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As Kim Morris watched the Indiana Blast soccer teamís season finale last August, she found herself more than a little caught up in the action. Though sheíd attended her share of matches at Kuntz Stadium, this time she felt a personal stake in the game.

The week before, her husband, Alex, had suggested investing in the team and had even stopped off at the Independent Soccer League headquarters in Tampa, Fla., during their family vacation. It seemed only natural to jet back to Indianapolis in the middle of that vacation to watch the Blastís final game ñ after all, the couple was weighing a precious chunk of change.

The stakes suddenly increased when Morris heard her name blared over the loudspeakers during the half-time show. Strains of Happy Birthday filled the air, and the announcer bid her to take the floor as the new owner who would lead the team into the next millennium. In shock, she turned to find a knowing grin on her husbandís face ñ while in Florida, he had bought the team as her 40th birthday present. "More than one of my friends afterward said this was the first time they ever saw me speechless," she says. "But I didnít collapse, I didnít faint dead away, I didnít get hysterical. I guess I held my composure."

In the blink of an eye, Morris became the first woman to own not one, but two professional soccer teams: The Indiana Blaze womenís team was also part of the package. She added a third team to her dynasty in February when she signed the papers for the indoor soccer team formerly known as the Indiana Twisters (the previous owner holds the rights to the teamís name). As president and owner of each franchise, she shares ownership of MorSports (the umbrella company for the three teams) with Alex but handles the decisions herself; her husbandís position as owner of Morris Associates, an employee benefit administration company, leaves little time for anything but overseeing the general budget.

Morrisí sudden leap into professional sports management is somewhat deceiving, however. Though sheís never owned a team before, she can make her way around the soccer pitch with the best of them, in large part because of the coupleís four boys ñ Cody, 14; Logan, 11; Cullen, 9; and Dylan, 8. The household always has centered on sports, and Morris wasnít the kind to merely drop the boys off at practice and show up at games. In fact, from the time Cody signed up for the grade-school baseball team, sheís been honing her management skills.

When each son took his turn on the Little League scene, she volunteered as team mom, lining up the baseballs and bats before each game. She even filled in as an umpire one season, mastering the rule book so well that professional minor-league umpires tried to recruit her full-time. Though sheís not planning to take them up on the offer, Morris says that brief stint gave her an inside view on baseball and organized sports in general. "I found out thereís more to this than just watching your son hit the ball and run the bases," she says. "Thereís a system and an organization it takes to handle a sports team that not everyone has. Of course, it also taught me not to be afraid of the ball!"

Then came her first soccer match, when Logan signed up for the Northeast Youth Soccer Club seven years ago. Morris found herself in unfamiliar territory ñ she had never even seen a match before that spring. A 1975 North Central High School graduate, she grew up in a generation that viewed organized soccer as an oddity, and girls wouldnít play even if it were an official high school sport. Yet the sight of her 4-year-old kicking at a ball that reached almost to his kneecap captured her heart. In typical fashion, she volunteered to serve as team manager, to coach a grade-school team and to serve on the soccer clubís executive committee. "I had to get involved in the beginning to give back to their activities, but somewhere along the line I personalized it," she says.

Given her history, some might assume that Morrisí enthusiasm as a soccer mom had more to do with her present position than any real ability. But those are the ones who havenít talked business with her. "People had fun with that angle initially, but it quickly moved away from that because Iíve demonstrated that Iím serious about this," she says. For one thing, her background offers her a varied knowledge of marketing, personal communications and business management. A graduate of Ball State University with degrees in art education and graphic design, she applied her college courses to advertising after graduation and helped zero in on a companyís selling points. Later stints as a computer sales representative and a Longaberger basket branch adviser honed her marketing skills and helped enhance her natural ability to sell ideas as well as products.

Those skills prepared her well for her current duties, which include wooing potential sponsors, arranging promotional tie-ins and organizing player appearances. Working from her home office in Lawrence Township, she initially bought three additional phone lines to handle the traffic, but six months later she expanded that order and moved the office from the small back room to the familyís living room. Sheís never had a staff because she prefers a hands-on approach, and no task is too menial for the owner of the teams. She even binds media materials herself, a skill she learned when volunteering in her sonsí classes.

Sheís careful to balance her professional duties with her parenting responsibilities, which makes the Morris family calendar a formidable sight. On any given weekend, the family pencils in up to six soccer games, some out of town. That doesnít include the professional teamsí games, which usually occur in the evenings. "Itís one of those ëHow do you eat an elephant?í dilemmas," she says. "You calm down, take a deep breath and keep planning."

Yet stretched as they are, Morris continues to view her team owner status as a positive avenue for her 15-year marriage. At first, however, she wasnít sure she could handle the awesome responsibility of making the season a reality. After all, she hadnít really been consulted before the teams were presented to her. "Early in this venture, I felt like I was on my own, that Alex had done this to me instead of given this to me," she says. "When Iíd run into frustrations, Iíd tell him I didnít believe I was getting a lot of support. But then he said, ëThatís because you donít need to check with me to make a decision. I trust you to do it and do it well.í Of course, he was right."

