Makena Smith’s blank canvas

Center back has always been the position of choice for Makena Smith, Montana's first-year transfer. It was either that or center forward, her youth coaches told the player who was always a head taller than her peers growing up in southeastern Michigan.

One would have had her as a goal-scoring target, a natural fit for the daughter of the former Becky Ketola, who started 72 matches for Michigan State in the mid-90s, scored 18 goals and added 11 assists, who was on the Spartans' Big Ten championship team in '94, was second-team All-Big Ten as a senior.

But there was always something about that spot on the other end of the field, the one charged with stopping players like her mom. "I enjoyed doing the dirty work, tackling, loved winning the ball back and cleaning up," she says.

"I'm also kind of a control freak. When I'm at center back and talking to my teammates, I'm seeing the whole picture. It's almost like a blank canvas and I'm able to paint on it however I want to. When I get the ball, I get to decide where the ball goes with my initial first pass. I like having that control."

It was total control Smith held a few years back when she chose to commit to Purdue, picking the Boilermakers over Kentucky and Kansas, those glorious collegiate years sitting before her. It was control she still had when she opted to move on to Miami (Ohio) after one season at Purdue.

Last fall, after deciding to change schools once again, now seeking a third program in three years, she had largely given up control. Her list of options, despite being the same player who had Power 4 programs on her since she was 15, was dwindling.

"All the conversations were, you're in the portal again, this is a little concerning," she recalls being told. "People would reach out to me, then back off. You're a flight risk," they said, "we don't want to deal with you."

At the same time, Montana coach Chris Citowicki was in need of a player just like Smith. He was losing Charley Boone to graduation and had lost Reeve Borseth to a knee injury in the final game of the regular season, her return this fall to be gradual.

Smith thought she might be done with soccer, the portal full of potential but understandably wary suitors, who saw her history – one and done at Purdue, one and done at Miami (Ohio) – and opted to look at players who had shown more stability, who weren't tagged with so many question marks.

Then Montana reached out.

Recounting the entire experience last week, Smith said it's been enough to make her cry. Then she does, stopping in mid-sentence once she begins talking about her new home and the program that gave her just one more chance to be the college soccer player she knows she can be.

"Chris really took a chance on me. He was so confident in me from the start. They didn't know my story or anything about me, but they could see my intentions were pure in those previous situations," she says. "I wasn't just jumping from school to school. There were reasons for everything."

Is she a flight risk now? "Absolutely not. I absolutely love it here. It could make me cry how grateful I am."

She admits she never would have considered Montana coming out of high school, the four-and-a-half-hour trip from Brighton, Mich., to Purdue about as far as the homebody wanted to venture back then.

"I'd never been out West, so I didn't realize there was civilization here," she says, but perspective changes based on experiences lived. "The last two years, I wouldn't change a thing. Now I'm confident enough to live so far away from home."

Her dad, Steve, ventured westward from his hometown of Okemos, just outside of East Lansing, Mich., home of the Spartans, enrolling at the University of Denver as a freshman to ski race before reaching out to Michigan State men's soccer coach Joe Baum and talking his way to a tryout as a goalkeeper.

It's where he met Becky, the two settling in the familiar grounds of southeast Michigan and into jobs in medical sales, Cru and Makena, twins, finally arriving, the former named from Steve and Becky's trip to Paris where they got engaged, the latter for the beach in Hawaii where they were married.

The boy gravitated toward hockey, which he still plays in Texas in the North American Hockey League. The girl? She was all about soccer.

"My mom was my coach growing up. I wanted to make her proud. Every single game, we'd analyze film together," Makena says. "My parents just want the best for us. They want us to experience anything our potential brings us. Anything we want to do, they'll support us no matter what."

There was always that possibility, the full-circle chance: what if Makena goes to Michigan State and also plays for Tom Saxton, who coached Becky back in the day? But Saxton retired following the 2021 spring season after three decades leading the Spartans, right when Makena could start talking to coaches.

The first call she had – was it with South Carolina or Florida Gulf Coast, she can't remember – she took behind the closed door of her bedroom, the best to soak in the moment, solo, mom and dad just outside, trying to pick up what they could from their ears pressed against the door.

Even that process was complicated, Smith burdened by the heavy weight of a coach of her youth telling her she wasn't very good, certainly not good enough to play Division I soccer. But yet she had phone calls lined up with Division I schools from across the country.

