Kaleigh Kurtz has come a long way
The North Carolina Courage defender on being an ironwoman and digging out of a mental rollercoaster.
Kaleigh Kurtz has quietly been putting together a terrific season for the North Carolina Courage. At 28, she’s the ironwoman of the Courage defense, recently breaking a club record with 50 consecutive starts. But she’s also the anchor, the glue person on North Carolina’s backline. She’s the player the rest of the team turns to when they need direction or some encouragement, the one whose voice is heard most often echoing on the training field.
That’s no accident. Kurtz spoke to the media on Thursday after Courage training and said her objective is to be a vocal leader when the team needs it.
“As a center back you have to lead with your voice,” Kurtz explained. “It's part of the job, so even when things aren't going my way, like my job is to yell at everyone in front of me to make sure that they're doing their job correctly. So even when my days aren't my best the people in front of me may be getting the job done for me by maneuvering the players in front and changing the chess pieces. But yeah, I think for the most part I want to be the player who, even when things are going bad people look at me and they're like, yeah, she's putting the work in. It may not be her best day, that first touch might be off, but she's gonna get after it.”
One of a handful of holdovers from the Courage’s title-winning sides, Kurtz originally joined as an undrafted rookie in 2018, and was a depth player her first two seasons, with NWSL stars Abby Dahlkemper and Abby Erceg ahead of her on the depth chart.
When asked to reflect on getting 50 starts in a row, Kurtz shouted out everything from her genes for staying healthy, to the conditioning and medical staff for their work, and her teammates and coaches for working with her to make sure she makes the most of the opportunity.
“Well for me just getting to play is an honor as always. My first two, three years I didn't really get to play much so sometimes you just have to grind it out. You’ve got to keep working. You’ve got to learn from the players who are playing and wait your turn. So that's what I had to do and it’s a lot easier said than done. But you know, six years in, 50 consecutive starts. That's huge,” Kurtz said.
But Kurtz’s road to this moment was not only a story of a youngster who had to wait her turn to play. She is one of a handful of players who have stepped forward and agreed to be named in extensive investigative reports chronicling widespread abuse in the NWSL, and the primary source detailing what happened at the Courage under former coach Paul Riley. In the joint NWSL/NWSLPA investigation, it was revealed that Riley had persistently shamed Kurtz about her weight and body, and when she asked to be traded to another NWSL team on two separate occasions, she was told she “had no ‘trade value’” by club officials in one instance and was not allowed to leave. Furthermore, Kurtz detailed a pattern of Riley asking her inappropriate questions about her personal life, revealing intimate personal details of his life, and texting her frequently on off hours. After the initial allegations about Riley broke in The Athletic, Kurtz recognized similar patterns in Riley’s conduct towards her, and the joint report said she believed she was being “groomed” for similar sexual abuse.
Kurtz didn’t recount all of that in Thursday’s press conference, but she spoke like someone who was not afraid to speak up, especially about her journey to accept herself again.
When asked about her preparation to play week in and week out, including through nutrition, Kurtz gave a wry smile and said, “Yeah, that's a little bit of a loaded question. So getting I guess, a little bit vulnerable here: I had a pretty weird, strange relationship with food after the previous coach, you know, talked to me about how I was too chubby, undynamic. I needed to lose 14 pounds in 10 days healthily. And so that changed my diet and the way that I viewed food, the way that I viewed strength and conditioning. I was a little afraid to put on heavy weight on the bar. And then this year, there's been just like a massive change over the past two years. I went from being vegan to now I'm eating meat again, as my body is needing and I've just kind of changed depending on how I'm feeling, which is a different approach than it was for the last three years.”
Kurtz has also adjusted her expectations about weight training and something practically all women are told: Women looking “bulky” is to be avoided at all costs.
“I gotta give Merry Speck a shoutout because she kind of flipped this switch in my brain this year where it went from you know, like, Mike [Young] is one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world. So there's no way whatever fitness or whatever strength conditioning session he's putting together, it's not going to make us bulky, no matter how much weight you put on because the reps are high. So why would you not push yourself to the max in the gym? And that just kind of flipped something in my head where I went from going from pretty lightweight last year to moving a pretty good amount of heavy weight this year,” she explained.
