Project 1,000 :: Kailey Norman
4/15/2014 12:00:00 AM | Soccer
April 15, 2014
Seven Montana freshman soccer players. Seven stories. Each 1,000 words. Today: Kailey Norman, a goalkeeper from Highlands Ranch, Colo.
What happens when crazy and soccer cross paths? As George, the coach whom Norman Dale replaced at Hickory High in the movie Hoosiers, suggests: There's the "guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and the guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don't matter. The second one you're kinda forced to deal with."
This isn't about basketball, and goalkeeper Kailey Norman is from Colorado, not Indiana, but she's next up in the Project 1,000 series, so we're kinda forced to deal with her.
So let's start there: Goalkeepers, at least the good ones, are either born crazy or they have to commit to the idea of non compos mentis when cleated up. Norman says so.
"I've never met a goalkeeper who isn't at least a little bit crazy," she claims. "We love to be the center of attention, and you've got to be willing to do crazy things in the net, like going after balls that you might get kicked in the face with."
So that's settled, but it's not the end of the craziness. In fact, her whole story is based on it.
Because what's crazier than the notion of Norman being on coach Mark Plakorus's team in the first place?
Not after Norman, whom Plakorus was watching for the first time, gave up perhaps the softest goal in the history of soft goals when Norman, then between her freshman and sophomore years at Valor Christian, was playing for Real Colorado at the 2010 Far West Regional and Plakorus was recruiting for TCU.
What matters now isn't the goal, but what happened the rest of the match. Norman put up a brick wall.
"I don't really remember that goal, but I remember being on fire after that," Norman says. "Part of my personality is that if I make a mistake or let somebody down, it's not happening again. That ended up being one of the best games of my life."
Norman led her team to a 3-2 victory, to the U15 region title and to a spot at nationals.
Need more crazy? How about when Plakorus took over at Montana in January 2011. One look at his roster made it clear he would soon need to recruit a keeper. Maybe the one from Real Colorado?
"When he first contacted me, I was like, Montana? There is no way I'm ever going to school in Montana. Is there any civilization there? All I could picture was cowboys on horseback," Norman admits.
"But I looked into it, came and visited and pretty much fell in love with it. The only other official visit I went on was Utah. I liked their program, but Mark really stood out to me."
Everything was aligned for Norman to be a four-year starter. She would be in goal the season opener against Air Force and play 6,000-plus minutes the next four seasons and go down in history as one of the best keepers in program history.
Kristen Hoon had just graduated, and the job was wide open for Norman to come in and win. Except she didn't.
Eight months later she puts the blame entirely on herself. So if she could be Marty McFly and DeLorean herself back in time, what advice would Norman give herself?
"I wasn't ready for what was expected of me when I got here. I did not take it as seriously as I should have," she says. "If I could go back, I would tell her, You need to get in shape and keep working at what you want to be as a goalkeeper.
"When I was getting recruited, I wanted to be the best goalkeeper to ever play at Montana, but I didn't act like it last summer. I didn't do my job to be prepared for what they needed me to do."
Part of the problem: Had Norman been able to look into the future, she would have seen players who were way better than she was expecting. Crazy good.
"I still remember one of our first practices. We were playing flying changes, and I just remember India Watne's shot. All of a sudden it was in the corner of the net, and I was like, Oh ... my ... gosh. That was a shot."
So she sat and watched as senior Kendra McMillen won the job and played every minute in goal the season's first 11 matches.
Until Oct. 4. With Montana trailing at the half against Sacramento State, Norman got her chance.
"That was probably the most nerve-racking thing I've ever done. Mark walked into the locker room and said, `Kailey, you're in,' " says Norman, who played forward from ages four through eight before moving to defender and finally to goalkeeper for her U10 team.
"So I grabbed my gloves and went out with (goalkeeper coach Eric Lona) and started warming up. It's probably good it was so sudden. If I had had more time to think about it, it probably would have killed me."
Norman kept the Hornets off the scoreboard the second half, then allowed just a single goal to Big Sky Conference champion Portland State two days later. She picked up her first career victory and first shutout the following weekend at North Dakota.
So is it crazy to think Norman, whose mom is a senior VP at Envision Healthcare and whose dad is a 911 dispatcher, could still be the best ever? Crazy to think she could take that unofficial designation away from Railene Thorson, who won 45 career matches and posted 19 shutouts?
"I think I can be," she says, "but it's going to take hard work. My mentality now is that I want to be deserving of what I get.
"I want to show that I deserve (the starting job) every single day at practice this spring, and I'm definitely going to do that this summer."
Because as Dr. Seuss once penned, "Being crazy isn't enough."