Thatís a familiar position for the girl who was sandwiched between two brothers growing up. Her parents didnít coddle or praise her, which is why to this day she canít take a compliment well, she says. In college, most of her friends were guys and tomboys, a trend that continued even after marriage as she followed her four boysí sports careers. That rough-and-tumble upbringing fostered a tough determination and a first-class competitor beneath her smooth blonde exterior. "I basically have always stood on my own confidence in any situation because I was taught that I could make it without relying on someone elseís help," she says. "Iím more competitive because of that, too. When I take the field to play anything, I wonít back down. I play to the best of my ability, and I play to win. And then as long as Iíve put in a good game, I never walk away feeling crummy."

So itís no surprise that her reaction to a difficult medical diagnosis two years ago was to square her shoulders and seal her lips. It started when several skull-crushing headaches left the right side of her face completely numb. "I watch the doctor shows ñ when something goes numb, you have something pressing on part of your brain, right? So when they sent me in for an MRI, I was preparing for a brain tumor," she says.

Instead, the pronouncement was multiple sclerosis ñ a debilitating disease for which she had collected money door-to-door as a child, stumbling over its name in her requests. This time it threatened to trip more than her tongue; the strong woman broke down and cried. "It was scary, in part because I didnít know what I was dealing with. I didnít know the difference between this and muscular dystrophy." Gathering her inner strength, Morris marshaled as much information as she could about her affliction ñ and then put the entire incident out of her mind. Now she knew the facts, and she would keep living her life.

In short, MS occurs when the immune system attacks the nervous system. The symptoms can differ among its victims because they depend on which nerve is affected. Some patients have difficulty walking, others experience speech problems and still others have partial paralysis in a specific area of the body. The physical limitations can even change from time to time as different nerves are affected. "You go to bed fine and wake up blind in one eye ñ it can pick on a nerve that quickly," Morris says.

Luckily, her case is one of the more fortunate ones ñ she regained most of the feeling on the right side of her face within two to three weeks and recovered fully within six weeks. Her long-term success rate appears hopeful, too. Partly because the onset of her MS began at a later age, her chances of losing her major abilities appear slimmer. Still, she must battle fatigue constantly, not an easy task for a woman managing a busy household on top of three professional soccer teams. "Anybody who burns her candle at three ends the way I do is fatigued anyway, so I canít say I attribute all of that to MS," she says. "It does mess with your energy level, though."

Until last year, Morris kept her affliction to herself. Not wanting sympathy or public scrutiny, she discussed the condition only with her family and her doctor. "I didnít want people looking at me any differently, because Iím no different than Iíve been all these years theyíve known me," she says. "This was a private matter." Then when it came time to choose an official charity for the Blast and the Blaze, she decided to begin her battle against the crippling disease: She chose the Multiple Sclerosis Society as the teamsí charity and gave the society the green light to market her situation, which she hopes has helped garner funds for and awareness of the organization. To her surprise, a few friends quietly confided that they, too, have the disease.

Though sheíll always face the possibility of deteriorating skills, Morris says the disease presents no current limitations on her ability to run the soccer teams. "There are probably more people who question my ability because Iím a woman in a manís world of sports than who question the MS angle. You talk to some of the Mexican players, and they still say women have no business in this game," she says. "Iím the top, though, and everybody has to answer to me." Still, she canít recall a single incident of disrespect in her new position. "When I approach a situation, itís person to person, not woman to man," she says. "Itís like any other business."

Thatís not to say women donít bring unique advantages to the soccer community. Because womenís soccer is a relative newcomer to the sports scene, it enjoys a fresh momentum as female fans learn more about the sport and its players. U.S. women players, in particular, have begun to set the standards for the rest of the world, as evidenced by the Olympic gold medal in Atlanta in 1996. "Men have been playing soccer all over the world for years, so naturally women have many rungs on that ladder to climb to catch up with their counterparts," she says. "Progress is coming, though." The United Statesí soccer association plans to help level the playing field even more in the year 2000, when female players will receive monetary compensation even on amateur teams. At present, the Blazeís amateur status means that, unlike their male counterparts, the women donít draw a paycheck.

To maintain the current interest in soccer, Morris introduces what she terms "a touchable aspect" that brings neighborhood children together for impromptu games with the players and coaches. Sheís adamant about player appearances at youth events to build the teamsí futures as well. "Thereís a camaraderie here that probably once existed in other sports before they became too controlled by corporations," she says. "Sports are outgrowing the personal touch you need to keep the sport popular for future generations."

That personal interaction helps ensure a fuller crowd, but the Morrisí venture is all for naught if the Blaze and Blast donít deliver wins beneath the lights at Kuntz Stadium. "This can be a very unforgiving city," Morris says, pointing to the Indianapolis Colts. "They deliver a losing season like they just did and nobody has much of anything good to say about them. The seats are empty."

Though that factor is out of her hands, Morris says she still worries about the upcoming season, her first in the ownerís seat. Many nights peace comes from quiet time in bed with a snack and the TV. But when the stress increases, the workload doubles and her spirit flags, she digs out her athletic shoes from the closet, grabs a soccer ball and heads to a local sports complex for the best medicine sheís found: playing the game. Her team of women ñ mostly other moms also tired of the spectator role ñ takes the field in the Womenís Over 30 league every Monday evening.

"For that 45 minutes, Iím not worrying about the interview tomorrow or thinking about how I can get the fire department for this game or remembering to connect with this person tomorrow," she says. "Iím out there exhausting myself. Iím just having fun playing the game."