OJR grad and mom competes globally
Owen J. Roberts graduate Kelly Marks blends motherhood and international-level field hockey
The things you never forget are usually etched in the mind by the best or worst memories.
Or they can be both as Kelly Marks would attest.
“I can still feel the pain of when I tried out,” said the 2010 Owen J. Roberts graduate of her 2018 tryout with USA Field Hockey. “After those two days, I literally could not lift my legs into my car. We had a baby gate at my parent’s house and I couldn’t get my legs over the baby gate without actually having to pull them up with my arms.”
Honestly though, what in the world was a mother of two who had barely played competitively in five years doing trying out for the United States women’s national field hockey team anyway?
She was earning a place on the U.S. Development team, that’s what.
“I would have never guessed in a million years that it would have happened,” she said.
That was just the entry point. By the end of the year, Marks was called up to the U.S. Women’s National Team, training full time with the senior team before making her first international appearance on June 15, 2019 in China in the USA’s final road game of the FIH Pro League.
It was the pinnacle of a field hockey journey that began by chance in Elverson and had a few detours on the way to a blue field in Changzhou last year.
“I needed to pinch myself. Is this real? One, we’re in China. Two, I’m about to step out on an international field, in an international game, earning my first international cap, playing with people I see on my computer or TV,” Marks said.
“Stepping out onto the field, I think the most surreal moment and the moment that still gives me chills is when you’re out there in the lineup and they’re playing the National Anthem. That moment … I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
She also has the unique distinction of also being known as ‘mom’ to 4-year-old Oliver and 3-year-old Lily.
Currently, the University of Albany graduate is again living in the area, with parents Dan and Sue Bonner, as she blends motherhood and chasing her field hockey dreams as a player and coach.
She is again a member of the U.S. Development team, which operates as a second team to the USWNT, and a member of the U.S. Indoor National team. The training and competition is less frequent than the national team, which trains fulltime in Manheim, but fills the schedule with weekend training camps and occasional international competitions, especially early in the year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on the activities of those teams with the Indoor Pan American Cup in March and the Development team’s training camp in North Carolina and tour of Scotland in April all cancelled.
The former Kelly Bonner was a leader on Owen J. Roberts’ breakthrough team in 2009 that qualified for the District 1-3A finals and PIAA Championships for the first time under longtime coach Clarence Jennelle.
It was quite a rise from someone who only entered the sport by chance.
“I only started playing because my neighbor, Lauren Edelman, made me play,” Marks said. “She called me one day and said, ‘Play field hockey with me.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know what that is, but OK.’
“I didn’t have a fall sport and she had changed from soccer to field hockey so I just said, ‘OK, that sounds good. I’ll play.’”
She also played basketball and softball, but after joining Jennelle’s X-Calibur club team, she eventually turned her focus to field hockey, but only later in high school.
The success of her high school career seems to still resonate as the OJR field hockey program has proven to be one of the premier programs in the area across any sport.
“I remember Amanda Coffey (Class of 2007), she was going to college to play and for me I was like, ‘Wow, that’s awesome!’ When you have players like that, it inspires a lot of the younger generation,” Marks said. “I remember as I got older, more younger girls were starting to play and be more interested in field hockey, to play club. You see these younger girls coming in and getting better and better each year. To be able to build a program that way - it’s such an inspiring way to keep building a program, by having these younger athletes that are getting involved and seeing success happen.”
She only pursued college opportunities in the winter of her junior year – extremely late by today’s measures – yet found a place at Division I Old Dominion, in Norfolk, Va.
But after two seasons at Old Dominion, Marks chose to transfer and was at a crossroads.
“I was really thinking about just not playing and just maybe taking that next semester off and be at home and look around,” she said. “But I just started feeling like I did want to play and decided to reach out to a couple coaches, reach out to some friends and hear what they thought of their programs.”
Among those friends was University of Albany student Corinne McConville, who Marks played club with at X-Calibur.
Marks decided it was a fit and played her final three seasons at Albany, helping the Great Danes on an improbable run to the NCAA Division I Final Four in 2014, her senior season.
“By the time I got to my senior season, it just reminded me of high school a little bit and having that really good group of girls and personalities together. We had good hockey players but I think the success of our team came down to our chemistry,” Marks said. “We ended up going all the way to the Final Four, which Albany had never done before. It was just such an awesome experience. I say I left my senior season with 17 best friends and we still reach out to each other and keep in contact.”
