From high school coaching to the pros, this KC soccer player has had quite the journey

Lacing up her cleats and stepping onto the green synthetic turf field at Swope Soccer Village, Allie Hess’s nerves were off the charts.

She hadn’t played a full-field 11v11 soccer match in years. She hadn’t played a 90-minute soccer match in just as long.

Despite having only been a coach for a couple of local teams and not playing competitively since 2017 at Mizzou, she was now expected to go toe-to-toe with a group of 30 players vying to play in the best women’s soccer league in the world.

Regardless of all of that, here she was, about to try out for Kansas City’s new National Women’s Soccer League team.

Her hometown team.

“It was really nerve-wracking because I hadn’t been in the league. I hadn’t been around pro players,” Hess told The Star. “And I think the coaches could tell I was pretty gassed.”

Week by week, the group of trialists was winnowed until only three remained. A month into the season, that number dwindled to two.

Soon after that, just one was invited to sign a pro with the team.

Allie Hess.

“The main thing that stood out was just her finishing,” KC coach Huw Williams said. “Arguably, in our training sessions, and this is what we saw in the tryouts, was that you could make a case that (Hess) is the best finisher that we have on the team.”

That’s high praise when it comes to a team that includes all-time NWSL top-seven goalscorer Amy Rodriguez.

But for a player Williams describes as one of the best on his old Elite Clubs National League youth team — a squad that included the Houston Dash’s Haley Hanson and Washington Spirit’s Dorian Bailey — it’s been a long journey to the top.

Trying to escape soccer

Hess has been playing soccer for a really long time. Pretty much since she could first walk and kick a ball.

So by the time she wrapped up a four-year career at the University of Missouri, she was ready to put that ball on a shelf. She’d suffered from ankle and other lower-extremity injuries that left her doubting whether she’d ever have any sort of future in the sport.

“My body had taken a pretty good hit, just from all the years of playing sports and playing soccer,” she said.

Majoring in health science, Hess did an internship related to her major during her final semester. It could’ve led her to a doctoral program. She didn’t enjoy the internship that much, though, so come summertime she was back home in Kearney.

That next step in her life came in the form of a phone call from her old volleyball coach at Kearney High, Megan Laws.

Along with soccer, Hess had also been a basketball and volleyball star at Kearney, and Laws wanted to bring her on as an assistant volleyball coach.

“I was like, ‘Man, this is it. This is where I need to be,’” Hess said.

That was fall 2018, and it was fun while it lasted. When volleyball season came to a close, her next opportunity fell into her lap: She was offered a coaching spot with the Kearney girls soccer team.

“It’s my old high school,” she recalled. “I would love to give back to the community that poured so much into me. And so I kind of stepped into that and loved it, absolutely loved it.”

After coaching at Kearney for the spring, and then a summer spent playing for the Charlotte Eagles of the Women’s Premier Soccer League — the second tier of women’s soccer in the U.S. — she found another coaching role at UMKC, where she continues to coach today.

“(Soccer) has a weird way of roping you back in,” Hess said. “But I think I needed that time off to realize that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

A return to the game

Hess had always wondered what might’ve happened if she’d decided to try to play pro soccer straight out of college. Between injuries and mental drain, she never gave it a shot.

But that nagging thought persisted.

Through her time in Charlotte and coaching sessions at with the KC Roos, in which she’d often suit up to even out the numbers, she began to notice a few things.

First, she was holding up physically. And more than ever, she was seriously thinking about playing pro. Perhaps overseas to start with, she thought.

Then, in December 2020, news of a new NWSL team broke in Kansas City.

“I had played with Huw for one year with Sporting (Blue Valley) and actually ended up texting him like, ‘Hey, is this a real deal? What’s happening with this?’” Hess said.

Williams invited her to the team’s open tryouts this spring, and the rest is history.

“Do I want Kansas City(-based) players on the squad?” Williams asked rhetorically. “Yes, but only if they deserve it. And right now, Allie is one of those players, and she’s on the team because she deserves to be on the team.”

Hess made her pro debut for Kansas City on June 6, coming in as an 83rd-minute substitute in a 1-0 loss to Houston. That’s her only minutes for the club so far, but the opportunity for her to earn more is certainly there, according to Williams.

Hess is currently rostered as a national team replacement for KC, meaning although she isn’t part of KC’s league-registered 28-player roster, when players leave for international duty (such as the current Olympics), she fills in as a replacement.

“My challenge at that point, and also hers now, is to prove that she belongs to be on our 28-player roster,” Williams said. “So moving from that practice squad to an actual roster squad when they come back. She’s definitely in that hunt.”

With three KC players currently with their respective Olympic squads, July and August present Hess a chance to solidify her spot on the team.

“To see someone bet on themself and finally get to that goal, whatever they had in mind, it’s been really cool,” Hess said. “Crazy, but I’ve loved every minute of it.”

This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "From high school coaching to the pros, this KC soccer player has had quite the journey."