Kathrine (Kay) Kersey-Kee
They were just a couple of numbers and a single word, but they spoke volumes about Kay Kersey Kee’s (Roosevelt, 1981) self-confidence and competitive nature as a young athlete.
Screen printed onto the back of Kee’s Roughriders basketball jersey, they read “6-2 Center” and no doubt caused some double takes from competitors and fans alike, considering that space is typically reserved for a player’s last name. That and the fact Kee was a guard who stood, at best, 5-2 on her poofiest hair day.
But nobody could tell her she wasn’t tall. Kee had grown up being the tall kid in grade school, and it wasn’t her fault she reached her physical apex before she reached her teens. Being tall had served her well in the past, so why not carry that stature forward, even if only as a mindset?
“After I stopped growing at 12, I started telling people I was tall for my height and big for my size,” Kee says with a laugh.
She grew up in a family that made up for a lack of height with a tall order of attitude. Mom and Dad, Janine and Wilton, were both 5-3. Brothers Brian, two years older, and Bobby, two years younger, topped out at 5-7.
So what, Kee says. “You couldn’t tell any of us we were short.”
They certainly weren’t short on athletic genes. Dad had run cross country in his youth; mom did, too, while also competing in gymnastics. So growing up, Kee and her brothers were never far from some sort of competition.
“Dad always told me I was his favorite son, and he raised me like one,” Kee says.
At Sitton Grade School in North Portland, she played volleyball, basketball, volleyball and was a naturally gifted runner. It was a skill, she says, that helped her become the first girl in Portland to play Little League baseball.
“I wasn’t a great baseball player, but I was taller than everyone else and outran all the boys,” she says. “That’s the reason I made the team.”
A Quick Study in Gymnastics
Kee advanced to Roosevelt the same year that her grade school track and gymnastics coach took a new job there, and she wound up continuing to compete in both sports. Gymnastics was new to her, but she took to it quickly – even if maybe a little too quickly at first.
“The first time I did gymnastics I had been watching the girls vault and I asked someone how the event was scored,” Kee remembers. “They said, ‘You just run down and jump off the horse.’ So I sprinted down and jumped and landed on the floor past the mat. Then they told me, ‘You don’t have to run as fast as you can.’”
Kee would earn four letters as an all-around performer, competing in vault, beam, bars and floor exercise. She added another three basketball letters, making 2nd Team All-PIL as a senior, and four track-and-field letters, adding a single cross-country letter for good measure. “My parents and both brothers ran cross country, and I wasn’t going to be left out,” she cracks.
When she graduated, Kee held Roosevelt records in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, the 300-meter hurdles and the long jump. She also ran the 100m hurdles and anchored the 4x100m relay team for four years. As a senior, she finished fifth in the state in long jump and sixth in the 300m hurdles.
She also competed in the shot put at Roosevelt, because of course she did. Tipping the scales at 99 pounds, Kee wasn’t exactly built for the event, and it didn’t help that she only had the use of one leg. But setting another school record wasn’t the point.
“During my last basketball game as freshman, I pulled all the ligaments in my ankle,” Kee recalls. “I really wanted to earn 12 letters, but I had no idea how I was going to earn one in track that year being on crutches. So I learned how to shotput on one leg so I couldbget the points I needed.”
Kee says that’s one of her favorite high school memories, all of which share the themes of camaraderie, teamwork and being inspired by her coaches.
“I loved my teammates and coaches who were inspirational, taight me a lot and really cared about their players,” she says. “My basketball coach, Jerry Mishmash, was one of my favorites. He was short, too, so we saw eye to eye in more ways than one. He showed me I could succeed no matter what size I was.”
Kee’s success in track earned her a scholarship to Portland State, where she found a home for her diverse set of skills in the seven-event heptathlon. “I think that experience throwing the shot put in high school may have prepared me some for that event,” she muses.
USA Korfball MVP
She earned four letters while working toward her degree in mechanical engineering and, in 1985, competing on the USA Korfball team. Kee was introduced to the sport at PSU by a coach for the US national team who encouraged her to try out for the squad.
Invented in the Netherlands in 1902 and now popular in Europe and internationally, korfball mixes elements of basketball and…some other things, making the sport's description a better fit for someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
The key takeaway is korfball is another sport that is not necessarily a natural fit for a short person. But, as Kee reiterates with a laugh, “Again, I didn’t know I was short. But I was good at running and dodging and other things.”
