Sports history is full of coaches calling various players their team’s Swiss Army Knife, which pays homage to the athlete’s ability to morph and adapt to meet any situation.
Now, it’s time to meet the Kansas women’s soccer team’s "skeleton key."
Her name is Kate Langfelder. She’s a freshman midfielder from Wyckoff, New Jersey. And first-year KU coach Nate Lie recently called her “the single player on our team who doesn't get enough recognition.”
The numbers are there to back that up.
In addition to recording 5 assists and generating 11 shot attempts from her midfield position, Langfelder also has played the second most minutes on a team this season – 1,781 minutes in 22 matches, second only to junior defender Caroline Castans’ 1,799 minutes.
To put those minutes in perspective, Langfelder, on average, is on the field for 90% of every game. What’s more, she’s one of just five KU players to even play more than 1,400 minutes this season.
While the theory of a Swiss Army Knife is easily understood throughout sports circles, the skeleton key concept is a little tougher to comprehend. However, like the literal purpose of the tool, which is used to unlock any door and dates back to ancient Roman and Medieval times, Langfelder’s multifaceted skill set has been used to unlock various elements of the Jayhawks’ attack this season — on offense, on defense and even in areas like leadership and attitude.
“When we have to make adjustments, the minor adjustments we make are usually Kate, with Kate being the player who kind of has to do it,” Lie explained. “She's like the coach’s dream that does all the dirty work and all the stuff in between that makes our engine go.”
The skeleton key comment from her head coach came on Monday, shortly after the Jayhawks (13-5-4) learned that they had earned a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament and would head to St. Louis on Friday to take on the 8th-seeded Billikens.
Seeing that she’s still just a freshman in college, however, Langfelder did not quite know what a skeleton key was.
“I looked it up the other day,” she laughed during a Wednesday interview with R1S1 Sports. “But I really appreciate that comment.”
Asked if she could provide any examples of why her coach chose that term to describe her, Langfelder went back to the first game of the season and the film session that followed the Jayhawks’ 2-1 win over South Dakota State in mid-August.
“I think my role is just trying to bring energy and cohesion to the team and just having everyone’s back,” the holding midfielder said. “If someone gets beat, I want to be the player who’s able to step in and win the ball back, or, on offense, I want to be able to make that pass that leads to a goal.”
“During the very first game of the season against South Dakota State, let’s just say I did not do any of that. I remember watching film with the team and the coaches and there was a lot of stuff that was just not right – not taking the right angle, not running back urgent enough, that type of stuff. Every single practice and game-film session since then I’ve just learned a little more and more and that’s been really helpful for me to understand my role and what I can do for the team.”
Veteran defender Mackenzie Boeve, a fifth-year senior who also has been instrumental in the Jayhawks’ recent run of 8 straight wins and Big 12 tournament championship, said she has loved watching Langfelder grow during the past four months but that she also saw a fighting spirit in her from the moment she arrived.
“I think it’s awesome that she’s come in here and made an impact right away,” Boeve said. “And I think she’s shown that she belongs on the field and that she can lead in all sorts of ways.”
Originally committed to Lie’s program at Xavier, Langfelder joined a handful of current Jayhawks in following Lie and his coaching staff to Kansas when he got the job last spring.
Lawrence is much farther away from home than Cincinnati, but she said her trust and appreciation of Lie and his staff made her comfortable making the jump with him.
Her big goals came with her. She wanted to play. She believed she could start. And she hoped that she would be given an opportunity to showcase the many ways she can impact her team.
“I’d been working pretty hard, so I hoped it was (realistic for all of that to happen),” she said. “But I obviously wasn’t sure exactly what they had in mind for freshmen and they were new to here.”
It didn’t take her long to find out that she had a chance to achieve those goals and find her fit with the Jayhawks.
“Honestly, I would just say on Day 1 of preseason, starting with our fitness test and then scrimmaging at night,” she said.
That fitness test consisted of passing the “beep test,” a series of running exercises similar to suicides in basketball, where the Jayhawks run down and back over 40-60 meters and have to go again when they hear the beep. As the test goes on, the time between beeps gets smaller, therein shortening the amount of rest the Jayhawks get between runs.
Langfelder said they got to 40 turns in about 15 minutes and were deemed to have passed.
Welcome to Kansas soccer.
“Yes, I was stressed and everything,” Langfelder recalled. “But not only was everyone on the team just so welcoming and friendly and nice, but I also had the realization that this is where I want to be and this is where I’m supposed to be.”
No Kate Langfelder story is complete without at least mentioning her hair.
It’s pretty standard in that it’s long and straight and a shade of blonde. While that would allow the KU freshmen to blend in almost everywhere else on campus, it stands out like a sore thumb on the soccer field.
The reason?
She’s usually the only one out there who plays with her hair down and flowing freely.
“It started when I was like 4 years old,” Langfelder said, trying to contain her laughter. “They would put my hair in a ponytail and it would give me a headache. I was a sassy little child, so I would complain and rip it out and then it became a thing and I just never wore it up.”
“I have pictures of me from when I’m 6 years old, 7 years old, with my hair flying everywhere. And back then I didn’t even wear a headband.”
She does today — and has since she was 9 years old or so — but that only does part of the job. The rest of the time, her hair exaggerates how fast she’s running and catches the eye of most everyone watching, from fans in the stands to her opponents.
During the Jayhawks’ exhibition game against Arkansas that kicked off the season, Langfelder said she heard shouts from the sideline of, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”
“I just laughed,” she said. “And kind of thought, fair enough.”
While that hair and the talent attached to it has taken her places she never would’ve dreamed of, Langfelder seems fully comfortable with that being sort of her thing at Kansas.
“As time went on, I was like, ‘I can’t really change this,’” she recalled. “And now I’m like, ‘I still can’t really change it. Like, it’s what I’ve done my entire life.’”
Just like making a major impact on every team she’s ever played for.
Langfelder and the Jayhawks will open play in the program’s 10th NCAA Tournament appearance — and first since 2019 — at 7 p.m. Friday night in St. Louis.
A win there, in addition to being the Jayhawks’ ninth in a row, likely would send KU to California, where they would take on top-seeded USC in Round 2, provided the Trojans are able to survive their opener against Sacramento State.
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