Given everything that’s happened, Kurtz was asked about her mental health at this point in time.
“It goes in ups and downs,” she began. “It's always — I was told when I was like 15, 16, by my club coach that you can't be in this rollercoaster, a rollercoaster ride all the time. And so for the last few years, it's definitely been a rollercoaster. And the hardest part is how to make the rollercoasters less like rollercoasters and more like hills and not being so affected. And I felt like when I did start to get more even-keeled — not that I totally have got it figured out. But I do feel a little bit more even-keeled. But when I am and I'm going through these little hills instead of like big mountains I felt like a lot of my competitiveness was felt through the crazy emotion swings. So now it was instead of having these highs, highest highs and lowest lows and riding the emotions of that, it was okay even through these little hills, can I get that competitive edge still, can I be like super intense and fierce? So it's definitely shifted and it's changed. But I do think that I'm in a much better place mentally.”
As she approaches 30, now a bonafide starter and fixture for her club, Kurtz has gained some hard-earned lessons on dealing with difficult situations.
“I think we figure out our emotions [as we age]. I've also been tested in many ways. And I think the more situations and more challenging situations that we're put in, the more we have to figure our way out of it. And I think I've been through a decent amount in the last few years. So I'm on the other side of it, and I've come out stronger. That's all I can hope for but that doesn't mean that I didn't seek help from therapists, that I didn't go to a nutritionist. I did all the things that I possibly could to get myself here. And I think the biggest flip was that mentally, no matter how many people I seek out, no matter how many problems I feel like I have, there's only one common denominator there and it's me. So sometimes I have to, I guess, really look inside and look past just like seeking help from other people and starting to really lean on myself at times to dig through the weeds of some of the hard times and figure out how to just get through it.”
Courage head coach Sean Nahas said that Kurtz is a fixture in defense now because she is so key to the team, and her trajectory has not gone unnoticed.
“Look, I've said I'm really proud of KK and all she's done and the maturity levels that she's shown and the growth and she's become a really good pro. I think she's in a stage now where I use her as the example a lot,” he explained. “Now she's really intuitive about the position, she's really studying it, she wants to be better every single day. She's got herself fit. She's believing in herself more, she's trusting herself. We trust in her. I think the accolades that she's gotten are deserved. I would say that maybe sometimes they’re not enough. I think she's a massive piece of what we do. She knows how we want to press, knows how we want to organize. I would like to see maybe she gets a little bit more credit, not just within our club but outside. You know, is she the ‘big name player?’ Not necessarily, but for us she is and I think she deserves more credit than what she has been given.”
For many athletes who finally make it into the lineup, the next goals may be to win a title, or to find individual accolades. Kurtz likely shares those sentiments — she’s in the NWSL for a reason, after all — but she said a major goal at this point in her career is to be a good mentor.
“I had a really honest conversation with [the Courage coaches] in the offseason, about my goals, my own personal goals as a player and you know, that has also changed over the years. It went from I just want to get some minutes onto the field. Then it was, I want to start every match, then it's now okay, I want to make sure that I am that go-to person on the backline, like I'm the anchor, to now it's having to look maybe beyond club or beyond myself, and how can I help the next generation? So I had a very honest conversation with the coaching staff about those goals.
“And then I also had an honest conversation with them about how to achieve those goals and the steps that needed to be taken. And that was I need to do more individual work. I want to maybe play next to people that don't get as many minutes so that I can help. Like if I'm ever injured, knock on wood, I want to make sure that the person who does step in my spot is ready and prepared. So getting those players ready and being that kind of leader was really crucial for me but then I stay after gym sessions on Tuesdays and I do extra work with Mike [Young] and his staff to make sure that I'm the best that I can be, that I can continue to work towards the many goals that I have beyond just starting for this club.”
At this point, you wouldn’t bet against Kaleigh Kurtz on any of those goals.