KAILUA-KONA — Cressy Kerr stuck with soccer and now soccer is sticking with her.
Two years ago, Kerr, a former Makua Lani and Kona Crush standout, made the difficult decision to leave the Big Island to attend Shattuck-St. Mary’s — a private boarding school in Minnesota.
The choice meant trading in the toasty training sessions at Old Airport for the frigid fields of Faribault, and leaving the surf and sand behind for a hefty serving of snow.
“We were colder than Antarctica one day, which says something,” Kerr said with a laugh. “Playing outside in negative-degree weather is … fun.”
But for Kerr, a top-notch education, the draw of playing week in and week out in the U.S. Soccer Development Academy — the top tier of youth soccer, widely known as the “DA” — and having more opportunities to catch the eyes of college scouts was too much to pass up.
The decision turned out to be the right one, as Kerr earned a scholarship to play for Union University — a NCAA Division II program in Jackson, Tennessee.
“Going to Minnesota was a difficult decision. I was basically leaving two years early for college,” Kerr said. “But it was one of the best choices I have made. I’m excited for this new opportunity (at Union University). Going to new places is always fun and I’ve never been to the South.”
Kerr made a big impression on her U-19 head coach at Shattuck, Vernon Croft. Croft came aboard for Kerr’s senior season and she was one of the players he depended on in his first season at the helm.
“I could always count on her to do the right thing. She’s a tremendous ambassador for the kind of player we look for at Shattuck,” Croft said. “In the last month of our season, she was our best player in terms of training, work ethic and coming out of her shell and showing confidence.”
Kerr’s story is almost one that never was if it wasn’t for some persistence. She still smiles when recalling her first soccer coach telling her that “maybe she should pick another sport.”
“At the beginning, I really wasn’t very good,” Kerr said with a shrug.
But despite the early adversity, Kerr never gave up and found a home with the Kona Crush and Vinny La Porta, the director of coaching for the club.
“Every day Cressy got better and better. She could see her progress and enjoyed the journey,” said La Porta. “As the years went on she got smoother on the ball. I’d watch her eyes when she played and could tell she had great intelligence and knew soccer really well. She just needed the ball skill to unleash her ideas. I always told Cressy she’s going to make it, I just never said what ‘it’ was. That was up to her. I left the door open for her and she walked through.”
Kerr credits La Porta and the Crush crew for giving her the skills — and opportunity — to get to the next level.
“I never gave up and Vinny stuck with me,” she said.
As for advice for the current crop of Big Island youth players, Kerr said to always keep your mind open when opportunities arise, no matter how unexpected they might seem.
“I never thought I would go to Minnesota to go to school and play soccer,” Kerr said. “I would say just play your game, play hard and be yourself. And listen to your coaches — unless they tell you not to play soccer anymore.”
Building a pipeline
Kerr is not the first Big Island prospect to head to Shattuck and she likely won’t be the last.
Fellow Kona Crush alum Kupaa Fernandez and Finn Simmersbach played at the school and were able to parlay their experience into college scholarships.
Fernandez, who’s currently a senior, will play on scholarship at Gonzaga. Simmersbach is already on scholarship at San Diego State as a goalkeeper.
Akari Shimizu, who was a year ahead of Kerr, also found success at Shattuck, earning a scholarship with UC Riverside, where she recently finished her freshman season. She was named to the Big West All-Freshman Team.
Kerr’s brother, Chris, is a student-athlete at Shattuck as well, but is just a sophomore.
“The relationship with Shattuck has been super helpful. What’s really unique about it is philosophically, we are very similar,” La Porta said. “There are players I have that simply outgrow the Big Island and they need the next environment to not become complacent. To perform against high-level opponents every week is an incredible experience. On the Big Island we could not offer that kind of competition and exposure, no matter how hard we try.”
As his predecessor did, Croft was in town last week to run a pair training sessions at Old Airport Park with about 40 members of the Crush girls program, looking for the next Kerr or Shimizu.
Croft said it was one of the few times during the year where he gets a hands-on experience with prospective players, rather than watching from afar.
“We coach for a reason — we want to interact with the kids and help them get better. I love it,” Croft said. “With something like this, you get to know the kids by name rather than a number and get down to the nitty-gritty. Sitting and just watching games is not fun. I did it for 22 years at the college level.”
Croft and La Porta joke that a commitment to Shattuck is very much like taking an ice plunge — both because of cold winter weather and a big change in academic and athletic environments. But the relationship between the programs is one that has been and will continue to be mutually beneficial to give kids from the Big Island an opportunity that was not available previously.
“It’s a big decision. You are changing your life — it’s basically like going to college early,” Croft said. “This has been a great relationship for us and we hope to keep fostering the connection.”