Sports: Lacrosse, Field Hockey
Favorite athlete: Jimmy Rollins
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Getting to play with two of my three sisters
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Nothing in particular, but I get made fun of for hitting the cross bar and the post more than I actually score
Music on your iPod: Country, rap and Justin Bieber
Future plans: Go to Syracuse University Newhouse School of Communications to study broadcasting
Words to live by: “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”
One goal before turning 30: Winning a national championship while at SU and getting married and having a family
One thing people don’t know about me: My favorite food is ice pops
Kelly Cross has always done things a little differently.
She’s the type who will travel the road less taken, simply because it’s there, and it’s probably more fun. And while her style and approach might not always be considered conventional, the results have been undeniably successful.
Her mom, Dee Cross, who is also her lacrosse coach at Upper Dublin High School, recalls an incident from a time when Kelly was barely out of diapers where she did things her own way in order to get the results she desired.
“I always took my team to the shore over spring break for a couple of nights of team bonding,” Dee said. “I was coaching Abington at the time and Kelly was probably 2. We were in this store and my assistant coach said, ‘Watch Kelly, because she’s touching everything and everything is breakable.’ So I said to her, ‘Kelly, I don’t want you to touch with your hands anymore.’
“I turn around and Kelly has stuck her tongue out and touched something with her tongue. She listened to what I said, but she still did her own thing. That kind of sums her up.”
Many years later, the same holds true on the lacrosse field. Her style might not be the most traditional, but there’s no arguing with her accomplishments.
“Kelly comes off at times, if you don’t know her, of almost appearing to be uninterested,” Dee said. “But what she’s doing is, she always sees the second cutter. She’s assessing what’s going on, she’s looking for that second cutter to set up that assist. It used to drive me crazy, because I thought she wasn’t focusing, but what I realized was that’s how Kelly settles everything down and then runs the offense.”
“I try to think through situations before they occur so I can be ready for anything,” Kelly said. “And I do get talked to about how calm I look on the field sometimes. I think it’s just part of my game to be calming to the team and get them to regroup. Not everyone likes that about my game, but it’s something I’ve always done and I take it upon myself to make sure we’re in control of the game and we can run the play right.”
As a junior. Kelly led the Suburban One League and ranked in the top five in the area in goals (with 95) and points (149) to help lead Upper Dublin to a 12-0 American Conference record and a berth in the PIAA State Championship Tournament. She was selected the American Conference Player of the Year, named to the Eastern Pennsylvania All-Academic Team and was named an All-American.
“To be an All-American was really a dream come true,” Kelly said. “It’s one of those things everyone wants, but it’s not something you ever think you can get. It’s a huge honor, a pat on the back from all the coaches that have been watching me work hard and I think it will help me to improve my game and work even harder to continue that because it’s sort of put my name out there.”
She’s showed no signs of slowing down in her senior season. With five games under her belt, the senior midfielder has 19 goals and 11 assists. And in the Cards’ April 10 game against Norristown, she netted the 200th goal of her high school lacrosse career.
But those kinds of numbers don’t really concern the Upper Dublin co-captain. The only numbers that matters are those on the scoreboard.
“I’m not the type of person that sets a certain amount of goals for myself,” she said. “Success and failure can’t be measured in how many goals you score. This year my goal is to work well with the team and lead the team. And scoring goals comes along with that, but as long as we have more goals than the other team, that’s all that matters.
“I’ve really worked a lot over the years on my passing and assisting. Throughout middle school I was probably known as the ball hog. But I think my passes have gotten more precise and accurate and it’s almost more rewarding now for me to assist on a goal than to score one myself.”
In addition to her calming presence on the field, her scoring touch and passing ability, Cross has also become a dominant force in the face-off circle. Her height and long reach give her an advantage over most opponents on balls that pop straight up, but she’s also worked hard at finding her teammates off draws.
“Kelly’s worked on being able to control where the ball goes,” Dee said. “Lacrosse is a game of momentum and if you don’t have the ball it’s hard to get momentum, so getting the draw control is key. She works on it every day. Kelly has worked a lot on this year on being able to place the ball where she wants it to go, to be able to set other players up on the circle.”
“It’s kind of a hidden aspect of the game, but if you look at the stats, draw control definitely tends to reflect the score of the game,” Kelly said. “I knew that as one of the taller ones on the team and one of the leaders, I would need to step up in that so that we could take control of the game through draw control.”
Her efforts up and down the field have been a major part of the Cardinals’ 4-1 start and 3-0 league record.
But this is a senior-laden team, experienced and familiar with one another. After going undefeated in the league last season, the Cardinals know they are the team to beat. Expectations are high, but the players know how difficult it will be achieve and improve upon last season’s accomplishments.
Kelly is more than happy to have that additional pressure on herself and her teammates this season.
“This year we know that for a lot of us, it’s our last year together as a team and we all want to go as far as we can go together,” she said. “Our coaches tell us we have a target on our back, everyone wants to beat us.
“There’s a little bit of extra pressure, but it’s more of a motivation because now we know how it feels to get to states. Now we’re motivated to work harder and get back and go even further.”
Being able to qualify and advance through the state tournament would be the perfect way for Cross to finish her high school career, she said, and cap off her years spent with teammates who have become family.
