Alumni Report: PHS grad achieved dream without athletic scholarship

National Signing Day was earlier this month. It was a joyous day for those high school athletes with college scholarships to ink.

But for those seniors without a National Letter-of-Intent to sign, it served as a painful reminder: It was one day closer to the end of their dream to play sports at the next level.

At least that’s how many of them view it.

Former Poway High girls soccer and track star Kelsie Dickerson remembers the feeling. The 2010 graduate had a few NCAA Division II and Division III scholarship offers for soccer, but not from a school that was up to her academic standard.

“I tried hard to get a scholarship,” said Dickerson, the younger sister of the San Diego Padres’ Alex Dickerson. “I sent out emails and tried to get in contact with coaches to have them come watch me play, but the big problem was I started late ... I ended up getting into University of California, Berkeley, which when you get into a school that exceptional you don’t want to turn it down.”

She didn’t.

Dickerson decided to attend Cal, which has one of the top Division I women’s soccer programs in the country. With no interest from other strong college soccer programs while at Poway, the thought never crossed Dickerson’s mind that she might be good enough to walk on to the team at Cal. Instead, she accepted that her competitive soccer career was over.

“I didn’t have a problem quitting soccer at first,” she said. “I played intramural sports my first semester at the school and that is when it became very clear that I needed a higher level of competition to be happy and function normally.”

So, the second semester at Cal she played with the men’s soccer club before eventually joining the women’s club team. She played with them for about a year, but during the spring of her sophomore year she felt that itch for higher competition again.

“I just started thinking, ‘what if I am good enough?’ she said. “So, I reached out to (Cal women’s soccer coach) Neil McGuire and sent him my soccer resumé and he agreed to take a look at me.”

And she blew him away while playing against his Golden Bears.

Dickerson, a center back, filled in for some missing players on the Sacramento Storm (a semi-pro team) during a spring game. Nobody in a Cal jersey was able to get by her and McGuire was impressed.

“She was invited to try out for the team after that,” he said. “We just couldn’t get past her.”

“It was a really good game for me,” Dickerson said. “I was a little bit nervous at first, but it was also nice because I knew I had nothing to lose.”

Dickerson played the rest of the spring with Cal and then during the fall of her junior year made the roster. “I was really excited,” she said. “I called my parents and told them and it was just really a proud moment.”

But that isn’t where the story ends. Dickerson won the Most Improved Player Award her second season playing for Cal and then this past year was named Defensive Player of the Year.

“I think the message is clear,” McGuire said. “If you want something bad enough, you can do it. Kelsie proved a lot of people wrong. Her being a great athlete was the first piece of it. Her natural athletic ability is so special. It just became a matter of teaching her the high-level tactics and refining her technique.”

Dickerson, who graduated from Cal in 2014 with a degree in molecular and environmental biology, had a message for those seniors that did not get a scholarship offer, but still have a dream to play sports in college.

“Be confident in your abilities, because there are so many great athletes in Southern California and so many get overlooked because of the volume of high-quality athletes out here,” she said. “Don’t give up. If it is something you really want, work hard and it will happen.”

Dickerson is currently back in Poway figuring out her next move. She signed up to take the Graduate Record Exam, but hopes to find a job in San Diego before heading off to graduate school. She also is thinking about playing semi-pro soccer.

“I am exploring my options,” she said. “If it doesn’t work out, I will find a way to play. I am never going to stop playing again.”