That sounds like an understatement considering that after playing across the pond and helping the USA earn a bronze medal in European competition, Kee was named team MVP in a sport she hadn't even heard of just a few months earlier.
“It was pretty darn fun and exciting,” she says.
When Kee graduated from Portland State, she took her mechanical engineering degree down to Swan Island, just a hop, skip and korfball shot from where she’d grown up in North Portland, and landed a design engineering job with Freightliner. That’s where she stayed until retiring from Daimler Trucks in 2023. Unsurprisingly, she spent most of her time with the company in management, retiring as Engineering Manager.
“I’ve always been kind of a boss,” she laughs. “I was one of the few design engineers with a degree and the only gal that was a manager. But when you play sports and grow up with brothers, you don’t see yourself as the only girl. You just are. So I didn’t give it any thought; it was something I was used to. I loved my career.”
When she wasn’t working, Kee fueled her competitive fire by playing in Freightliner’s own coed softball league for 30 years. Her favorite teammate was her husband, Jeff, whom she’d met earlier at Freightliner.
“He’s 5-10, and when I met him, I thought he was huge, coming from my family,” she says.
The Kees have been married for 30 years and are now enjoying spending much of their retired life in the Oceanside beach home they bought a couple years ago.
“I love it,” she says. “I get to go for a walk on the beach every day. I love looking for agates and shells. In fact, we may have to look for a new house because I’m running out of room for them.”
She and Jeff also spend time golfing, fishing, crabbing, hunting, and helping out her 85-year-old mother in Portland. She was Kee’s special guest when she was inducted into the PIL Hall of Fame in 2020.
“That was so exciting for me,” Kee says. “I’m so glad I took my mom to the banquet. She had been such a big part of my achievements and was so proud of me for this one. She thought I was famous.”
Do you know Kay Kersey-Kee? If you'd like to reconnect, she can be reached at kaysterkee@gmail.com
For profile comments or suggestions for future profile subjects, contact Dick Baltus: ralanbaltus@gmail.com
Member Spotlight
They were just a couple of numbers and a single word, but they spoke volumes about Kay Kersey Kee’s (Roosevelt, 1981) self-confidence and competitive nature as a young athlete.
Screen printed onto the back of Kee’s Roughriders basketball jersey, they read “6-2 Center” and no doubt caused some double takes from competitors and fans alike, considering that space is typically reserved for a player’s last name. That and the fact Kee was a guard who stood, at best, 5-2 on her poofiest hair day.
But nobody could tell her she wasn’t tall. Kee had grown up being the tall kid in grade school, and it wasn’t her fault she reached her physical apex before she reached her teens. Being tall had served her well in the past, so why not carry that stature forward, even if only as a mindset?
“After I stopped growing at 12, I started telling people I was tall for my height and big for my size,” Kee says with a laugh.
She grew up in a family that made up for a lack of height with a tall order of attitude. Mom and Dad, Janine and Wilton, were both 5-3. Brothers Brian, two years older, and Bobby, two years younger, topped out at 5-7.
So what, Kee says. “You couldn’t tell any of us we were short.”
They certainly weren’t short on athletic genes. Dad had run cross country in his youth; mom did, too, while also competing in gymnastics. So growing up, Kee and her brothers were never far from some sort of competition.
“Dad always told me I was his favorite son, and he raised me like one,” Kee says.
At Sitton Grade School in North Portland, she played volleyball, basketball, volleyball and was a naturally gifted runner. It was a skill, she says, that helped her become the first girl in Portland to play Little League baseball.
“I wasn’t a great baseball player, but I was taller than everyone else and outran all the boys,” she says. “That’s the reason I made the team.”
A Quick Study in Gymnastics
Kee advanced to Roosevelt the same year that her grade school track and gymnastics coach took a new job there, and she wound up continuing to compete in both sports. Gymnastics was new to her, but she took to it quickly – even if maybe a little too quickly at first.
“The first time I did gymnastics I had been watching the girls vault and I asked someone how the event was scored,” Kee remembers. “They said, ‘You just run down and jump off the horse.’ So I sprinted down and jumped and landed on the floor past the mat. Then they told me, ‘You don’t have to run as fast as you can.’”
