M y name is Kelsey Bing and I like to think – a lot. I love puzzles and problem solving. I roll them around in my mind for fun. Give me any problem and I will work to find a solution.
But put me in front of a field hockey goal and my mind goes blank. It has to, because my job is so simple: Keep the ball out of the net.
I’m a mechanical engineering major at Stanford and a goalie on the field hockey team. We’re ranked No. 21 in the country and we’re shooting for our third straight America East Conference tournament title this week at home.
There is much alike and much different about my two worlds. Both are filled with dynamics and motion. But while being analytical is ideal in the classroom, it’s a killer for a goalie. That’s why I continually have to remind myself: Don’t think.
Let me give you a glimpse of life behind the mask, at least from my point of view, and I’ll start with a situation – a shootout.
When the score is tied in field hockey, after two 35-minute halves and two 10-minute overtimes, the game is decided by a shootout, our version of penalty kicks. For five rounds, a player goes one-on-one against the goalie, with eight seconds to shoot.
My first thought: Get inside their head.
I always try to make eye contact. I’ll just look at them. Sometimes they look back, sometimes they don’t. You just want them to know the pressure is all on them. It’s such a mental game. I don’t want them to react to them, I want them to react to me.
You give up goals, but the best goalkeeper is a goalkeeper with no memory. Try not to think about the past, because it will distract you in the present.
However, the past does hold some insights into this life behind the mask. Therefore, this tour really needs to start at the beginning. When I first put on a field hockey helmet. And, oh my God … it was so gross!
•••
•••
I grew up in Houston. Not exactly a ‘hotbed’ of field hockey. Well … hot, yes, which makes it even nastier when you have to share a helmet with three of your teammates. Oh, those humid afternoons, sharing a sweaty dirty smelly helmet with a bunch of seventh graders … mmmph … let’s not go there ever again.
I don’t know how I remember this – probably watching replays of it -- but I got really excited about the 1999 U.S. women’s World Cup team with Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy. Naturally, at age four, I started playing soccer.
I played other sports too – basketball and lacrosse. But as a seventh-grader at St. John’s School, everybody had to play on a team each trimester. Field hockey was offered in the fall and I thought it would be most like soccer.
Our coach asked, “Who wants to play goalkeeper?” Silence. So, she upped the ante.
“Anybody who plays goalkeeper for a half gets to play the entire other half on the field,” he said.
There were about 30 girls on the team and I couldn’t imagine sitting on the bench. I had too much energy, too much adrenaline to sit still. I thought about it, did the math and found out that I would get much more playing time being a goalie. Sign me up! I took the deal.
Actually, four of us took the deal. Hence, the gross helmet.
I was terrible. I admit it. I didn’t really get any goalkeeper coaching, so I tried to figure it out myself. Self-analysis. I’ve gotten very good at it over the years.
By eighth grade, all the other goalkeepers quit. One of them flat out refused to do it another year, another joined the cross country team, and another played volleyball. That left me.
Now, my mom wasn’t really excited about this goalkeeper business. She couldn’t see how I could be satisfied confined to defending a circle when I had tons of energy, was extremely competitive, and much preferred to run around than sit still.
Truth be told, it’s still hard. If I finish a game and haven’t exerted myself, I’ll run around afterward until I feel sufficiently exhausted. Just because. I still tell everyone that I am a field player at heart.
Back to my mom … She wasn’t feeling it. She told me that it’s easy to go from a field player to a goalie, but it’s hard to go back. You just fall too far behind because you’re not using those skills anymore.
But I was getting some good vibes by playing goalkeeper, and starting to have some fun. I had just joined a club team, probably the only club team in the state, the Texas Pride. I had this idea that I would play in the field for either school or club, and in goal for the other. At the end of the year, I would decide.
When my club coach, Jess McClain, saw me in goal, she said, “You’re really good at this.”
“No I’m not,” I said. “I’m just trying this out. I kind of want to be a field player.”
But she was emphatic.
“No, you actually could go places.”
She was the first one who really saw my potential.
•••
•••
Again, not totally convinced, I tried out for Futures, a developmental program that begins at a regional level and is the first step to the national team. But I did so as a field player. My main motivation was to make the Junior Olympics, which would be played in Houston.
I did more than that.
The way the U.S. pipeline works, is they have people who sit at these games, wearing fancy caps and writing things down about each player. You get selected from a smaller regional tournament and then you go to a bigger national tournament.
I did pretty well. What helped me stand out was I was big (about 5-foot-10) and athletic, which for goalkeepers is not always a given. I quickly rose up the ranks. By the end of the summer, I was on the U.S. under-17 national team, and I was only 14.
