complex, but only after O’Keefe made a critical block of an early shot that kept Maize from taking a 1-0 lead.
Mentors, too, have a knack for locating the glue that cements a talented team to its 6A state-championship plaque. Then for that glue they stick up themselves when voting time for post-season honors rolls around.
The Sun’s ranks among those honors, as the area’s coaches selected O’Keefe The Sun’s Defensive Player of the Year through our late-season balloting process. She is now a two-time All-Sun first-team defender as well.
Furthermore, O’Keefe became a two-time 6A all-state selection this season courtesy of the Kansas Soccer Coaches Association, in addition to a repeat coaches’ choice for All-Sunflower League Defensive Player of the Year honors.
Granted her mere verticality alone makes the 5-10, athletically built O’Keefe hard to miss on the pitch. But so, too, does that increasingly rare approach of hers. She would opt for a successful team mission any day over an individual attagirl.
So when she goes about her business of squashing the potential artistry of a goal-seeking striker or midfielder in much the way a windshield can rob a flying bug of its spunk, it makes perfect sense that rather than view her own efforts for their ESPN Sportscenter value, she views them as, gasp, her job.
“I think it does feel really cool,” she said of snuffing out enemy offensive threats “But it’s also like, ‘That’s what I’m supposed to do.’ So it’s just like part of my job. I don’t think it’s anything bigger than how I’m supposed to play the game.”
No wonder Terry Hair, Olathe East’s lone boys and girls soccer coach throughout its noteworthy history in the sport, is going to miss this kid O’Keefe so much. A love of team is tough to find by the barrel.
Or as Hair put it, “That adage, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ definitely fits Katie,” he said in lauding the on-field talents of the three-sport athlete (she also competed in volleyball and basketball for Olathe East). She’s been the quarterback of the defense, the mortar that holds all those bricks together. She’s a truly gifted athlete.”
The scouting report on O’Keefe gives her high marks in terms of her soccer intelligence – boosted by her own 3.9 grade-point average in the classroom – as well as her ability in the air. Despite playing in the back, she still scored seven goals for the Hawks, the third-best total on the team this banner season.
And even with 16 years at the school to his credit, Hair cops to the fact O’Keefe refreshed his own perspective in terms of the truly special effects team play can yield.
“She has allowed me as a coach to appreciate the true meaning of a team,” Hair said. “She just molded that (championship) team to become more like her personality.”
That personality, of course, places team colors way above individual socks.
Case in point: Following a rare Hawks hiccup early this season that resulted in a scrimmage loss to its own jayvee, Hair asked that his captains address the team.
For the record, it just may have marked the only time all year O’Keefe broke down. She openly sobbed. After all, her Hawks team had gone undefeated the previous year, then suffered an upset loss to Blue Valley North in the 6A state title match.
These heartfelt tears of hers spoke volumes in terms of how badly O’Keefe wanted this team, eventually the undefeated Sunflower League champs at 11-0 who allowed just .27 goals per match, to go out on top at state.
For O’Keefe and these Hawks, mission accomplished. Credit the senior leader with the sort of final assist to Olathe East that is precisely in keeping with her own dreams and those of the program itself.
“I may have had some other better-skilled teams in past years,” Hair said. “But I’ve never had one that was more considerate of working together for an ultimate goal and becoming true friends for life.”
Contact Mark Dewar at 385-6061 or mdewar@sunpublications.com