By Craig DeSilva
There are days when Kathy Carey can do it all -- on the field, on the court, and in the water.
“On my dream days, I’ve gone bodysurfing in the morning, played racquet ball in the afternoon, and had a soccer game at night,” says Carey. “That’s as good as it gets.”
But it’s not all fun and games for Carey. The mother of four children, she juggles family duties with her job as an assistant coach for the University of Hawaii Wahine soccer team, which finished its best season ever in 2007 with a trip to the NCAA tournament. Still, she makes time to fulfill her physical pursuits. She plays in two soccer leagues on Oahu, including the Holomua team for women 50 and over, which recently won its third straight national championship.
“I like games,” says Carey. “I’ve never been one to enjoy aerobics, swimming or running. I’ll do them to stay fit for games that I play, but I’ve always needed a game for the reward.”
The granddaughter of Roy and Estelle Kelley, founders of the Outrigger Hotels chain, Carey grew up surfing at the beach outside her family’s Diamond Head home. Her father, Richard Kelley, encouraged his children to play outdoors. But unlike today, where community sports teams can be found at almost every neighborhood park, there were almost no organized sports -- let alone girls teams -- when Carey was growing up in the 1960s.
It wasn’t until she was a teenager when the first women’s soccer league was created on Oahu. A friend convinced her to join, and she was immediately hooked. In high school at Punahou, she joined the boy’s soccer team during her senior year. (Punahou started a girl’s squad the season after she graduated.) At Stanford University, where she lettered in soccer, Carey joined the freshmen men’s team and then joined the women’s team when it was formed during her sophomore year. Playing with the boys at first was no big deal. In fact, it made her a better player. “My teammates and coaches were always supportive and never made me feel inferior,” she says.
Carey now fosters the sport to a new generation of women. She coached high school soccer at Punahou for 12 years and has been with the UH Wahine program since its beginning. “I’ve seen women grow up knowing they can do anything, whether on the athletic field or professionally. My generation didn’t have that. Now, my girls have grown up thinking they can play any sport they want,” she says.
Carey has discovered that as she gets older, she’s more prone to injury. So she does sprints or hops on a treadmill or stair climber to keep in shape. She loves to hike and bodysurf at Sandy Beach. When she’s traveling, she seeks out the hotel gym to fit in some exercise.
Carey’s approach to eating is the same as staying active. She doesn’t make a big deal of it. Salads and healthy sandwiches for lunch. It’s part of her lifestyle because she says, “It’s easier to keep in shape than get in shape.”
So what’s next for this life-long athletic competitor? She’s entertaining the notion of taking up golf with her husband, Outrigger President and CEO David Carey. She’s worried the pace may not be fast enough to hold her interest. “But don’t tell my husband that,” she whispers.