Kee would earn four letters as an all-around performer, competing in vault, beam, bars and floor exercise. She added another three basketball letters, making 2nd Team All-PIL as a senior, and four track-and-field letters, adding a single cross-country letter for good measure. “My parents and both brothers ran cross country, and I wasn’t going to be left out,” she cracks.
When she graduated, Kee held Roosevelt records in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, the 300-meter hurdles and the long jump. She also ran the 100m hurdles and anchored the 4x100m relay team for four years. As a senior, she finished fifth in the state in long jump and sixth in the 300m hurdles.
She also competed in the shot put at Roosevelt, because of course she did. Tipping the scales at 99 pounds, Kee wasn’t exactly built for the event, and it didn’t help that she only had the use of one leg. But setting another school record wasn’t the point.
“During my last basketball game as freshman, I pulled all the ligaments in my ankle,” Kee recalls. “I really wanted to earn 12 letters, but I had no idea how I was going to earn one in track that year being on crutches. So I learned how to shotput on one leg so I couldbget the points I needed.”
Kee says that’s one of her favorite high school memories, all of which share the themes of camaraderie, teamwork and being inspired by her coaches.
“I loved my teammates and coaches who were inspirational, taight me a lot and really cared about their players,” she says. “My basketball coach, Jerry Mishmash, was one of my favorites. He was short, too, so we saw eye to eye in more ways than one. He showed me I could succeed no matter what size I was.”
Kee’s success in track earned her a scholarship to Portland State, where she found a home for her diverse set of skills in the seven-event heptathlon. “I think that experience throwing the shot put in high school may have prepared me some for that event,” she muses.
USA Korfball MVP
She earned four letters while working toward her degree in mechanical engineering and, in 1985, competing on the USA Korfball team. Kee was introduced to the sport at PSU by a coach for the US national team who encouraged her to try out for the squad.
Invented in the Netherlands in 1902 and now popular in Europe and internationally, korfball mixes elements of basketball and…some other things, making the sport's description a better fit for someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
The key takeaway is korfball is another sport that is not necessarily a natural fit for a short person. But, as Kee reiterates with a laugh, “Again, I didn’t know I was short. But I was good at running and dodging and other things.”
That sounds like an understatement considering that after playing across the pond and helping the USA earn a bronze medal in European competition, Kee was named team MVP in a sport she hadn't even heard of just a few months earlier.
“It was pretty darn fun and exciting,” she says.
When Kee graduated from Portland State, she took her mechanical engineering degree down to Swan Island, just a hop, skip and korfball shot from where she’d grown up in North Portland, and landed a design engineering job with Freightliner. That’s where she stayed until retiring from Daimler Trucks in 2023. Unsurprisingly, she spent most of her time with the company in management, retiring as Engineering Manager.
“I’ve always been kind of a boss,” she laughs. “I was one of the few design engineers with a degree and the only gal that was a manager. But when you play sports and grow up with brothers, you don’t see yourself as the only girl. You just are. So I didn’t give it any thought; it was something I was used to. I loved my career.”
When she wasn’t working, Kee fueled her competitive fire by playing in Freightliner’s own coed softball league for 30 years. Her favorite teammate was her husband, Jeff, whom she’d met earlier at Freightliner.
“He’s 5-10, and when I met him, I thought he was huge, coming from my family,” she says.
The Kees have been married for 30 years and are now enjoying spending much of their retired life in the Oceanside beach home they bought a couple years ago.
“I love it,” she says. “I get to go for a walk on the beach every day. I love looking for agates and shells. In fact, we may have to look for a new house because I’m running out of room for them.”
She and Jeff also spend time golfing, fishing, crabbing, hunting, and helping out her 85-year-old mother in Portland. She was Kee’s special guest when she was inducted into the PIL Hall of Fame in 2020.
“That was so exciting for me,” Kee says. “I’m so glad I took my mom to the banquet. She had been such a big part of my achievements and was so proud of me for this one. She thought I was famous.”
Do you know Kay Kersey-Kee? If you'd like to reconnect, she can be reached at kaysterkee@gmail.com
For profile comments or suggestions for future profile subjects, contact Dick Baltus: ralanbaltus@gmail.com
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