She believed her field hockey career to be over after the success of her senior year, going out on a high note: “We had a great senior season but my mindset was, ‘I think I’m done with this. I’m putting the stick down,’” she said.
She was already married at that time, having wedded Ben Marks, who she met while attending Old Dominion, in 2013.
They welcomed son Oliver in September 2015, and later daughter Lily in January 2017 while residing on Long Island.
Meanwhile, Marks became drawn back toward field hockey after seeing a former teammate playing in an adult league at Columbia University on social media.
It wasn’t long until Marks was playing again … and coaching, too.
“I ended up starting coaching in 2016 at Sacred Heart Greenwich and coached middle school while I was pregnant with my daughter,” she said. “That was the little bug that bit me and I just knew that I wanted to keep coaching.”
“I did a season there and I absolutely loved coaching the girls. It taught me a lot about myself, about what I knew and didn’t know about the game. It taught me a lot as a player and how to be a coach and I started to learn from other people around me.”
She went on to be varsity head coach for two years at New Canaan High School in New Canaan, Conn.
In November 2017, while attending the National Hockey Festival in Palm Beach County, Fla., as a club coach, Marks got an unexpected question: “(A friend) pulled me aside and asked me, ‘Are you trying out for the national team?’ I laughed. I was like, ‘No … why would I do that?’ She was like, ‘Just think about it.’
“I asked a couple people, do you think I should? Shouldn’t I? I hadn’t played in a few years. But finally I said, ‘What do I have to lose?’”
Nothing obviously, but you can’t just snap your fingers and become an international-level athlete.
“Just playing the first game in that adult league, I could not get out of my bed the next morning without falling over,” Marks said. “I had not done that kind of physical activity in a very long time.
“I’m very into fitness and always have been, so I knew that if I’m going to move like this again I really need to get moving.”
She certainly did, but competing for a national team spot goes to a different level … and can turn baby gates into near-insurmountable hurdles.
Nonetheless, Marks leaped the hurdle after a four-day trial to select the Development and Under-21 rosters in early July 2018.
Then in November she was invited by then-head coach Janneke Schopman to train full-time with the National Team in Lancaster at Spooky Nook Sports.
Ultimately, the full-family decision was: “An opportunity like that, I couldn’t say no,” Marks said.
Marks was now competing at the highest level of her entire career while navigating a more challenging home life than any of her teammates, which admittedly tested her.
“The hardest part was the mental part because you deal so much with training everyday, a coach that is so demanding, teammates that are so demanding and you’re demanding of yourself and then trying to let that go when you go home and transition back into being a mom and focusing on them,” Marks said.
Marks was a training player for six months until being a full callup in May while the U.S. was competing in the FIH Pro League, a national team league with nine of the top field hockey nations in the world playing its inaugural season. She got her first shot to play for the USWNT in its final Pro League road game, in China, becoming the latest Pioneer Athletic Conference alumnus to play for the U.S. Women’s National Team, joining current team members Ali (McEvoy) Campbell, a former Boyertown standout, and Casey Umstead, from Upper Perkiomen. “Even if I only have one cap, that is such a rewarding and emotional time, to stand there in a U.S. jersey representing my country with 20 teammates standing next to me,” she said. Though she was not selected again to the national team, now under new coach Caroline NelsonNichols, she’s returned to the Development team and added the U.S. Indoor National Team, which trains out of The Training Center in Spring City. “With the indoor team, it was something that was just ‘Why not? I’ll try it.’ And it’s been one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in a long time,” Marks said. “Especially with indoor hockey - I wasn’t a big fan of indoor in high school mostly because i knew that my skills were not great and indoor showcases skills. It’s a lot faster of a game. “The head coach, Jun Kentwell, she does a phenomenal job with skills and wanting us to play with passion and to love the game and to be ourselves. I’m so happy I joined that team.” Her field hockey life wouldn’t be complete without coaching – she’s coached club with West Chester Eagles, assisted at the JV level at Owen J. Roberts last fall and is in line to lead the varsity team at Tatnall School in Delaware in the fall. “I absolutely love the high school level. There’s something about it that’s extremely rewarding, to watch these girls grow up and become young women and to find themselves whether it’s through sport or not,” Marks said. “I hope I can help guide them somewhere they want to be in any way I can.” Marks knows more than most that pursuing goals isn’t done alone. “I definitely couldn’t have done this without the support of my husband at the time and my parents who are helping me so much with the kids,” she said. “If I didn’t have the support system it probably really would not have happened. I’m so appreciative of everything and the people I’ve had around me.”