Hercules, who has played soccer since she was 3 years old, was a Bear defender from 2003-07.
“She was definitely noticed by other coaches and players,” Brewer said. “I recall a story about an opposing MVC coach who told his team at half-time: ‘Stop going down the middle! You can’t beat Kate Hercules!’ ”
As ferocious as she was on the field, she was respected off of it as well.
“She was friends with everybody,” Brewer said. “There are people everybody likes, who always seem to be doing great things, and Kate is like that. She has been living her life right — karma, fate or whatever, she is special.”
In 2006, she was the Missouri Valley Conference Defensive Player of the year. She also performed the second-ever “hat trick” in the history of MSU women’s soccer. “A hat trick is earning three goals in one game,” Hercules said. Since a team can average two goals a game, three points by just one player is a rare feat.
She was semi-pro during a few summers in college, and today she plays every week for fun.
From soccer star to math student
But soccer is not her only passion. “I have loved math my entire life,” she said, and she puts her degree to use for Service Management Group, a company that measures satisfaction for retail stores and restaurants. The company is based in Kansas City but she works from the Denver area, where she lives.
She’s also had two big milestones recently: marriage and a huge lottery win.
Brewer may have been right about Hercules’ good karma. In 2013, she was in Chicago visiting a former teammate. The Blackhawks were in the hockey championships, and her friends were watching at a sports bar that had lottery tickets. Hercules scratched a winner — for $200, she thought.
The woman at the counter had other news. “She said I won a half-million dollars,” Hercules said. “I was in shock.”
After she was certain it was true, it took her two hours to convince her then-fiance, Bobby Souwder, whom she had been dating since freshman year. The couple married March 1, and part of the winnings went to a honeymoon in Belize.
“They take a lot in taxes!” Hercules said. “We paid off our cars, bought a house, put the rest in savings and that is about it. It did change our lives because we’re able to be in a secure place, but it wasn’t quit-your-job type of money… we’re not different people; we still work.”
That doesn’t surprise Brewer. “She’s not one to brag about things.”
He’s probably not the only MSU soccer representative who would have nice things to say about Hercules.
“My favorite thing about Missouri State is the bond I made with my soccer team,” Hercules said. “It has been 10 years since we started playing together, and my soccer friends and I are still close. … That says a lot about the people Missouri State attracts and recruits.”
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