(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Times News is running a series of stories on former area athletes and what they have been doing since graduating from high school. The subject of today’s “Catching up With” is former Lehighton High School field hockey player Katie Grant.

By Emmett McCall

emccall@tnonline.com

Imagine if Katie Grant never found field hockey.

There would be no school records at Lehighton High School and Duke University. No nearly decadelong involvement with the United States National Program. No coaching on the scholastic and collegiate level. No business focused on developing future stars in the sport.

It’s hard to imagine.

Grant can’t.

“I just love the game, and still have such a passion for it,” Grant said. “I’m not only coaching the sport right now, but I’m still playing it.

“I want to keep coaching and instructing the game, and I want to play until I’m in my 60s.”

The love and passion Grant still has for the sport is obvious.

But as hard as it is to imagine, Grant came close to never finding field hockey.

The Find

Before Grant was introduced to the sport of field hockey, she was busy with basketball, volleyball and track while attending Our Lady of the Valley (OLOV) Elementary School in Lansford.

Her parents, Gary and Peg Grant, had finished building a home in the Lehighton Area School District. But they had decided to keep Katie in OLOV, where she had started school when they were living in Lansford.

“There was no immediate plans for me to change schools,” recalled Grant.

Had she had stayed at OLOV and eventually gone to high school at Panther Valley or Marian - where both her parents and her oldest brother attended - the sport of field hockey wouldn’t have been available for Grant to play.

Maybe it was luck, maybe it was fate, or maybe it was divine intervention. But the Grant’s plan changed, and when Katie was in sixth grade she transferred to Lehighton.

The following year when she entered middle school, she played field hockey for the first time.

The rest is history.

The change in schools set the stage for an athletic career that is among the most impressive any area athlete - in any sport - has ever compiled.

Grant’s career highlights include two PIAA State Championship game appearances, three NCAA National Championship game appearances, scoring records that still stand at both Lehighton High School and Duke University, and eight years as part of the United States National program.

Welcome to the ACC

Grant’s success in field hockey was almost immediate.

Her high school career produced multiple Mountain Valley Conference and District 11 championships.

She graduated from Lehighton in 2002 as the school’s all-time leader in goals for a career (87), a season (50), and a game (6).

With offers from just about every major field hockey program in the country, she eventually narrowed her college decision down to Michigan, North Carolina and Duke.

“Michigan had won the National Championship that season, and North Carolina was a perennial power,” recalled Grant about her decision. “On the other hand, Duke wasn’t at the level.”

In reality, Duke wasn’t close to that level. The Blue Devils hadn’t even qualified for the NCAA Tournament in the two previous seasons, and had made the tourney just three times in the previous 21 years.

But after taking her official visit, Grant was sold on Duke.

“Former Emmaus High School player Cindy Werley was a Duke assistant coach and their head recruiter. She was my idol when I was playing high school field hockey,” Grant said. “She had started to bring in a lot of talented players in the previous year or two, and I wanted to be a part of a program that I felt was heading in the right direction.”

Grant was right.

Her freshman year, Duke qualified for the NCAA Tournament. In each of the next three seasons, the Blue Devils not only qualified for the tourney, but reached the National Championship game.

“I loved everything about my four years at Duke,” said Grant. “The school, the field hockey program, my teammates ... but the one disappointment I had and my only regret was coming so close to winning a National Championship three different times, but coming up empty. That’s something I still think about.”

Championship game disappointments aside, Grant had arguably the greatest career of any player in Duke history - before or since. She still holds the school record for career points (223), and career assists (63), and is second in career goals (80). She also has the second (65 points in 2003), third (63 points in 2005), and fourth (61 points in 2004) highest single-season point totals in school history.

Seeing the World

Throughout her high school and college careers, Grant was also part of the USA National program.

Shortly after beginning the sport in middle school, she was recommended for the Futures Program - a feeder program for USA National teams.

That led to Grant playing in the USA program from the time she was 15 until she graduated from college.

“I played on the U16, the U18, the U19, the U20 and the U21 National teams,” explained Grant. “It was an incredible experience.

