BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
From Varsity Magazine
Kari Maijala-Ornes played her last game for the Wisconsin women's soccer team 25 years ago, but her legacy remains vibrant.
She remains the all-time leading career goal-scorer (47) and point-producer (112) in program history.
She continues to hold the school standard for most hat tricks with three.
She remains the only player in UW history to score a goal in an NCAA title match.
She continues to be on a short list of first-team All-Americans – four in all – to play for the Badgers.
The enduring nature of that resume helps explain why Maijala-Ornes is in the latest class of inductees in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.
Maijala-Ornes came to UW when its soccer program was still in its youth. It debuted as a varsity sport in 1981 and her career spanned 1988 to '91. During that stretch the Badgers were 62-13-3 (.814) overall and advanced to the NCAA semifinals twice (1988 and '91).
"It seems like a lifetime ago, but yet it seems like it was yesterday," Maijala-Ornes said.
UW, overseen at the time by future U.S. national team coach Greg Ryan, lost to North Carolina 3-1 in the national championship game in 1991. The dynastic Tar Heels were in the midst of winning nine consecutive NCAA titles.
North Carolina was without legendary forward Mia Hamm – she took the year off to compete for the U.S. in the World Cup – but the Badgers were unable to capitalize. Maijala-Ornes, playing on a balky knee that was injured in the semifinal win over Colorado College, scored the final goal of her career in that match on a penalty kick.
"We had such a great team," Maijala-Ornes said, adding that Ryan and his top assistant Dean Duerst – who took over as UW coach from 1994 to 2006 – "did a phenomenal job of getting our group together with the chemistry and the talent."
The Big Ten Conference didn't sponsor women's soccer until 1994, so schools were defined by what they did on the national stage.
"It doesn't seem possible at all," Maijala-Ornes said of the quarter century that has come and gone. "It's hard to believe that much time has passed."
Maijala-Ornes' roommate at Wisconsin was Heather Taggart, a two-time first-team All-America goalkeeper who holds the program career record with 52.5 shutouts. Fifteen years after Taggart was inducted in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame, she's being joined by her gifted teammate.
"There's always those players out there that have that kind of intuitive knack for being around the goal at the right time," Taggart said of her friend. "Not only did she have that intangible – being able to be in the right place at the right time by reading the game appropriately, of course – she had a really quick release on her shot. When she made that decision to hit a ball, it came off her foot so quick and gave goalkeepers a very difficult time trying to save that.
"She's tremendously deserving of the honor she's getting."
"I'm just very thankful that I had that opportunity to go to the University of Wisconsin, a great academic institution. Being a student-athlete shapes your lives...you have absolutely no idea of the doors that open for you. I was very fortunate."
Maijala-Ornes came to UW from Bloomington (Minnesota) Jefferson High School where she won 16 varsity letters in five sports – track, softball, soccer, Nordic skiing and basketball – but her calling was on the pitch. There she was a three-time all-state and two-time prep All-American selection.
That love for soccer continues. Maijala-Ornes serves as a coach and director of the Prior Lake (Minnesota) Soccer Club and recently agreed to work at the major college level as a volunteer assistant with the Minnesota women's program.
"It will be fun to get into the Big Ten and see how things are run from the athlete's side of the coin," she said.
It will be another opportunity for Maijala-Ornes to see how the game has grown. She looks around at the faces on her youth teams – especially the girls – and revels in their futures.
"Women's soccer has progressed tremendously in the last 25 years," she said. "There's so many people who coach soccer who have a great degree of knowledge of the game and I think that's great for the kids.
"It's a great a time to be a female athlete. They have so many choices that are available to them. It's really wonderful to see."
Maijala-Ornes said that while some things have changed, the foundation has not.
"It's still a daily grind," she said. "It's still talking to the academic advisers. It's still seeing the athletic trainer. It's still two-a-days. The grind, the sweat. The wonderful relationships you have with your team."
Maijala-Ornes, 46, said she owes much of her life and well-being to her time at UW. It's where she met her husband, Mike, who grew up in Madison and was a member of the men's soccer team. It's where she found direction and maturity. It's where she earned a degree in communication arts.
Kari and Mike have two children, Kaija and Jake. Kaija plays soccer at Colorado State.
"I'm just very thankful that I had that opportunity to go to the University of Wisconsin, a great academic institution," Maijala-Ornes said. "Being a student-athlete shapes your lives in ways that, at that time of your life, you have absolutely no idea of the doors that open for you. I was very fortunate."
Maijala-Ornes said she was surprised to get the call informing her of her induction. She joins Taggart and Karen Lunda, a 2012 honoree who set the single-season program record with 22 goals and 62 points in 1981.
"It really is remarkable that we both had a couple of records that withstood the test of a quarter-century," said Taggart, now a physican in Omaha, Nebraska.
"She's a great person and certainly deserving of representing the University of Wisconsin in the hall of fame."
