John Kerr: Building a Contender

John Kerr knows what it means to be successful on the soccer field.

As a senior at Duke for the 1986-87 season, Kerr lead the Blue Devils to the national championship, beating Harvard in the semi-finals 3-1, and won the prestigious Hermann Trophy, an honor awarded each year to the most outstanding player in men's collegiate soccer.

During and after his collegiate career, Kerr suited up for the

American National Team 17 times, including a debut at age 19 while

still at Duke.

He has played in professional leagues in England, Ireland, Canada,

France and here in the United States, including stints with two Major

League Soccer teams.

He has coached at the youth, high school and college level, and most recently was a player-coach for the Boston Bulldogs of the A-League,

a league one level below the MLS.

After a decade of achievement on the national and international stage, the first-year coach of the Harvard men's soccer team has come to Cambridge with just one goal.

"I am very impatient, and I hate to lose," Kerr said. "I want to really compete for the Ivy League next season, for two reasons. One, it's our division, and you really get credibility if you win it. Two, it gives you an automatic bid into the NCAAs. That is going to be our goal each and every year, and I'm hoping that with what we're building here it won't take us too long."

If Kerr is going to win in the Ivy League, however, he will have to instill his own confidence and fire in a Harvard program that has had only two winning seasons this decade.

Experienced

But if there is anyone who can steer a collegiate team to success, it is John Kerr.

Kerr just knows how to win, and he has tasted success in the collegiate ranks a number of times in his career

A two-time All-American while at Duke, Kerr was also the first person to be awarded the Missouri Athletic Club Collegiate Player of the Year award and named player of the year by Soccer America, Adidas and the Atlantic

Coast Conference all in the same season.

While at Duke, Kerr also played with the American national Team in qualifying matches for the 1986 World Cup and the 1988 Olympics. Although he never made a World Cup or Olympic Squad, Kerr remained in the national team system until 1995.

As soccer was not yet popular in the United States in 1987, Kerr chose to pursue further playing experience in England. With four elective credits to take until graduation, he took his senior spring abroad and tried his hand in the English professional leagues.

"I played six or seven games in a semi-professional league, and after those games I was seen by a couple of scouts who offered me tryouts with pro teams," Kerr said. "In April '87, I went on a tryout and played a second-team game with Portsmouth, who was winning promotion to the Premier

League. I scored the only goal in a game against Crystal Palace, and I was offered a contract after the game [by Portsmouth]."

Kerr was also offered a contract by his opponent Crystal Palace, but he opted to stay with Portsmouth, who was coached at the time by Alan Ball, a member of the English National Team that won the 1966 World Cup.

With the contract signed, Kerr's ten-year career as a professional player began.

Throughout his years in Europe, Kerr also trained to become a coach. In the off-season, he took a number of courses and earned his preliminary coaching badge.

"Getting my badge whetted my appetite for doing coaching in the future, and I did a few camps and a few after-school programs in England while I was playing," Kerr said. "I knew that at some point in time I wanted to see what other things were out there after my playing career was over."

After a long stay in Europe, Kerr returned to the United States and won a championship with the San Diego Sockers, a member of a professional indoor soccer league that folded after his first season at home.

Stranded, without a contract in a country that did not have many opportunities to play professional soccer, Kerr returned to Duke in the fall of 1992 as the number one assistant coach.

After going 10-9 in 1991, the Blue Devils went 16-4 and reached the semi-finals of the NCAAs in 1992, losing to the eventual winner Virginia.

"Not that I'm taking all the credit it for it, but I know I played an integral part in getting the changeover in Duke during that year," Kerr said.

Feeling the itch to get back out on the field, Kerr left Duke after that season and spent the next six years playing with the English professional team Millwall, the Dallas Burn and New England Revolution of the MLS and for the last two years with the Bulldogs as a player-coach.

Kerr's decision to leave professional soccer had its costs, but his previous experience with coaching showed him what collegiate soccer could offer.

"I really enjoyed what I was doing with the Boston Bulldogs, and I think I was probably on the fast track to becoming an MLS assistant or possibly an MLS head coach in the future," Kerr said. "But my time at Duke really stuck with me, and I knew that I would have a lot of influence on collegiate players and their development into players for the future as well as people. It's exciting to work in this kind of environment when you can have a lot of influence on their lives athletically and socially, and hopefully academically as well."

John Kerr, Year One

Although Kerr had high hopes coming into the season, he inherited

a young Harvard team. The 1999 Crimson has only three seniors and juniors on its 26 man roster, and returned only four starters from last year.

"This year has been a year of an experience," Kerr said. "I feel sorry for the seniors, and think that they've enjoyed themselves, but probably, if they had their druthers, they would like to be here from one day one and start again."

