Behind a Brilliant Mind With Kory O’Kelly
Behind a Brilliant Mind With Kory O’Kelly
By Sabra Cacho
The infamous Kory O’Kelly, Muscatine high school junior, widely known for his swag and soccer ability, started playing “foot” as O’Kelly calls it, at the young age of 10. He started off watching his favorite team, Manchester United, on television sparking his love of the game. This 16 year olds’ undeniable passion, and love for the game makes him strive to get better as mid fielder and leaser on the Muscatine soccer team.
His soccer hero, not a big television hot shot but a Muscatine resident and O’Kelly’s coach, “Oscar Alvarez Sr.,” O’Kelly says clearly, “I’ve known him since I was little, and he’s always given me little tips to get better, like on shooting”
Soccer has taught O’Kelly that “hard work can get you places,” as he dribbles a ball around his living room, with the Barcelona game on the television. His advice for new soccer players is “Get a ball to your feet and start experimenting,” O’Kelly states still dribbling his ball around and showing his new custom cleats, with Muscatine embroidered in the side.
In spite of the fact that most field players in soccer are known to be around 5’11, O’Kelly stands at a “5’15 and a half” as he puts it. O’Kelly shows all other characteristics of a soccer player: lots of stamina, being a good leader in the game, and most of all devotion for the game. Granted O’Kelly has begun to make his mark in soccer, there is much more to his story.
O’Kelly Born in Cedar Rapids, and home grown in Muscatine, has many talents other than soccer. Ranging from Wii bowling to staying calm, and not sweating the small stuff. Although O’Kelly seams to be a man of small words, he plans to do big things with his life, such as moving out of Muscatine as soon as possible.
A favorite quote of O‘Kelly’s is “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set we’d have peace,” by John Lenon, someone who is not only brilliant but both inspiring and fascinating to O’Kelly. Describing himself as “quietly brilliant” O’Kelly balances soccer, work, school and people who are important to him.
“My mom’s really important to me because of the sacrifices she makes, I really appreciate them, my brother because he reminds me someone is always looking up to me, and my friends because they put me in a good mood.” His childhood hero would be his grandpa because he had a love for family that O’Kelly envy’s and gave the best advice saying, “Always be thankful for people, you never know when they’ll be gone.”
O’Kelly would like his generation and himself to tolerate people more saying, “advice I would give to our generation would be to learn to love and respect others.” A lesson every walk of life could learn.
Nevertheless there are many things people don’t know about O’Kelly like, his favorite color being purple, his love to climb trees, or how he likes to walk or run in the middle of the night, his story always comes back to soccer.
His favorite weekend activities includes playing soccer with his friends in his backyard with a goal he made as a summer project. The best compliment O”Kelly ever received was from his soccer coach Jose who said “You work harder then anyone else and you deserve to be the leader of this team.”
O’Kelly would love to play college soccer, just about anywhere they would be willing to pay, though he’d prefer to play somewhere close to home. His favorite memory was a hat trick goal on Davenport West.
O’Kelly’s life is mainly soccer, but what’s in his “quietly brilliant” mind would truly surprise people, and shatter the mold of any soccer player.
