Grayslake Central’s Dickson one cool Kat

Flying Kat stretched like a cat, pouncing on a ball before it reached the soccer net behind her, falling snow failing to faze her.

For four years at Grayslake Central, Kat Dickson has been unflappable and “on fire.”

Is it any wonder that, since the eighth grade, the father of her basketball teammate Alex Scarbro has called her “Mucho En Fuego”?

Flying Kat has flown. She’s witnessed poverty in Mexico and has lent a helping hand, is eyeing a potential second visit to Spain, and has developed a passion for Spanish and the people who speak the language. Suffice it to say, she can translate “Mucho En Fuego.”

“Flying Kat”? A couple of basketball teammates’ moms nicknamed her that, no doubt for a 23-inch vertical jump that complemented her rebounding savvy.

A soccer parent dubbed the 5-foot-9 Dickson “Stretch.”

Even her first name, she notes, is a nickname.

“I’ve collected a few (nicknames) over the years,” says Dickson, whose real first name is Kathryn.

“Stretch” has snagged more than nicknames. She’s collected four varsity letters in basketball, one in volleyball (as a sophomore) and three in soccer. She will earn her fourth this spring. Grayslake Central’s starting goalkeeper since her freshman year, she’s started this season with 5 shutouts in 5 games, with among her best saves being a diving stop pulled off last week when the Rams battled visiting Prairie Ridge and snowflakes.

“She is, by far, the best goalie I have ever coached in my life,” says Grayslake Central coach Mike McCaulou, whose Rams won their own four-team invite this week, outscoring their three opponents 17-0.

Here’s a sampling of the Kat’s meow: a school-record 10 shutouts last season with a school-record 0.80 goals against average, a school-record 20 saves in an overtime win over then-state-ranked Huntley her freshman year, three times all-Fox Valley Conference.

Not bad for a girl who never donned one of those bright goalie jerseys and big mitts on a regular basis until her freshman year, out of necessity because the program lacked keepers. It’s become the position she loves and wants to play in college.

She’s considering Division III Hope College in Holland, Mich., meaning “Flying Kat” could become a “Flying Dutch.”

“I like the diving and the jumping,” Dickson says of tending goal. “It’s a different position. I like coming out for crosses and reading the ball. All the different skills that you have to use to be a goalie, it’s not the same as the other (positions). You have to know when to come out. You have to be a communicator and leader on the field. I like it a lot.”

A communicator? A leader?

This is hardly a stretch for “Stretch.”

She desires to go into Spanish education and maybe parlay it into coaching.

“I hope to study abroad in college and go to South America because that would just complete the whole cultural diversity,” Dickson says. “I’ve been to Mexico and I’ve been to Spain, so that would be something new.”

The passion was born when she started taking Spanish classes in middle school. Like sports, she had a knack for it. As part of church mission trips in 2007 and 2008, she and a team visited Guadalupe, Mexico, where an orphanage welcomed them with open arms. Dickson helped scrub the school, organize a birthday party and aided kids less fortunate than Kat Dickson.

Some “fancy, Cancun, vacation spot,” it wasn’t, she says.

Since her freshman year, she and her family (parents Kevin and Kelley) have hosted exchange students Bea, Felix and Carlos from Spain. Carlos and Felix live in Malaga in southern Spain. Kat and her brother hope to go back there this summer.

The last time she visited, Kat went to beaches, saw historical monuments, tasted Spanish food and got a large heaping of Spanish culture.

“I love traveling,” Dickson says.

For now, the destination she seeks is a soccer sectional.

She and her teammates have lost in the regional final three straight years. But this spring, the Rams are senior- and junior-dominated, and might have their best team since Dickson arrived.

“We’re hoping this is going to be our year,” Dickson says. “We’re just trying to focus on right now and worrying about one game at a time.”

The journey, Flying Kat will attest, is half the fun.

jaguilar@dailyherald.com