Soccer, Basketball, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Ryan Lochte
Favorite team: Boston Red Sox
Favorite memory competing in sports: Running at the University of Penn for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia CYO Championships. My uncle, Bob Malone, was my coach, and we broke a record and won the 4x200 meter relay.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Watching my friend playing a game and arguing with his mom (who was the coach) at the same time.
Music on iPod: The Script, Mat Kearney, Justin Timberlake, 2 Chainz
Future plans: Graduate from college and medical school, get married, become a mom
Words to live by: “Your have to take the good with the bad, smile when you’re sad, love what you’ve got and remember what you’ve had, always forgive but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret, people change, things go wrong, just remember life goes on.”
One goal before turning 30: Go to Greece
One thing people don’t know about me: I can probably out-eat anyone.
By Mary Jane Souder
Kylie Howe has been faced with her share of speed bumps in her young life.
The Pennsbury senior is spending her final high school soccer season watching from the sidelines as she rehabs from surgery to repair a torn ACL. Instead of occupying her familiar forward spot, she is the team manager. It’s not exactly what Howe had in mind for her senior year.
“I’m glad I can still participate and help the soccer team, but it stinks,” she said. “I wish I was back on the field chasing balls.”
So does her coach.
“She’s small, but she’s feisty, and she’s going to get herself involved in the play in any way she can,” Pennsbury coach Kim Voorhees said. “She’s a player we like to think of as one of our sparkplugs.
“It doesn’t matter where we put her – we know she will give us energy. She has played just about every position for us. It didn’t matter where I put her on the field, she was always going to make an impact.”
Howe, a rare three-sport athlete, tore her ACL playing basketball last winter.
“Me and this girl were kind of going at it the whole game,” she recalled. “She came at me laterally, and I was knocked down instantly. I had to go to the hospital to see if I’d broken anything.”
At the time, Howe wasn’t all that concerned.
“The doctor said it was probably fine,” she said. “I literally thought it was going to be just another injury like a rolled ankle and I’d just walk it off eventually.
“But then they did an MRI, and they saw something.”
What they saw was a torn ACL. In March, Howe underwent surgery.
“I was pretty devastated,” she said. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to participate in sports, and I had the prom coming up.”
Howe, who was sidelined her entire spring track and field season, was hoping to receive clearance to play soccer. That idea was vetoed during her most recent visit with her surgeon, although she has not given up on her goal of taking the field for Pennsbury’s Senior Night game.
“It might not be for the amount of time I want, but I’m definitely trying to get in,” Howe said.
Voorhees, who coached Howe when she played jayvee as a freshman, recognizes how tough this is for the senior forward.
“It’s killing her,” the Falcons’ coach said. “She stepped in as our manager, and every game she’s on the sidelines cheering us on, but you can tell she wants nothing more than to be on the field. She’s devastated.”
As devastating as the torn ACL has been, that injury paled in comparison to the loss Howe experienced when her mother, Margaret Howe, lost her battle with uterine cancer on April 17, 2012.
“Losing my mom was the hardest thing I have had to go through so far in life,” Howe said. “My junior year was coming up, and I know that’s a hard year.
“I stress myself out a lot, and she would always be there to tell me to come back into reality.”
Part of Howe’s enjoyment competing in sports came from sharing it with her mother, her biggest fan.
“Even the days she wouldn’t feel well, she would bring her beach chair, sit on the sidelines and watch me play,” Howe said. “I think she found more enjoyment in sports than I did sometimes.”
It was her mother that coached Howe in the finer points of long jumping when she was in elementary school, and it is memories of her mother that keeps the Pennsbury senior involved in three sports.
“That really motivated me,” she said. “Usually kids fall off and quit their sports and don’t do anything. I’d rather make her proud than give up.”
When it came time for Pennsbury’s soccer team to decide on a fundraiser for its ‘Kick Out Cancer’ night last fall, the team opted to give all of the proceeds to help fight uterine cancer research.
A highlight of the night was the release of butterflies, a symbol that has been important in Howe’s family for several generations.
“When my grandpa passed away, we would always feel like he would send symbols to my grandma,” Howe said. “Butterflies would always show up, and it would be at the hardest times or at times when you wished they would be there.”
Butterflies provide an equally comforting presence to Howe.
“During a big game, during my last track meet, I saw butterflies there – popping in to say, ‘hi,’” Howe said. “She’s been my motivation through a lot of things, especially with this whole knee surgery. I saw her go through tests, and she went through chemotherapy, and she had surgery for her cancer.
“I knew if she could get through all of that and still manage to smile, I could definitely get through my knee surgery.”
The releasing of the butterflies was an emotional experience for Howe.
“It was a pretty emotional night because the previous year she was there,” Howe said. “I’ve been so grateful to them for doing that and recognizing her.
“One thing she always wanted to do while she was still here – she always said she wanted to raise awareness for uterine cancer. Even though she’s not here, we’re still able to recognize it and go with what she wanted, and that makes me really proud.”
Howe, according to her coach, has displayed remarkable maturity in the most difficult of circumstances.
“She’s like an adult in a teenager’s body,” Voorhees said. “She would break down every once in a while, but she always wanted it to be about her mom and never, ever wanted anyone to feel sorry for her.
“She wants to continue playing for her mom. She has handled this with such grace and dignity that it’s kind of hard to believe a high school player could handle it in that way.”
Voorhees has been coaching Howe since she played on the jayvee team her freshman year.
“She was a standout jayvee player,” the Falcons’ coach said. “In the second game of the season – she was a defender, and I threw her in up top, and she scored a goal in the first five minutes.”
Howe has been playing three sports since she was in first grade. Soccer and track were her favorites, but in the end, soccer has emerged the clear winner.
“Track isn’t as physical, and for some reason, I like the physical contact,” she said. “I like the quick change in speeds when you chase the ball.”
While sports will remain a part of Howe’s future, she is hardly one-dimensional. She also excels in the classroom and takes a full course load of honors classes. She plans to pursue a career in health sciences or pre-med with her sights set on one day becoming a doctor, an interest that was sparked by her experience with the surgeon who performed her knee surgery at CHOP.
“Just watching him help so many people – it’s something I want to do too,” she said.
Howe is an officer of the Pennsbury Pink Ribbon Club as well as the community’s drug and alcohol awareness organization, LYFT. She also is a part of the St. John’s CYO Retreat Team, a group of high school students that lead middle and elementary school to praise God. The retreat team is under the auspices of St. John the Evangelist School, the school Howe attended before Pennsbury.
At the top of Howe’s college list are JMU, Pitt and Scranton, but for now, she is looking for a happy ending to her high school soccer career.
“Kylie is one of the strongest athletes I have ever had the pleasure of coaching,” Voorhees said. “Her dedication is unrivaled, and her perseverance through difficult times can’t be beat. Kylie is an inspiration to our entire Pennsbury program. She has been set back one too many times, but she continues to keep her head high.”
Perhaps that’s because Howe knows she’s not in it alone.
“Butterflies were special between Kylie and her mom,” Voorhees said. “When we did the butterfly release last year, the butterfly wouldn’t fly off Kylie’s finger. We were all crying. It was such a good moment. It was really special.”
