Soccer
Favorite athlete: Steven Gerrard
Favorite team: Liverpool FC
Favorite memory competing in sports: Last year during school soccer, we were playing Pennridge, and I had scored my first ever bicycle kick.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Definitely has to be this year when we played Upper Moreland and I forgot to wear compression shorts under my game shorts, so I had to wear these really long boxers during the game, and, of course, this was the game where SuburbanOneSports took pictures of me, so in about 95 percent of the pictures of me, you can see my boxers beneath my shorts.
Music on iPod: Meek Mill, Kendrick Lamar, Rap/Hip Hop
Future plans: Go to a 4-year college and get my bachelor’s degree.
Words to live by: “The most complicated skill is to be simple.”
One goal before turning 30: Go to a Champions League Final match.
One thing people don’t know about me: When I was nine years old, my family and I went on a trip to Jamaica, and while throwing a football with my brother in the ocean, I had stepped on a sea urchin and lifted my foot up out of the water to see 50 tentacles sticking out of my foot.
By GORDON GLANTZ
For Jimi Hendrix, it was the guitar.
For Shakespeare, the pen.
For Wissahickon senior Cole Kropnick, the Univest Featured Male Athlete of the Week, it is soccer.
On or off the field of play, it is about goals.
First, he sets them. Then, he scores them.
Seeded third in the District One Class AAA bracket, the Trojans have a first-round bye, awaiting the winner of Springfield-Delco and Harriton.
At this point the season, with the stakes at their summit, he has 23 goals. Add that to the 16 the striker netted last year to the 10 he had as a sophomore to the two he scored as freshman midfielder, the cash register rings up a total of 51.
Prior to the season, his goal for goals was 20.
Check.
“Getting to 23 feels great,” said Kropnick, who said that his increase from season to season is a byproduct of figuring out the high school game, which differs from the club soccer he plays the rest of the year for Montgomery Celts United.
“It was just a matter of my teammates finding me, and finishing the chances I’ve been given.”
More importantly than filling up the score sheet is for the team to advance through districts and qualify for the state field.
“I’ve never been to states,” he said. “That’s a huge goal that I have always had in my mind.”
To check that off the list, a reality check is required.
The Trojans won’t get to the Promised Land without their Moses scoring the goals and leading the way.
It’s pressure, but pressure he is ready and willing to handle.
“That’s what I’m there to do,” he said. “I feel comfortable taking that pressure on.”
One believer in Kropnick’s ability, as player and a person, is his coach, Stuart Malcolm.
“Cole is someone I have had the privilege of coaching since he broke into the Wissahickon varsity team and scored in his first game,” said the coach. “He has had a terrific senior season scoring 23 goals to go with 11 assists. He has truly led by example. He is a quiet individual who prefers to do his talking with his feet and his head.
“The players have a respect for him as a player, but he blends into the scene at practice working as hard as any of the players in the squad. Over the years he has continued to improve, contributing more and more each season. In the classroom he has made some great strides earning compliments in regards to how he has taken a tough subject and matured in his approach to his learning. I have high hopes he will continue to improve at the next level.”
As the quality of opponents gets better and the scouting reports get longer, Kropnick knows he won’t be an unknown entity.
Then again, it’s nothing new.
“I’m usually marked the whole game,” he said. “It’s just something you have to be able to play through.
“For me, it’s like having a chip on my shoulder. It’s more of a reason to go out and get another goal.”
At 5-10 and 150 pounds, Kropnick has to have as much physical toughness as mental toughness.
“I always get fouled, all around the field,” he said. “I also expect to be fouled a lot. I go into every game knowing that it’s going to be a battle.”
When the Wissahickon season does come to an end, which he hopes is later than sooner, soccer will just be kicking in for Kropnick.
He’ll be joining up with fellow Trojans – along with players from schools like Plymouth Whitemarsh, Springfield-Montco, North Penn, Germantown Academy and La Salle – for Montgomery Celtic United.
After a short break, they’ll be playing in Bethesda, Md. and Disney World.
“There is not really any letup” said Kropnick, who makes time for a few extracurricular activities at Wissahickon. “That’s a big part of my life, and this is the last year for that also. It’s much different (than high school soccer). It’s on a higher level.”
What happens during the club season may very well determine where Kropnick goes from here. Unlike other athletes, who are willing to weigh the pros and cons of no longer playing their high school sport beyond the club or intramural level for the sake of a school that has a certain field of study, Kropnick freely admits to having a one-track mind.
At present, he looking at West Chester University but is keeping his options open to other coaches who swarm to club games like bees to honey.
He will put in whatever school work is necessary, but his focus – beyond college – remains on soccer. If he can’t play it “at a higher level,” then he would still want to be involved in the sport that has come to define him.
“I’m really undecided,” he said about a major. “I just want it to be something that includes soccer. Anything involving the sport, I’d be willing to do it.”
He began playing at age four. He tried the usual array of other sports, but liked the perfect fit that soccer was.
“It wasn’t really like I picked soccer,” he said. “Soccer picked me, more than anything.”
Kropnick said that he played “all over the field” in youth soccer, including goalkeeper, which is not unusual.
“I was never really a true forward until I started playing for Whitpain when I was around 10, 11 years old,” recalled Kropnick, who said he quickly earned a rep as a scoring machine at that level, depositing “2-3 a game.”
Malcolm briefly coached Kropnick at the township level and was familiar enough with his skill set that he let it be known a varsity spot was there to be had.
“He told me there were a few open spots, and I ended up starting as a center-midfielder,” said Kropnick, who was moved to striker and became a confident scorer and leader by example when joined by many of his fellow sophomores who played junior varsity.
“That definitely paid off going into my sophomore year,” he said. “While I wasn’t a captain, I knew I was one of the more talented players and I just tried to lead by example. My teammates always respected me, and I respect them. I have been playing with a lot of them since I was 8 or 9 years old.”
One player who goes back to the beginning, to when he was 4, is Shane Fallen.
And it shows.
“Every time I call for the ball, he gets it to me,” said Kropnick. “He has 13 assists this year, and something like 11 are on my goals. We have great chemistry.”
But Kropnick knows it all starts at home, where he is the youngest in a family of five. He credits older brothers Michael and Brett for teaching him the “toughness you need to have,” and his parents, Helene and Scott, for being his support system and inspiration.
“No one has been there more for me than my family,” said Kropnick, who also thanked Malcolm and assistant coach Chris McDaniels. “They have never disappointed me.”
And it hasn’t been easy, not when your son all about soccer and setting – and scoring – goals.
“It’s a lot of taking me to places, to every games and every practice,” he said. “They have stuck to their word.”
