All In The Family: The Locksleys

The Fall 2021 issue of ONE MARYLAND Magazine will arrive in the mailboxes of Terrapin Club members soon, but this is a sneak peak of one of its stories. 

ONE MARYLAND features stories of strength and perseverance, of determination and spirit. These stories define our athletics program, and this new magazine will allow us to share these stories with you. 

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One of Kori Locksley’s earliest memories playing soccer comes from her family’s time living in Illinois when her father, Michael Locksley, served as offensive coordinator for the Fighting Illini.

Only around six years old, Kori was tagging along on one of her three older brother’s soccer practices like she normally did. And it didn’t take long for coaches to notice the raw talent of the youngest Locksley sibling. 

“I was just kicking the ball around into the goal waiting for the tryout to finish,” said Kori. “And one of the coaches came up to me and they asked me if I wanted to play and I said, ‘Sure.” So they invited me to the tryouts, and it was a U10 team and I was like six years old.” 

Some parents might have reservations about having their child play up a couple age groups – especially considering Locksley’s older sons all became Division I football stars – , but Michael knew it would be no problem for the child he quips was, “the best athlete in the house.”  

“The big thing was she grew up as the only girl with three older brothers,” said Michael. “She was bounced around pretty good by the time she was six or seven and she held her own against them. I knew she could hold her own against three pretty good athletes in her brothers, so I figured she’d be just fine with some of the older girls.”

Michael calling his sons “pretty good athletes” is underselling their athletic abilities as all of Kori’s older brothers played Division I college football. Being the youngest sibling taught Kori how to be tougher than all of the other girls despite being younger and smaller than all of them.

What she lacked in size she made up for in speed and agility as Kori quickly picked up the sport. Fast forward several years and she was committed to Auburn as a 10th grader, earning a highly-coveted full scholarship to an SEC school. 

The decision to attend Auburn became even better when Michael took a job at the University of Alabama as the Crimson Tide’s co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach.

Michael and his wife, Kia, could be close to Kori again and the two could even make the two and a half hour drive to attend her games.  

However, injuries derailed the midfielder/forward’s early collegiate career, but she managed to carve out a role in her sophomore and junior seasons with 11 points recorded in 37 games. 

While her college soccer career was taking off, Michael was being brought home for his dream job. On December 4th, 2018, Michael was officially announced as the new head coach of the Maryland football team and was forced to leave his daughter 750 miles away in Auburn. 

Taking over a program as a new head coach leaves little time for a personal life, so making it down south to catch Kori’s games became a challenge. However, the two still found time for each other despite the distance.        

“Of course it’s difficult communicating all the time when your dad is a head football coach,” Kori explained. “Our seasons are at the same time and our practice days are long, but he would just randomly FaceTime me, sometimes it would be 10 o’clock at night at the hotel before a game. Or just a simple text here and there, just making sure soccer was going well and everything else was good.”

Michael and Kia relied on a SEC Network subscription and live streams to keep an eye on Kori and the Tigers, as the pandemic made travel an even greater challenge. 

Despite the tumultuous year, Kori had a breakout season for the Tigers where she played in 18 games, logged a career high 1,083 minutes and scored two game-winning goals. 

After earning her degree from Auburn, the events of the last year weighed heavily on Kori when contemplating her next move. When an opportunity arose to finish out her college career at Maryland, it was one she couldn’t resist.   

“I think I definitely felt that void of being away from them and being alone a lot,” said Kori. “Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I wanted them to be able to see me play out my college career. So that played a huge role in the opportunity to come back home.”     

 Michael did his best to hide his excitement when he learned Kori had committed to the Terps, but ultimately was thrilled that his daughter made the decision to come home. 

“I tried to downplay it because I didn’t want to seem like I was too happy or impressed,” said Michael. “I didn’t want to put pressure on her to make a decision to come here if she really didn’t have it in her heart. But underneath it all, we had our fingers crossed she would decide to stay and come back home.”

Now reunited at Maryland, Michael and Kori will be seeing a lot more of each other especially because of the close proximity of their facilities. 

The soccer complex Ludwig Field where Kori will practice and play all of her home games is located directly across the parking lot from the new football facility, Jones-Hill House. 

For a man who used to drive over 150 miles across the state of Alabama, 750 miles from Maryland to Auburn, or be forced to watch on TV, Michael is thankful that he now only has to take 100 steps to see his daughter play.

“For me to be able to slide out of Jones-Hill House, walk across the parking lot and be able to see her play – to me it’s a benefit that I haven’t had the luxury of for quite some time,” Michael said. “I’m looking forward to it.”