In case that youth coach was right, she figured she best get this wrapped up quickly, her initial commitment going to Florida Gulf Coast the summer before her junior year, but later an administrative error was found, her scholarship got messed up and she was back on the market as a senior.

"I ended up decommitting November or December my senior year. I'm a faithful person. When God puts it on my heart for me to leave a situation, I have to leave," she says.

She started emailing schools, lining up ID camps to attend, going to showcases, ended up being able to choose from Kentucky, Kansas and Purdue, an intoxicating trio. "I ended up with Purdue. It was close to home. My parents played in the Big Ten. It felt right."

She played in four matches in the fall of 2023 as Purdue went 3-13-2, finished winless in 10 Big Ten matches at 0-8-2, which signaled the end for coach Drew Roff. Smith played in five early-season matches for Miami (Ohio) last season but didn't see the field after Sept. 22.

She has plenty of stories to tell from the last two years, as way of explaining why she is no longer a Boilermaker or Redhawk, but those are for her to have and to hold and not for us.

What she knew in November, when she entered the portal once again, was that her parents' support would never waver and that there was a program out there that would be just right for her. She knew it, even if she entered the process not totally believing it.

"She was mature enough and brave enough to read the situation and figure out it just wasn't a good fit where she was and that she needed to (enter the portal) again," says Citowicki, who has a way of taking the lost and the weary and shepherding them to greatness, of making them believe anything is possible.

In the abbreviated spring season of 2021, Charley Boone was at another school, saw action in two matches, was the only player who didn't make the travel squad. She decamped for Montana and became a two-time first-team All-Big Sky player and in June was named the USL W Defender of the Year.

Holding a similar backstory, Smith was brought to Missoula to help fill the large void left behind by Boone's departure. "She convinced me in our conversations that if we get her here, maybe we've got ourselves a diamond in the rough," Citowicki says of his early talks with Smith last November.

The coach knew it would take some time after Smith arrived in January. "If you transfer twice, there has to be some level of self-doubt, right? Can I make it? Can I not? She's so authentic and is super confident in who she is. She was just questioning her playing ability."

What he noticed first was Smith's ability to play a long ball out of the back. Not a kick-it-downfield-and-hope-for-the-best move but a strategic one, when she sees a player up the field holding an advantage.

"It's my favorite thing," says Smith. "If it's risky or not there, I'll play it safe, but the long ball is one of my strong suits. I have the leg to get it there. When I have the opportunity to play it over the top, I love to do it."

That hasn't been a Montana thing the last few years, with Boone and Borseth masters of the ground game and of on-point distribution. They wore teams down and shut them out with their simple but effective execution.

"Unlike Reeve and Charley, who focus on the people who are close to them, Makena sees the players furthest away from her first," says Citowicki. "She'll get the ball and her first look will be, can I play Chloe in behind? Then she drops this ball in behind and Chloe's on a breakaway.

"It's a variety we haven't had in a while. That's what I'm most excited about. With Reeve and Charley, we were very good at what we did. But with this, you don't know what's coming. She could go over the top or she could play short."

It wasn't until later in the spring semester, when Montana started playing its allowed exhibition matches, that Citowicki saw the full Makena Smith in action, a six-footer who plays like it, who won't back down against anyone, who gives the back line an imposing figure.

"I was watching her in practice and thinking, she's good. Then we played Washington State and I thought, holy crap, she is really good," he says. "We found ourselves a gem, a ball-winning presence we haven't seen for a long time here.

"We've had people who excelled in organization and control but Kena's ball-winning ability is just wow. We found something very special. When the games started, I had no idea she was that good. And then the confidence started coming back. Once she gets playing again, we're going to have a beast."

It wasn't that long ago – late November to be exact – that Smith and her mom made a visit to Missoula, hoping that things would work out, that Smith would not just find a landing spot but one where she could blossom into the player that was always inside of her, just waiting to emerge.

It's been quite a journey, so many lows, now so many highs. And she hasn't even played a match for the Grizzlies yet.

"It's such an honor that the coaching staff thinks I'm capable of upholding the program's standard," she says. "I've never had a coach be so confident in me, so open to communication and be so straight up with me while also believing in me. I'm excited to show what I can do on the field."

At her fingertips sits another blank canvas, in her hands the brushes, ready for her masterpiece, the depth and quality of which can only come with where she has been, what she's experienced, where she is and what's to come.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Charley Boone

Reeve Borseth

Makena Smith

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