As a kid, Molly Keiper was getting posters signed by the 2010 Marquette women’s soccer team, dreaming of playing soccer in college.

Now, the junior midfielder is the one signing the autographs while seeing those dreams come to life as a Golden Eagle.

However, she didn’t start donning the blue and gold until the spring semester of her first year, spending the fall semester at Villanova.

“It (Marquette) was always something that close to home for me and that’s honestly why I didn’t choose it in the first place,” Molly said. “But at the same time, it’s what made it so easy to come back.”

Molly was all too familiar with Marquette. Both of her parents graduated from Marquette in 1992 and eventually became college sweethearts. 

“I loved it. I grew up 45 minutes from Marquette,” Molly’s mother Ann Keiper said. “I had a high school friend who was going to be checking out the volleyball team and she just didn’t want to go alone on the tour. That’s how I got exposed to it, and I was just sold.

“I had a great time and met my best friends. We know so many Marquette alumni, it’s just like family. I loved Marquette and my husband too.”

When Molly decided to transfer to her parents’ alma mater, she said it was almost as if it was fate.

“My dad has always said that sometimes, you don’t find Marquette, Marquette finds you,” Molly said. “Within 10 minutes of me being in the transfer portal, I got a call from Marquette. That was the first call I had gotten since entering the portal.”

At the time Molly had received that call, she was at Major Goolsby’s, a Marquette sports bar in Milwaukee, with her parents and other Marquette alumni after a basketball game.

“She was so psyched, and everybody was hugging,” Ann said. “It was a lot of our alumni friends too. It was that sense of home and community. She absolutely loves Marquette. To have our daughter there is amazing.”

Entering her first season at Marquette, Molly said that the team embraced her without a second thought.

“My class, there’s nine of us, and they were super welcoming,” Molly said. “The team as a whole was ready (with) open arms. With playing a sport, you almost have this guaranteed friend group. You’re not walking in blind; you’re walking in with a group of 30 girls that you know in two weeks’ time are going to be your best friends.”

Now, in her third season as a Golden Eagle, she has started in all ten contests after only starting in one match last year.

“She had the (Marquette) poster hanging above her bed and she’s like, ‘I’m going to play soccer someday in college,’” Ann said. “I was just like, ‘Okay, keep dreaming.’ But she made it happen.”

However, soccer isn’t the only thing she set her mind on.

Molly is involved many organizations at Marquette, such as the Student Athletic Advisory Committee and Fellowship for Christian Athletes. She is also currently interning with Marquette Athletics as a social media intern.

“She’s very reliable,” Director of Creative Content and Social Media for Marquette Athletics Josh Levin said. “Athletes know what other athletes would want to see on social media, so having someone who’s actively in it is a really nice, unique perspective that you don’t always get.”

Molly said that being involved in these organizations has allowed her to create connections that she otherwise might not have had.

“It’s definitely expanded my relationships a lot beyond my own team, so getting the opportunity to build relationships with athletes from other teams has been huge,” Molly said.

This past summer with SAAC, Molly got to attend the Big East Student-Athlete Well-Being Forum hosted by Xavier University.

“Getting to be a part of that was a really cool experience,” Molly said. “Hearing what things are like at other schools and sharing what Marquette’s like, just being able to bring ideas to the table and seeing the administrative side of things was really cool.”

Ann said that she loves Molly’s go-getter personality as well as how she represents her Catholic faith along with it.

“She’s just a unique, young woman,” Ann said. “She’s very self-motivated, and she’s a leader. I never have to say, ‘Oh, you should join this’ or ‘Why don’t you go to that group?’ She just does all these things.

“She has her Catholic faith, and she takes it seriously. She’ll say, ‘Do you want to come down and meet me at Gesu?’ Honestly, I love that. It makes me so proud that she also embraces the Jesuit Catholic community at Marquette.”

In everything that she does at Marquette, Molly said she is constantly grateful for her parents’ endless love and support.

“They’re at every game, home or away,” Molly said. “They’re always at the basketball games. We’ll all go to church at Gesu. It’s definitely Marquette through and through in my relationship with them.”

This story was written by Kaylynn Wright. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @KaylynnWrightMU.