Kelley Maureen O'Hara (born August 4, 1988) is an American soccer player from Fayetteville, Georgia. She was a forward for the Stanford women's soccer team and is a member of the United States U-23 women's national soccer team. She is the recipient of the 2009 Hermann Trophy. An interesting and little known fact about Kelley is that she comes from a soccer family, with a brother Jerry and a sister, Erin, who all grew up scrimmaging in the yard together. Their father would place them in a square box and have them play 1 v 1 v 1 which all three claim is the secret to their miraculous touch. After a stint in Athens, Erin has traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to ignite her career as a starting defender for the JFTB club. [1]A two-time Parade All-American coming into her freshman year at Stanford, O'Hara led the Cardinal in scoring in 2006 with nine goals; she repeated that feat in her sophomore year, helping the Cardinal to the third round of the NCAA Tournament.
During O'Hara's junior year Stanford advanced to the College Cup for the first time since 1993, defeating 2005 national champion Portland, 1–0. The Cardinal would fall in the semifinal, 0–1, to Notre Dame.
O'Hara's senior year ended in the 2009 College Cup, where the Cardinal lost to North Carolina. O'Hara received two yellow cards in the second half, ejecting her from the game, forcing the Cardinal to finish the game a man down. The game ended with a score of 1–0, thus marking North Carolina's twentieth National Championship. At the end of her collegiate career, O'Hara had scored a total of 57 goals for the Cardinal, second all-time in program history.
O'Hara was awarded the 2009 Hermann Trophy, selected ahead of Olympic gold medalists Lauren Cheney and Tobin Heath.
O'Hara was a member of the fourth-place United States U-20 women's national soccer team that competed in the 2006 FIFA U-20 Women's World Championship in Russia. O'Hara scored two goals in the tournament: one against the Congo (for which game she was named FIFA's player of the match) and one against Germany. She was also the first player in the tournament to be ejected from a game, having picked up two yellow cards in the game against Argentina. After 2006, the only American players from that U-20 team still eligible for the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup were O'Hara, Tobin Heath, and Casey Nogueira.O'Hara would rejoin the U-20s at the 2007 Pan American Games. She scored four goals in the women's football tournament, against Paraguay, Panama, and Mexico. The United States, which only sent their U-20 women to the tournament, would fall in the final game, 0–5, to a full-strength Brazilian senior team featuring Marta.
In February 2008, O'Hara returned to the U-20 women's national team with Cardinal teammate Teresa Noyola to play in the U-20 Four Nations Tournament in Chile. Her last appearance for the U-20s would be in July 2008, at the 2008 CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship in Puebla, Mexico. Joined by Nogueira, the only other veteran of the 2006 U-20 World Cup still age-eligible and available (Heath had been named to the senior team for the 2008 Olympic Games), O'Hara helped the U-20 team qualify for the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Chile. The United States would lose in the final to Canada. O'Hara did not play in the U-20 World Cup that she helped the United States qualify for, instead remaining with her college team in its NCAA postseason campaign.
She was called into the senior national team's training camp in December 2009 and attended the January 2010 training camp in the lead-up to the 2010 Algarve Cup. O'Hara earned her first senior national team cap in March 2010, coming in as a substitute during a friendly match against Mexico.
Currently, O'Hara is part of the United States Women's National Team player pool.