And, I admit, I still didn’t know what I was doing. I clearly had never been coached before. If you watch film, it’s hilarious. They liked that because the U.S. system was looking for people that they could teach how to play their way. Now, I play exactly how they want me to play, because they’ve given me the only true goalkeeper coaching I’ve ever had.
I went home and all I could do was take what they had given me and apply it myself. I watched film of myself and of some of the world’s top goalkeepers. I would try to do what they did.
Within a few months, my club coach, Jess McClain, was selling the team. We only had about 20 players, and the skill level spanned from decent to dismal. Tina Edmonds, a 27-year-old from Virginia, was intrigued and willing to take a chance on a club that did not have a lot of stick skills or hockey experience, but was athletic, enthusiastic and had a decent goalie.
Yes, we once lost a game, 16-1, with only two 20-minute halves, and a running clock. Yes, we were bad, but we had fun. During one tournament, Kaylie Mings, now a Stanford teammate, and I managed to trick the front desk into giving us a key to Tina’s room through an extensive story involving a missing child and a phone call. Our entire team proceeded to hide in Tina’s room right before bed check.
Tina got really annoyed when she went through all the rooms and no one was there. When she finally came back to her room, the entire team was in her bed. It was a quality prank, and I am still proud of it to this day.
Tina built the program and it has continued to grow. The Pride now has more than 300 players, and an inordinate number of outstanding goalies, many of whom play the same way I do. Some may see it as a combination of confidence and elegance.
I was self-taught, and always approached the position in the same way a soccer goalie would. That means leaving the goalmouth to cut down the angle. Diving and getting up quickly. That’s one of my greatest strengths.
I was really hard on myself at first. When I moved up to the U.S. Under-21 team, I just looked like a lost puppy out there. I was scared of everybody and I wanted to make sure they all liked me and viewed me as an equal member of the team. In my first tournament with them, I played horribly. I wondered why I was even on that team. But I really think that year really helped me grow into the goalkeeper I am today.
I learned, you might be the worst on the team, but you can work really hard and be respected as an integral part of the team. You’re there for a reason, somebody believes in you. Even if you don’t have confidence, someone has confidence in you.
Stanford coach Tara Danielson was one of those people.
•••
•••
When I found out I was admitted to Stanford, I was at a tournament. In order for me to talk to Tara, I had to call her per NCAA rules.
I was standing outside the dorm where we were staying, and was jumping up and down off a waist-high ledge while I talked to her, because I have a terrible time staying still. I guess I wasn’t paying particular attention, and I missed the ledge, cutting open the whole front part of my shin.
My entire shin was gushing blood. It was only a superficial wound, but I had to play it cool while I talked to Tara. My leg was starting to throb, and I have to admit I started to cry a little. Tara seemed really happy, and she told me that she was so glad I was being so emotional about my acceptance, because she had no idea my leg was ripped open. I still have a nice scar that serves as a reminder to this day.
I wear 30 pounds of protective equipment when I’m in goal, but I hardly notice it anymore. It’s like my second skin. When one of my teammates put all the equipment on one day, she tripped multiple times. But, to me, it just feels comfortable.
When I’m behind the mask, some people claim I take on a different persona. On the field, my teammates call me King (get it? King Bing), but they often say I look like a transformer, which is not really my favorite. I don’t know if that really represents who I am.
So, who am I? I have to admit, I’m kind of a nerd.
I really like differential equations. My teammates make fun of me for that. When I’m at practice, I’m not allowed to talk about school because apparently I stress them out.
One reason I like differential equations is that every problem always appears complex, yet there is always an answer or approximation that is relatively straightforward. I like being able to solve a complex problem, but it’s usually very clear whether or not you have the correct answer.
Essentially, you can always solve or approximate a differential equation if you have the proper tools. This is exactly the way I approach field hockey. Each skill to me is a tool in my toolbox that I can use to save the ball. What I like about differential equations is that it mirrors real life. I like that connection between math and real life, which I suppose is just engineering at its core.
I’ve always loved problem solving. But I tend to overanalyze everything that I do. It’s my biggest strength and maybe my greatest flaw.
It gets obsessive. In field hockey, if I get scored on, I want to figure out why that happened and how I can fix it. If it’s because I didn’t have a certain skill, I’ll break it down until I figure out how to do it. But only when the physical work is done can the potential of the mind by unleashed. That’s how you win games.
The mind indeed can do great things, but keeping a little plastic ball out of a net? I don’t want to think about it.
•••
