Kerry de Vries Stepping Down After 2005 Season
8/15/2005 12:00:00 AM | Field Hockey
KENT, Ohio Kent State Director of Athletics Laing Kennedy announced today (Aug. 15) that Kerry de Vries, head coach of the field hockey program, will step down following the 2005 season. de Vries, beginning her ninth year at the helm of the Golden Flashes program, will move with her family to Belgium following the season.
Kennedy also announced Helen Knull, a two-time All-American player at Kent State, will be promoted to associate head coach.
de Vries, along with her husband, Raimo, met with the team last Thursday to make them aware this would be her last season at Kent State. She and her husband are making this decision as a professional opportunity for Raimo, who has been offered a three-year assignment as European Representative Position as Vice President of International Corporate Banking in Brussels, Belgium.
"This is a wonderful opportunity for our family to reunite with Raimos side of the family in Holland and to advance in his profession," de Vries said. "It also gives our children, Charlotte and Jack, an international experience while they are still young enough and flexible enough to travel."
Kent State will bid farewell to a coach that took the field hockey program to unparalleled levels. "When Kerry first came to Kent State, I never imagined the success that our program would enjoy under her leadership," Kennedy said. "The excellence of our program shows in the quality of student-athletes Kerry brought to Kent State.
"I am very pleased that Kerry is going to continue as our head coach through this season as we embark upon our new facility and continue the excellence of Kent State field hockey," Kennedy continued.
"I have been instilled with family values at Kent State," de Vries said. "Family is a team that works together in a selfless manner for the best interest of one another. I am the mom of a team of four who will be able to provide an opportunity for my children and my husband by moving to Brussels.
"I am sadly leaving my Kent State family, which I treasure as my own, yet the Kent State field hockey program will always be a part of who I am," de Vries continued. "I am graduating to another phase as a mother, a wife and a student of hockey."
During de Vries tenure the Golden Flashes have captured four MAC regular-season titles, four MAC tournament titles and advanced to five-consecutive NCAA tournaments from 1998-2002. In eight seasons, de Vries has recorded a stellar 64-16 (.800) mark in MAC play and a 118-56 (.678) record overall. Her teams success also has played an integral role in the department winning four Jacoby Cups in her eight years as head coach.
"Our program has achieved tremendous success under Kerry, and because of Kerry the Mid-American Conference also has improved," Kennedy said. "She deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the MACs success."
Last year de Vries led the Golden Flashes to their fourth MAC championship in six years, and the seventh overall, and fell one win shy of advancing to the NCAA tournament. The Flashes tied Louisville with an 8-2 MAC record and finished 11-8 overall. The championship season had its share of thrills, including near upsets of No. 1 Michigan State and No. 5 Wake Forest on consecutive days.
"Im very proud of where the MAC has gone in the last nine years," de Vries said. "I take pride in working with such class coaches in the MAC and I have taken great responsibility in making sure that the MAC has held the standard of the two conferences I have been a part of prior to working here, the Big Ten and the ACC. I always held my career as a very important one, because I watched my mentor, Dr. Christine Grant at Iowa, take her job very professionally."
There is much excitement for the field hockey program with de Vries entering her ninth season. The new Kent State Field Hockey Stadium is under construction and will open this season, while the team is in search of its fifth MAC title in seven years.
"We have an unusual opportunity this year to have our most successful coaches last season when our new stadium is opening," Kennedy said. "It will be refreshing to have time to celebrate a great career. We dont typically have a chance to send people off in style like this."
"My focus is not on this being my last year," de Vries said. "My focus is instead on this being an exceptionally healthy, happy, successful year for the Kent State field hockey team. I'm not focusing on the Kent State field hockey program and its history right now, I'm focused on the 2005 season.
"I will always be a very respectful, thankful and dedicated alumnus to this program," de Vries continued. "I'm approaching this year as if it were my senior year and I am going to give it my all. I'm never going to graduate from this program. Kent State field hockey will always be a part of me."
The move to Europe also affords de Vries the opportunity to study the game in Europe, where field hockey is played at an elite level. She aspires to return to the U.S. and coach at the collegiate level again with increased knowledge and perspective of the game, but before she does, de Vries has one more season to play out at Kent State.
"I know that I will treasure every day with the players and my staff this semester and will never forget that I have the most wonderful job in the world," de Vries concluded.
