Om Sioux City to Gorey
Added immense value to Co. Wexford
‘Mary saw me pointing at her and she looked down and she smiled and she winked and, as true as I’m sitting here, I turned to my grandmother and I said I’m going to marry that girl, and I asked her out a couple days later.
‘She said yes and, to make a long story short, I proposed on our third date, and then I had to go home back to the States to go to work. I didn’t see her for six months, and I flew her to the States to meet the parents.
‘I didn’t see her for another six months until the wedding. So she came to the States and she tried it for ten months, but Mary is the eldest of eight children and when she left, all seven brothers and sisters were still at home.
‘Three grandparents [were] living pretty much in the same street, and three months after we got married she got pregnant with our first.
‘The closer she came to having the baby, the more she wanted to come home, so after ten months in the States I said, right I’ll give it a try, I’ll try Ireland out. That was March 1, 1981, and I’ve been here ever since.’
While Kevin has become very much part of Gorey with his expanding family over almost 40 years, working an array of different jobs before owning his own company, there was still the hankering for football.
He came back to play the game for one brief season with the Dublin Celts, winning the Shamrock Bowl as the starting quarter-back. Klatt went 13 for 18, for 205 yards and three touchdowns as his side won 43-25.
But that was it for a long time with the sport he loved, although he kept in touch with what was going on with his Chicago Bears from televisioon (Iowa doesn’t have its own NFL team so many veer towards the Bears, Vikings or the Packers from neighbouring states).
Eventually John Lynch and Artur Guz came calling at the back end of 2015. They were in the process of setting up the Wexford Eagles. Lynch had been friends with Klatt’s son since they were children, so he was no stranger to the Iowan.
What started out as talking a look, helping them out in the initial stages, soon morphed into Klatt taking on the role of
Eagles’ head coach.
Kevin is clearly energised by the whole club, and they are a reflection of their leader as they continue to build a successful organisation.
There has been plenty of play-off heartbreak for the Eagles in their first four seasons. They have developed remarkably, but the rub of the green has just eluded them when it comes to end of season silverware.
Still, Klatt is in no doubt about the character of the group he leads. ‘I’ve been involved in team sports of one description or another for 50 years, and I have never, ever worked with a bunch of guys like the Eagles,’ he said.
‘Talk about guys from very diverse backgrounds, very different people when they are off the pitch.
‘Those guys get on the field [and] they just gelled, there’s no agro, there’s no politics, there’s no fighting, they are really, really truly the nicest group of guys you could ever hope to work with.’
After impressing with the Eagles, Klatt was scooped up to help with the Irish national team in various roles.
He walked away on good terms but, from hearing Kevin talk, things were always more complicated with Ireland than the laid-back, hard-working Wexford boys.
Klatt had high hopes for the Eagles to get back onto the field for their fifth season in the coming months, but unfortunately the entire Irish American football season has now been cancelled.
He’s taking all the precautions to keep himself and his family safe in Gorey but worries about his parents, both in their late eighties, back home in Iowa.
It’s a sobering thought to end this chat with a fascinating individual. From growing up in idyllic Sioux City to not being able to get back to where it all began, restricted from travelling and left hoping and praying that his parents avoid the danger around us.
To walk down those homely streets again, to bring those memories of a wee five-year-old out on the lawn getting that first taste of football, to live those moments with mom and pop again, we can all only hope and pray that the chance comes around once more real soon for Kevin Klatt.
AMAJOR overhaul of all aspects of Wexford football, including a restructuring of the under-age championships, is needed, in a bid to halt the Model county’s worrying decline. One is alarmed to note the gradual slump of football in the county. Having looked back over the past twelve years, Wexford have gone from a side competing with the elite counties to one down in the lower reaches of Division 4 of the National League.
In 2005, Wexford - under Pat Roe - lost a Division 1 league final to Armagh and, having been cocooned over recent weeks, I had some available time to look back on old videos, recalling Wexford’s magnificent footballing surge under Jason Ryan.
In 2008 Wexford enjoyed a marvellous championship under the Waterford native, starting off with that magnificent comeback victory, from nine points adrift, to defeat Meath in Dr. Cullen Park.
While Dublin prevailed comfortably in the provincial final, Wexford had the management skills and player strength to re-group, going on to defeat Down in the qualifiers and Armagh in the All-Ireland quarter-final, before succumbing to Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final, a game when one witnessed the goal of the championship from Ciarán Lyng.
Wexford’s progress did not end there, as in 2011 they once again qualified for a provincial final but lost to Dublin, a game they allowed slip from their grasp.
But the decline of the game over the past four seasons is more than worrying. If something is not done about it, it will get worse.
It now needs a collective focus from the County Board along with the management of all the Senior, Under-20 and Minor teams, county and clubs alike. There needs to be a realisation that things must improve, and improve fast.
There is a lot of work to be done. There is no one major thing, but a whole lot of small matters adding up that need to be addressed.
Starting with the under-age, there are so many divisions, that they just cannot be competitive or bring improvement, as in the end it leads to so many dead rubber games. I’d like to see an overhaul at Under-15 and Under-17 levels, having more competitive games, as that way you can improve.
Perhaps it’s time that an experienced individual was appointed to plan a way forward for football in the county from under-age right through to adult level.
One needs a prepared document, outlining a platform for the game in the county, one that will offer a way forward and prevent the game from sliding further.
Really, at this stage, it must be accepted that Wexford is a non-entity at under-age inter-county level, giving the county’s dismal championship record.
The slide at Senior level has been quite dramatic too, so alarming in fact, that if it was any other county it would have been immediately addressed. Not so in Wexford.
It’s very hard for the Senior football team to progress if the County Board are just doing their business as per usual. When Wexford hurling was in a bad place just over ten years ago, there was uproar, but I don’t see the same level of interest or concern in sorting out football.
From County Board level to all management teams involved at inter-county level, to the clubs, it needs an overhaul.
You look at the top counties, and they have a system which is prevalent right through all their teams. But it’s hard to say what Wexford stand for in football.
They had a system under both Pat Roe and Jason Ryan, one that played to the team’s strengths, elevating them to the top level.
One can see that Paul Galvin is trying to give his side an identity, which saw them push forward into a promotion spot until the league was halted. It would have been a huge boost for this young team to have achieved promotion, but they must wait a little longer.
At present there is some cause for optimism. Galvin is bringing with him a plan, based no doubt on what he learned with Kerry as a player, but this will have to be introduced to under-age level under experienced management, in order to provide a foundation for the future progress of football in the county.
Wexford need to turn it around. I believe Paul Galvin is the right man to oversee the necessary changes.