Basketball
Favorite athlete: Larry Bird
Favorite team: University of Oregon women’s basketball
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating Cardinal O’Hara in double overtime
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One time in an AAU game, I tripped bringing the ball up with nobody around me.
Music on mobile device: Khalid
Words to live by: “Just live life.”
One goal before turning 30: Serve in the Peace Corps
One thing people don’t know about me: I’ve always wanted to sing the national anthem at a game (even though I can’t sing).
By Craig Ostroff
To see how important Nicole Kaiser is to the Upper Dublin girls’ basketball team, there’s no need to flip through the scorebook or examine her statistics.
To see the effort Kaiser puts in every day, to see the unwavering work ethic, to see how much heart and soul she leaves on the floor, just look at her knees and elbows.
“If you look at Nicole’s elbows and knees, you’d know what she means to this team and what kind of hustle she puts forth in games and practices,” said Cardinals’ coach Morgan Funsten.
“There’s not a spot on her knees and elbows that are not covered in bruises.”
Kaiser doesn’t consider those cuts and scrapes as badges of honor or battle scars. They’re just the result of doing what needs to be done for the team to be successful. And Kaiser is ready and willing to do whatever it takes to earn the W. There may be no place in the scorebook to record who dove to save an errant pass from going out of bounds, but the two or three points it leads to can have a huge effect on the final score.
“Loose balls are there for anyone … and it’s just who wants it more,” Kaiser said. “Going after loose balls, doing whatever you have to do to make a play, at this point of the season, one of the most important parts of the game is who wants it more and hustles more. That makes a huge difference.”
That hustle, that effort, that leadership from Kaiser – as well as from her fellow senior co-captain Maggie Weglos – has played a huge part in leading a very young Cardinal team to a stellar regular season and a remarkable ongoing postseason run that has seen the squad become only the second team in program history to reach the PIAA State Quarterfinals.
To reach the quarters, the Cardinals rallied to down District 3 top seed Garnet Valley in the second round, but it was the state opener that will remain one of Kaiser’s all-time greatest memories on the floor for the red-and-white.
After being eliminated from the state tourney in the opener last year by Cardinal O’Hara in a 53-25 loss, Upper Dublin faced District 12’s top seed in this year’s opener as well. Though the Lions boast three Division I recruits – and held a double-digit lead in the first half – the Cardinals employed a stifling defense as they battled their way back to pull off a stunning 42-35 upset.
“That win felt amazing,” Kaiser said. “We had a bunch of girls step up throughout the game, we didn’t give up, and everyone kept playing hard.”
“I can’t say enough about the entire group from the O’Hara game,” Funsten added. “After being embarrassed by them last year, the level of focus all the girls had, and the leadership from Nicole and Maggie, it was remarkable.”
A key factor in the Cardinals’ season – and in overcoming large deficits in critical games – has been their ability to refocus and bounce back after heartbreaking losses. Though the Cards’ record stands at 22-5, those handful of losses include a double-overtime loss to Plymouth Whitemarsh, a triple-OT defeat at the hands of Lancaster Catholic, and a three-point loss to Council Rock North in the district playoffs.
Young though the team may be, the Cardinals know how to respond to adversity. And that ability can be traced directly back to the leadership that Kaiser and Weglos provide.
“If you saw the practices we had the day after each of those tough losses, you would not be surprised with us being able to turn it around,” Funsten said. “Teams will follow what the leaders do. Nicole and Maggie, they were embarrassed, mad, upset after those losses. And they showed the rest of the team what needed to be done.
“Those day-after practices, sometimes you come in and you’re feeling horrible coming off a loss. I can honestly say that I got chills at times watching them practice the next day after a loss. It wasn’t sulking, it was practicing with the purpose of improving. Nicole and Maggie were leading them, showing them how to bounce back, how to be resilient. And the rest of the team took it to heart and learned from it.”
Kaiser is quick to share any such credit with her coaching staff, and especially with her fellow captain.
