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A passionate coach. A passionate player. A passionate mom. A passionate person in everything she did.

Pierce, a beloved soccer coach and player in the Tucson community, died of cardiac arrest on Aug. 1. She was 44.

“She was a special person and it shows with the amount of support that my family’s gotten,� her brother Jeff Pierce told the Star. “With her, her whole world was her boys and she did everything for them. And a lot of people know her as a coach, but that’s how she lived her life, the same way she coached. … She was a sister and a family member and a friend to so many people. That’s just how she was, she was all those things and she was everything that you would want a sister, a mother, a daughter and a young woman to be. Someone who was independent and driven and determined.�

She is survived by her three sons, Tyler, Brady and Camden; her mother, Donna Pierce; her brothers, Jeff and Donald Pierce; her grandmother, Lucille Nagore; and her partner, Joe Bernier. She is preceded in death by her father, Keith, and grandfather, Gilbert Nagore.

Pierce, a native Tucsonan who was born at Tucson Medical Center on Dec. 4, 1980, was a prominent soccer figure in Southern Arizona for over 20 years.

She began playing at the age of 5 and gained recognition in the community during her time as a standout soccer player at Salpointe Catholic High School.

As a Lancer, she helped lead the girls varsity soccer team to back-to-back state championships in 1998 and 1999. Following graduation, Pierce played at Pima Community College for two years before moving on to play with Sonoran Thunder of the Women’s Premier Soccer League.

Pierce began her journey with Tucson Soccer Academy FC (TSAFC) around 2013, which eventually formed into FC Tucson Women. She played with FC Tucson Women until 2019.

As much as Pierce loved playing the game, she enjoyed sharing her knowledge, passion and spirit with the next generation of soccer players even more.

She began her high school coaching career at Mountain View High School in 2013, the same year she returned to playing soccer. She was the girls head soccer coach at Mountain View until 2017.

Pierce rejoined her alma mater as the head girls soccer coach and led the Lancers to six 4A state championships over eight years, with titles in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025. During her time with the Lancers, Pierce also coached her previous team, FC Tucson Women, from 2019 to 2023.

In 2024, she became the director of coaching for the CDO Soccer Alliance, where she continued to work toward creating an equal playing field for soccer players in Tucson.

Her accomplishments on the pitch and her love of the game and its players have created a legacy in Southern Arizona that will far surpass her time on Earth.

‘She was everything that you would want’

In her personal life, her boys were everything to her. But when she was on the pitch and became Coach Kelly, her players, known as “her girls,� were her everything.

Her brother Jeff had a lifelong front row seat to see how deeply she cared and championed for equality with not just her teams, but all players.

“It was always about her girls. It was always about them,� he said. “(After winning) they would rush the field and she would instantly walk to any girl on the other team who may have her head down and maybe crying and she would help them up. She would console them. She would shake hands with the other coach and and she would celebrate with her team last. It was always about the girls. It was never about her. And that was always a very proud moment for me, because as a coach myself, I want to be like this. I want to be exactly what she was as a coach, and I want to have that impact on the kids that I coach the same way that she did.�

One person who experienced that firsthand is former Salpointe Catholic soccer star Rylen Bourguet, who says she’s blessed to have known Pierce.

“She was just a great role model on and off the field,� Rylen said. “She looked out for us girls. She treated us like her daughters. She cared about us as people, not just as players, which is very hard to do when you’re playing at an elite level like that. To have a coach that actually cares about you as a person, and not just for what you’re producing on the field, is something that I was very grateful for.�

Rylen played for Pierce all four years of her high school career, from 2019-23, during which the Lancers won multiple state championships. She credits Pierce for making her the “person and athlete I am today.�

Others who worked with Pierce saw her dedication to both sport and family, too, including members of her FC Tucson family.

“Kelly was a talented and charismatic leader both as a player and a coach,� Jon Pearlman, FC Tucson’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “She was committed to elevating not just women’s soccer but all women’s sports as a champion for gender equality. Most importantly, Kelly was a devoted mother and fierce advocate for not just her children or young female soccer players, but all children. The FC Tucson community and Southern Arizona soccer community collectively mourns this tragic loss.�

The unexpected loss is indescribable to those who knew her.

“You can’t put it into words,� said Phil Gruensfelder, Salpointe Catholic’s athletic director. “It’s somebody that has such a deep connection to our school and has put in so many hours into our students. I haven’t even thought about where we go from here.�

Gruensfelder saw Pierce last Tuesday at the school’s head coaches’ meeting, when she came rushing in, a bit scrambled after running an errand.

“She goes, ‘I came all the way from Catalina,’� Gruensfelder recalled of the last time he saw Pierce. “I go, ‘Well, you’re here now, you’re nice and cool. Grab something to eat and just relax.’ And she just kind of giggled, because she was always on the run and taking care of other people. … She had a big caring heart.�

For so long, Pierce had been her family’s rock, her brother Jeff says. The person they leaned on when things got tough or they were faced with adversity. Now that she’s gone, her friends, family and loved ones find themselves leaning on each other, looking for solace as they remember a coach, a mom, a sister, a daughter, an athlete, a person who can never be replaced.

“We hope that these girls have taken those (traits) from her and that they can live their lives the way she did, and relay that message to other young women and girls to be whatever they want to be, and however they want to be it,� Jeff said. “And that was really important to her and it’s important to us that we continue that in her name and and it’s sad that she won’t continue to do that for so many more girls, so many more kids, but it’s nice to see that she did have such a huge impact on so many of them. That she has a legacy that she’s leaving behind.�

Ways to honor Kelly

Pierce will be honored at a celebration of life event at Salpointe Catholic’s Kalil Gymnasium, , at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9. The event is open to the public.

Attendees can park in the Glenn Street parking lot.

Those who can’t attend in person can livestream the event on . (Search “Salpointe� and then click on the event titled “Ceremony.�)

FC Tucson is also honoring the late coach by releasing $15 emblazoned with “All Heart, All Hustle, All Pierce� on the front. The proceeds from the T-shirt sales go toward her sons’ trust fund. It can be purchased through .

A () has been created to help her sons, including two who are under 18, navigate growing up in a world without their mom.