Twenty-two years ago, John Kerr wasn't simply the best soccer player in the nation, and he wasn't just the captain of Duke's first national championship.
Even as an undergraduate, Kerr was well on his way to becoming the head coach of his alma mater.
"He's absolutely the best choice [the selection committee] could've made," former head coach John Rennie told The Chronicle last week. "He's been a real student of the game.... Even when he was a player, he was the guy who you would call the coach on the field. He has a great background in that way."
Kerr passed up a chance to go to the pros straight from high school, instead opting to play for Rennie, who retired last year after 29 years at the helm. As a team captain in 1986, Kerr won the Hermann Trophy, awarded annually to the top soccer player in the country. He served as a mediating force on that championship team, the only one who could keep the squad's volatile forwards "from killing each other," Rennie said.
Now Kerr has returned to Koskinen Stadium, still instructing and looking to motivate a Blue Devil team with championship aspirations.
But this time, he's coaching from the sidelines rather than the pitch.
"It's a dream come true," Kerr said. "Coming back as the head coach is a complete honor, and to follow in the footsteps of Coach Rennie is a big challenge for me.... I loved it at Harvard. The people were great-the administration, the players, the coaching staff and everything else was fantastic. So I wasn't necessarily looking to leave, but you can't turn down an opportunity to come back to Duke."
Not that his task in Durham will be simple. Kerr succeeds a coach who put the Blue Devils on the national radar, taking a team with only one previous trip to the NCAA tournament 20 times in his 29 years. Rennie, a five-time ACC Coach of the Year and the winningest coach in conference history, went 410-161-34 during his legendary career at Duke.
It would be impossible to ignore Rennie's influence, so Kerr will by no means brush aside what his former coach did for the program.
"You never forget what he did because he did great," Kerr said. "He's done a lot for the game and a lot for this school, so it's not going to be easy."
But Kerr hasn't hesitated to bring his own style to Rennie's former team. He's an attack-minded, risk-oriented coach who stresses pushing the ball and crashing the net to create scoring opportunities. His last two Harvard teams averaged 2.4 goals per game, half a goal better than Duke's average last year.
"He wants us to play exciting soccer this year," senior captain Graham Dugoni said. "He wants us to get forward, take chances, be up and down the field. He really stresses fitness a lot, so we're going to be fun to watch."
Kerr has already begun implementing his new tactics. Although his scheme is a change for the Blue Devils, they've welcomed the more offensively oriented system.
Kerr's strategy has been received so well in part because of the potential to create a more explosive offense. But the team has also taken to it because of the new head coach's attention to detail.
"He has very defined roles for all his players," senior captain Darrius Barnes said. "He knows exactly what he wants each player to do, and everybody knows what their expectation is going into the game and practices and things like that. It all fits into the grand scheme of what he wants us to do."
Kerr acknowledges that his new team will have some growing pains-in addition to adjusting to a new coach and a new style, Duke is coping with the graduation of 13 seniors-but his goal is to have his team peak around the postseason.
A key to accomplishing that will be following a message Kerr has been stressing since last spring: not to get too high after a win or too low after a loss.
And then there's his other key philosophy: have fun.
"The main thrust of being a student-athlete is the journey. It's not just the destination," Kerr said. "For me, it was one of the best times of my life being a student-athlete at Duke, and I want to make sure that every player that comes through our program has that same feeling."
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