“I try to be a little bit of both a vocal leader and a leader by example,” Kaiser said. “I think I’m more the lead-by-example type, where Maggie’s got more of an outgoing personality, she’s always talking. But I think either of us are willing to step up and give the hype speech or the serious talk, and we both work really hard in practice. And you just hope that all trickles down to the rest of the team.”
That work ethic has been instilled in Kaiser since her earliest days on the athletic fields.
“You’re not handed anything,” she said. “You’ve got to work for it. And I really just love the game, so I’ve never felt like it was a chore to go out and shoot or to practice. I enjoy it, and I think that makes me work hard to earn my playing time.”
It was an incident in soccer – not basketball – that instilled that attitude in Kaiser. She had played both sports as a youngster, but in the fall of eighth grade, she was cut from the middle school soccer team.
“I was upset that I got cut, but I realized that I would play soccer in the fall, and once the season was over, I wouldn’t play again until next fall,” she said. “That put things in perspective for me. If you want to be good at something, you have to put your all into it and work on it all the time.
“So I started focusing on basketball. And all through what would have been soccer season, I played basketball all the time, and I really started falling in love with it.”
Strong camaraderie on her first AAU basketball team helped seal the deal for Kaiser. And when she wasn’t practicing or working out with her AAU friends, she and her father would spend countless hours in the driveway or at the YMCA shooting hoops or running drills.
“My dad has been a huge part of my success,” Kaiser said. “He worked with me a lot. I wouldn’t be anywhere without him helping me throughout my career. It started with what he saw in me when I was younger and believing in me throughout the whole thing, he encouraged me to work harder and get better, and he worked with me to help me get better.”
That she did. That work ethic saw Kaiser go from an eighth grader with unrealized potential, to a much-improved freshman who earned some varsity playing time, to a sophomore with an increased role on the team. From there, Kaiser blossomed into a two-time First-Team All-League selection.
“Nicole has worked so hard to get to where she is,” Funsten said. “We always keep our eye on the middle school and pay attention to the top players, and Nicole will tell you, there were several girls on her eighth-grade team who were ahead of her. She really caught our eye in ninth grade as a player who was improving daily. She earned some very valuable minutes as a sophomore, and her junior year was just a huge leap forward in her development.
“And now, she does whatever we ask her to do, and she does it well. If the team needs energy, she’s there to provide energy. She’s a relentless rebounder, scorer, we’ve asked her to step up her game defensively as well this year, and she’s turned into great defensive player.”
And though her game has changed and improved over the years, some things never change. Kaiser admits to being a very superstitious person when it comes to preparing for basketball games. Without giving too many secrets away, let’s just say there are more than a few items of clothing that Kaiser needs to wear to every game, and that the local Wawa had better be fully stocked on soft pretzels and Cliff bars on days where the Cardinals take to the court.
But no matter how many more games remain in Upper Dublin’s historic season, Kaiser knows these are not only her last high school games, but also her curtain call for her competitive basketball career. In the fall, Kaiser will head to the University of Central Florida with an eye on pursuing a degree in marine biology. And if UCF Knights’ basketball is in her future, it will be as a fan rather than as a player.
“When I was deciding on college, what was really important to me was that I had to love the school whether it was with or without playing basketball there,” she said. “I wanted to make sure I didn’t choose a school just for basketball. I visited a few schools and couldn’t see myself there if not for basketball.
“I absolutely fell in love with UCF when I walked on campus. It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made to choose not to play basketball in college, but that also makes this season more special for me. I want it to be our best season. I don’t want to look back and ever regret anything, I want to finish strong with what I started at Upper Dublin, and I’m hoping maybe I’ll be able to play club basketball in college.”
And when this young Upper Dublin squad returns next season, a year older and more experienced, what lessons does she hope she’s helped to instill in the underclassmen?
“I hope they remember that you have to want it more than the other team, but more than that, you also have to work harder,” she said. “I think the main thing Maggie and I want to leave behind is staying focused, if things go wrong, you have to stay focused, bounce back, and work even harder.”