Of course, “family” has a much different meaning on the Upper Dublin girls lacrosse team than it does at most schools. Not only is Kelly’s coach her mother, but her younger sister Julie is a freshman on the Cardinals’ squad. And when Kelly began playing for Upper Dublin, she played two years with her older sister Amy.
It’s nearly impossible to talk about one Cross sister without acknowledging the others, since they have had so much effect and provided so much inspiration for each other over the years. All four Cross girls have worn Upper Dublin lacrosse uniforms. And the lessons that oldest sister Ali passed down to Amy were then handed down to Kelly.
“Watching Ali and Amy grow up was a really cool experience,” Kelly said. “I got to see what the next level was like and I think it made me work harder to try to be as good as them. We all push each other in our family.
“When I was a freshman and Amy was a junior, I literally aspired to do everything that she did. It was cool watching how she did things, how she led the team. She was in the position then that I’m in now. So I’m definitely trying to use the things I learned from her and using them to guide Julie in the right direction. I try to help everyone, because there’s going to be a lot of us leaving next year, so there are going to be a lot of kids who have to step up, but Julie and I have this connection on the field where I feel like I can read her mind. We hang out so much off the field, it helps with having a connection on the field.”
And while Kelly now finds herself in a leadership position much like her older sisters did, she takes a slightly different approach to her role.
“When Ali gets nervous, Ali gets quiet. When Amy gets intense, she gets very focused and very serious,” Dee said. “Kelly is so not like that. She’s always been different in that respect.
“Kelly’s the one who will lighten everybody up and try to get everybody relaxed. Last year when we had an hour delay at our North Penn game, she sat there with her goggles on. Everyone was asking, ‘What are you doing?’ She’s like, ‘I’m ready to play right now. I’m ready to go,’ goofing around.”
Kelly chalks up her outgoing nature with the team to the family dynamics.
“As the third child, I think I was starving for attention, and that helped me to become more outgoing and more motivational,” she said. “It definitely reflects in my attitude toward the team and how I try to motivate everyone with cheers and anything I can do to help the team. Amy was definitely more a lead-by-example kind of person. I guess that’s why we complimented each other in that sense.”
The two will have an opportunity to work together again next year. Kelly will attend the prestigious Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and will join Amy – currently a sophomore – on the Orange women’s lacrosse team.
“We made sure to talk to Amy first, because I didn’t want to be there if she didn’t want me there,” said Kelly, who will compete for Team Heather Leigh Albert in the Vail Lacrosse Shootout in Colorado this summer. “I did look at other schools but when it came down to it, Syracuse had exactly what I wanted academically and was the only school that could offer me another opportunity to play with Amy. It was really cool to play with her for two years in high school so we decided that would be an amazing opportunity to have again.
“Getting into the Newhouse School of Communications is a huge honor. I’ve always had this thing about public speaking that was different from my sisters. They didn’t like it as much, but I guess I liked the attention. I want to get into some sort of broadcasting. Hopefully someday I’ll be on the TV.”
And she knows she’s in for something of a culture shock when it’s no longer her mother coaching her.
“Obviously, my mom is a huge part of the success that I’ve had,” Kelly said. “It’ll be interesting in that I won’t hear her directing me from the sidelines, but I will hopefully hear her in the stands. Her voice will always be something I directly hear. The coaches at Syracuse are amazing. They’ll be able to take over that role and I’ll still have my mom in the stands cheering me on and coaching me from there.”
In the meantime, however, Kelly will be tearing up the Suburban One lacrosse fields and finishing up her final months in the classroom. While she admits that senioritis has set in a little, her courseload – which includes several Honors and AP level classes – and her above-4.0 grade point average ensure that she won’t be slaking off too much.
“Our parents really stressed not putting everything into one activity or aspect of life,” said Kelly, a member of both student government and the National Honor Society. “Doing the things that you love and striving to be the best you can, both in athletics and in academics, is what our parents always told us.”
She’s done just that in lacrosse. It’s taken years of hard work, and her innate knowledge of the game comes not just from natural ability or practice, but from experiencing different parts of the game. During her early days in the Crooked Crosse Lacrosse Camp, Kelly had the chance to play defense. Even though “when you’re younger you want to be the one who scores all the time,” she says playing defense helped her gain a better understanding of the rest of the lacrosse field. And she coaches youth lacrosse games in the area, which has given her a new perspective on how the men and women in stripes call the game.
“I originally figured it was a fun and easy way of making money while being able to stay involved in the lacrosse community and give back and help the younger girls,” she said. “But it definitely gives me more appreciation for the things they do and makes me realize not every call is going to be perfect and referees have bad days just like players do. It definitely opened my eyes.”
Add all these things together – talent, smarts, leadership, a calming influence, a thorough knowledge of the game – and the result is one of the most talented players around. Or, if you wear another team’s colors, one of the most dangerous.
What may be truly frightening, though, is that Kelly Cross is always working to improve and take her skills and abilities to the next level ... and bring her team along with her. And her coach believes she can do that.
“Kelly’s confidence level, especially at the end of last year, in the playoffs, she really took it to another level,” Dee said. “I’ve seen that carry over into this year. It’s still a young season, but I think she wants to work hard to get back to that same point as last year. She knows she still has things to work on and she wants to get better going into the college level. She’s never satisfied with where she is and she knows she can always be better, and that’s very encouraging and contagious when you have a talented group of players.”