“I traveled to Holland, to Chile, to Canada, to Costa Rico ... to so many amazing places to play field hockey. It was such a thrill to represent my country at tournaments all over the world.”

Grant’s climb up the National Program ladder ended one rung short of her ultimate goal, however.

“After I graduated from Duke in 2006, I had a tryout for the USA National Team, which was in the beginning stages of assembling the team for the 2008 Olympics,” Grant said. “Since high school, I had dreamed of making the Olympic team. But I wasn’t selected during the tryouts. It was so hard to have that dream shattered.”

Grant tried to keep the dream alive, accepting an offer to play professionally in Spain that fall.

“They offered to pay for my travel and my housing, and they gave me a stipend to play,” Grant said about her decision to travel abroad. “It wasn’t a lot of money, but there really wasn’t anywhere in the USA that I could play and get a high level of competition after college, so I decided to give it a try.”

In Spain, Grant was competing in a 10-team domestic league that allowed her to travel across the entire country.

“I played about three months,” Grant said. “I loved the experience, but at the same time I knew I didn’t want to spend another season playing there.

“I was still holding out hope that if I continued to play and was able to stay at the top of my game, there might be a possibility I could catch on with the National Team before the Olympics.”

The opportunity didn’t materialize.

Coach Grant

Grant returned to the United States unsure about what her next step was going to be, but knowing that field hockey would play a part in it.

That next step turned out to be coaching.

She began her coaching and teaching career in 2007 at Stuart Country Day School, a private high school in New Jersey, where she was the head coach for three years.

Since then, her resume has included assistant coaching stops at Columbia University in New York (2010-12), and St. Joe’s University in Philadelphia (2014-16). She also served as head coach at St. John’s College High School in Chevy Chase, Maryland. (2012-14).

She is currently serving as an assistant coach at Villa Maria Academy High School outside of Philadelphia.

“I got out of coaching for a few years after my daughters were born,” Grant said. “But Katie Evans, a good friend of mine from our USA National Program days, was the head coach at Villa Marie Academy and asked me to help. I’m living down in that area, so last season I started coaching again.

“The school is located in Malvern, and that area is the hotbed for field hockey in the entire country. The area produces a huge amount of Division 1 talent on a yearly basis.”

Grant is also teaming with Evans to operate a business that helps develop the field hockey talent in the area.

“It’s called Tucked Training,” explained Grant. “We noticed that there were a lot of club teams around us for girls to play on, but not a lot of places where they could work on and develop their skills. “So we started to offer individual and small group lessons. We do clinics and camps as well, and shortly we are going to be adding speed and agility training, nutrition, and sports psychology as part of an all encompassing program.”

Grant is also still playing the sport.

“I usually try to play in at least a couple tournaments a year,” she said. “And I recently made the USA over-35 team. So Ill be representing the United States next August in England in a multination tournament.”

The Last Dance

Grant has two daughters, 5-year old Quinn and 3-year-old Pippin. Quinn is already showing an interest in field hockey - at a much earlier age than her mom did.

“I definitely got a much later start with the sport than my daughters are getting,” laughed Grant. “I went to OLOV through fifth grade. At that time, I don’t think I knew anything about field hockey. Basketball was my favorite sport. I was a huge Michael Jordan fan - and I still am.

“It’s funny, because I’ve been watching “The Last Dance” on ESPN and was talking to a friend about it. She sent me a photo she had of the two of us at the Marian Basketball Camp when we were in elementary school. In the picture I’m wearing a Michael Jordan jersey. At that time, I wanted to be ‘Like Mike.’”

Grant then started to disconnect the dots.

“Who knows what would have happened if I never transferred in elementary school and never found field hockey, but ...”

Grant never finished her sentence. She didn’t have to.

She was an excellent athlete, excelling in track at Lehighton despite devoting almost all of her time to field hockey.

But could she have possibly matched all the success she had playing field hockey? Could she have gone on to play Division 1 basketball, been part of the National Program, and spent the last 13 years of her life coaching and teaching the sport?

No one will ever know.

But that’s probably a good thing.

Good for Katie Grant, good for Lehighton High School, good for Duke University, and good for the sport of field hockey.

Because some things you just don’t want to imagine.