The Crimson went 8-6-2 last season, with an even 3-3-1 record in the Ivy League. Kerr saw room for improvement.

"I had seen Harvard play the year before on a six or seven occasions, and I noticed that they had a lot of talent but they kind of underachieved," Kerr said. "I thought that maybe I could come in and spark a few things and maybe we would surprise a couple of people that didn't take us seriously."

Kerr's plan, however, did not unfold.

Over the course of the first five games, Harvard managed a 1-3-1 record and was outscored 15-4. Losses in the string included a 3-2 overtime defeat in the season opener against Providence, a 6-0 trouncing against then-No.1 Creighton and a 1-1 tie against Boston University.

"The schedule that we started off with the first four or five or six games was tough," Kerr said. "Maybe we could look back and say that if we had won that Providence game our confidence would have been a lot better than it ended up being. We might have gotten it back in a couple of games, but the opposition we played after that game was too tough to handle."

Nonetheless, Kerr's squad did register a 2-1 win over Columbia only a week after the Providence loss and could have looked to the strong performance to regain confidence lost in the previous week.

But in the weeks following the Columbia loss, the injuries began to pile-up. Perhaps the most costly of all came after a 1-1 tie to Boston

University, when Kelly injured his hand in a non-soccer incident.

Soon after, sophomores Joey Smolen, Marko Soldo and Alan Bengtzen would all be lost to injury for part or all of the season.

Midfielder Smolen had scored the winning goal against Columbia, while

Bengtzen and Soldo had been counted on to produce around the goal.

By mid-October, the Crimson was 2-7-1 and found itself without steady offensive production and without its vocal, emotional field general.

"The players didn't realize by the results how much they had accomplished from day one in preseason to where they were in the standings," Kerr said. "The coaching staff knew we were doing the right things in practice and knew we were trying to get across the right ideas. They were picking them up, maybe not as quickly as we would have liked, but we knew that they were succeeding in what we were trying to accomplish."

With a loss of confidence came a loss of offensive production that hurt the Crimson throughout the season. Over a six game winless streak in

October, the Crimson was outscored 14-4.

"That's when I decided I had to move Armando [Petruccelli, the

Crimson's leading scorer] from midfield to attack, and I think since we have done that the offensive production has been a lot better because

Armando opens things for not only himself, but for the rest of the guys going forward."

In the last four games, the Crimson is 3-1, outscoring the opposition 6-3. With a win against Penn this Saturday, the Crimson could manage a respectable 3-4 in the Ivy League, which could give them fifth place if Columbia loses at Cornell this weekend.

Building the Kerr Dynasty

The loss of starting players has provided one positive side effect. In the absence of upperclassmen and sophomores, a talented freshman class has seen a great deal of playing time.

Backs Colin Eyre and Joe Steffa have both taken advantage of time seen as starters and substitutes, and Mike Lobach has established himself as a stalwart defensive force.

"Probably Mike Lobach will be a four year starter back there,"

Kerr said. "Lobach, from day one, come into camp very confident, not arrogant, but very confident in his ability and stepped up."

Kerr is also recruiting at all positions for the 2000 season. 12 recruits are applying early, four of which Kerr labels "top prospects."

The prospects hail from San Diego, New York, Arizona, Florida and England.

"I think our bench is a little bit thin, so I am recruiting goalkeepers, defenders, midfielder and in particular forwards," Kerr said. "That's my main goal [forwards], because we have two graduating seniors, and I think John Oslowski and Alan Bengtzen are going to need some help up there."

Harvard is also in the process of competing with Yale and Stanford for four top high school players, which would also bolster the Crimson's chances in the Ivy League.

"I want soccer players," Kerr said, "I want players who are athletic, quick fast and strong, but most of all I want kids who can think on the soccer field. Most of the kids I am recruiting have a never-say-die attitude, and I think if we get the kids that I am recruiting, I think

we'll see a dynamic team."

Kerr's status as a National Team member and a collegiate standout has drawn recruits to the promise of a strong Harvard program for years to come.

"People have called me, excited that John is the coach, and interested in playing for him and learning from his past," Assistant Coach Gary Cropmton said. "We're going to get top players because they want to play with John."

Despite a rough first season, the Crimson coaching staff is openly optimistic about the extended future of the Harvard men's soccer program.

"I want to make Harvard just like the Virginias and the Dukes of the world, that are considered 'soccer schools,'" Kerr said. "I want kids to come here because they can have a wonderful academic life in a great location, and I want to make it as competitive as the Indianas and

Stanfords. So hopefully, we'll draw that type of player."