Love is in the air this Valentine’s Day throughout the Sporting Kansas City locker room, with veterans Kevin Ellis, Dom Dwyer and Matt Besler welcoming their first children within the past 18 months. Meanwhile, newly acquired goalkeeper Andrew Dykstra was blessed with twins six months before joining Sporting KC.
Here’s the story of 25-year-old center back Ellis, whose soccer journey with Sporting KC helped him build a family on and off the field.
Ellis became the second homegrown player in Sporting KC history when he signed a professional contract on Feb. 18, 2011. He was just 19 years old and spent that first season traveling across America clocking minutes with the reserve team.
Although his professional career was on the rise, things at home were not going as well. Ellis’ mom, Christina, suffered a stroke during a routine hernia surgery and in August 2011, she passed away at just 47 years of age.
With his world starting to crumble, it was soccer and Sporting KC that kept him going.
A month later, Sporting KC’s first team played Real Salt Lake in MLS competition, falling 1-0 to the Claret and Cobalt. The next morning, the Sporting KC reserves played Salt Lake’s reserves. Ellis started at outside back, helping his team to a 1-0 victory in Utah.
Ellis didn’t remember a single detail from that match, but he did note that his team had to connect through Denver on the way back to Kansas City. On that day, Ellis met Abby Fisher, who by fate was sitting right across the aisle on Southwest flight 876. As fate would have it, Fisher was returning to Kansas City from a friend’s wedding in Denver but missed her morning flight, landing her a seat on Sporting KC’s return flight that evening.
“It sounds cheesy, but every trip I would tell my mom that I hoped I would meet my wife on a plane, because you don’t know what people do or where they’re from. You just meet people for who they really are,” Ellis said. “Coincidentally, this was the first trip I took after my mom passed away. Right when I saw Abby, I knew she was the one. She had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen."
On June 29, 2013, Ellis made his first appearance for Sporting Kansas City. On July 3, his second. Ellis didn’t see the field again that season.
While his soccer career wasn’t taking off as quickly as he would have liked, his romance with Fisher was better than ever. On Dec. 9, 2013, Ellis proposed while the couple was on a carriage ride through the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City.
She said yes!
Ellis enjoyed a breakout year in Major League Soccer in 2014, starting 16 matches and making 20 appearances for his hometown club. Month by month, his progression as a player would coincide with a blossoming relationship that brought him so much happiness and joy off the field.
On Dec. 13, 2014, Ellis and Abby got married. Ellis continued to excel on the field in 2015, starting 27 of 28 appearances –including 120 minutes in Sporting KC’s lone playoff match. Ellis also tallied the most goals by a defender in Major League Soccer in 2015, scoring four during the regular season and adding a fifth in the playoffs.
On Dec. 12, 2015, the couple welcomed their first child, Willow Christina Ellis, just in time to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary.
An Ellis family tradition began last February when Abby and Willow flew to Tucson, Arizona, to visit Kevin and spend Valentine’s Day as a family. The girls will arrive a few days later this year, but it will be just in time for Ellis to celebrate his six-year milestone at Sporting KC with the loves of his life.
"We always joke that Kevin is "father of the year" and that there is nothing he won't do," Abby said. "The way Willow looks up to him melts your heart. The three of us truly are the three best friends."
