The National Lacrosse Hall of Fame will enshrine nine new inductees — Kevin Cassese, Leigh Buck Friedman, A.J. Haugen, Alex Kahoe, Phyllis Kilgour, David Morrow, Ryan Powell, Denise Wescott and Tami Worley Kirby — in a ceremony Sept. 29 at The Grand Lodge in Hunt Valley, Md. Tickets are available for purchaseuntil Sept. 21.
Success doesn’t come without challenges.
Alex Kahoe came to the University of Maryland from Villanova, Pa., where she starred at Agnes Irwin (Pa.) as a goalkeeper. But playing in net wasn’t her original plan.
Kahoe fell into the position for the love of competition after first picking up the sport in sixth grade as a defender. Honing her skills as a three-sport athlete in high school — also playing field hockey and squash — Kahoe discovered goalies can be athletic thanks to then-senior Lisa Dixon, who went on to play for William & Mary.
“She made the position an athletic position,” Kahoe said. “Why we like the position is the pressure and the challenge. We’re not playing for the recognition. We’re playing because we like to compete.”
By eighth grade, Kahoe found role models in U.S. goalkeepers and made the decision definite to put on the pads for the remainder of her lacrosse career – a smart choice for the future four-time NCAA champion, 1997 ACC Rookie of the Year, three-time ACC Goalie of the Year, two-time NCAA Goalie of the Year and now a 2018 National Lacrosse Hall of Fame inductee.
Kahoe graduated high school in 1995, but again had to make a decision that could impact her career. With Jamie Brodsky returning as the clear anchor for the 1996 national champion, she decided to redshirt her freshman season, while pinching herself to realize she was actually a Terp.
“When I got to Maryland, it took me a while,” Kahoe said. “I remember laughing with my friends about it. When we’d talk about the team, it was ‘they.’ Wait, this is ‘we.’ This is ‘us.’”
When Brodsky graduated, Kahoe had large shoes to fill. She had to usher Maryland, which had won back-to-back national championships, into a new era in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
In 1997, the sport’s first year in the ACC and Kahoe’s first true season, she led the Terps to the first-ever ACC crown and a third straight NCAA title. As the sport evolved with rule changes, including the addition of restraining lines in 1998, Maryland won three more national titles with Kahoe.