Distinguished Alumnus of the Year

ALUMNUS OF THE YEAR

Kent Mercer ’87 A Distinguished Spartan Life

The De La Salle Alumni Association, along with the entire De La Salle community, is proud to honor Kent Mercer ‘87 as the 2022 De La Salle High School Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. Kent’s ties to De La Salle go back 40 years when his oldest brother Eric ’84 started high school and his dad would take him to watch games. Soon, the entire family was spending a lot of time on campus as the other Mercer boys (Brian ’86 and Craig ’90) went through their high school years. Sporting events, fall festivals, fundraisers, the DLS 200, horse races featuring Christian Brothers racing around the cafeteria – the Mercers enjoyed participating in them all, making De La Salle almost like a second home.

“It was a place where you came to just be yourself and enjoy being there,” Mercer recalls. “It helped to shape who I am. That’s what is so unique about this place.” Mercer, who captained the first water polo team at De La Salle and also was on the swimming team, says his parents valued the great education and the school’s Lasallian values. His father, Bill Mercer, had graduated from another Christian Brothers school, St. Mary’s College High School in Berkeley. (The family started an endowment at De La Salle in Bill Mercer’s memory after his death in 1990.) “It was a very caring and safe environment where you felt free to be yourself,” Mercer says of De La Salle. “It was a great experience.” Along with playing sports, Mercer also took a sports medicine class, sparking his interest in a career that led him back to the school as its athletic trainer. He graduated in 1993 from Chico State University, where he met his wife, Kim, in his senior year, with a degree in exercise physiology. He later got a master’s in kinesiology at Cal State Hayward (now East Bay). He was an exercise physiologist but jumped at the chance to return full-time to De La Salle in 1997 in the football and basketball programs. In 2000, Mercer was hired as the athletic trainer, and he’s been at De La Salle full-time ever since.

Mercer says he loves the school and its mission of developing boys into young men in the Lasallian tradition of promoting faith, education, service, and commitment to helping those who are less fortunate.

Mercer and his wife also sent their two sons to De La Salle – Tanner, who graduated in 2019 and is now a pre-med student at Duke University, and Zachary, a current senior who is on the baseball team.

His commitment to De La Salle has now led to him being named Distinguished Alumnus of the Year, a well-deserved honor, says Alumni Director Tim Roberts ’88.

“You could just tell Kent was one of the guys who had a very high moral compass,” says Roberts, who first met Mercer when they were both students at the school. “He’s just one of the finest humans that you’d want to come across.”

Roberts says that along with being a strong supporter of De La Salle, Mercer is also an outstanding athletic trainer whose door is open to anyone on campus who needs his help - from a theater student who gets hurt, to a star athlete. “I’ve watched him with a freshman who just wants to be a fly on the wall, and a 285-pound football player who wants to go to Notre Dame. Each gets the same level of concern from Kent,” Roberts says. Mercer says he loves being the athletic trainer at De La Salle, especially with the dedicated and caring people who lead and coach the athletic programs. “The goal of our program is to keep (students) healthy, keep them safe, and keep them inspired to be active,” he says, adding that coaches and staff “hold people accountable and have expectations. They develop boys into young men who go out into society and contribute.”

Mercer says the biggest changes in his decades on campus have been social media and the competitiveness over getting into college. He advises students to pursue the college that is right for them, not just the biggest name schools. The coronavirus pandemic led to a new role for Mercer, who was put in charge of the school’s COVID response. A major accomplishment, along with devising hybrid education and testing programs, was developing an app with a Duke University friend of his son Tanner to systemize pre-screening and tracking COVID on campus. The app was picked up by other schools.

“This has been very challenging,” he said of his role as “COVID czar.” “I tried to stay up to date on what was going on. Our goal was to get people back on campus.” Mercer says he’s proud of the school for how it responded to the challenge when it kept caring for and educating students in a safe environment. Just like De La Salle always strives to do.