Delaware soccer star carves defenders and waves

	Kendro led the Blue Hens in goals in 2004 Photo courtesy of Delaware Sports Information

By Jacob E. Osterhout

Growing up, the question that former University of Delaware soccer star and current surfing sensation Allison Kendro had to answer was not whether she wanted to play sports, but which sport she wanted to play.

"I used to play soccer, basketball, lacrosse, baseball and softball," the-21-year-old Kendro says. "When I was a junior in high school, my soccer team won a national championship, so soccer came to the forefront."

Kendro's success on the soccer field landed the well-rounded athlete a scholarship to play at the University of Delaware, but Kendro didn't abandon all her other athletic pursuits. "I still had my summers to surf," she says. "Surfing was always a part of me that was never going to leave."

Kendro, who grew up outside of Philadelphia, learned to surf at the age of nine during her summer vacations in Ocean City, N.J. Her dad suggested that she could stand better on a surf board than a boogie board. By twelve, she was competing in local surfing contests.

"I was surfing against guys 'cause there weren't a lot of girls who surfed back then," she says. "Now I have a whole group of girls that I can go surf with, but growing up, when the sport was still growing, it was me and a bunch of guys."

The male-dominated scene helped Kendro to develop her technique. "I got a lot better surfing with guys," she says. "People say that I'm a lot quicker because I haven't developed a girl kind of style."

In college, Kendro joined a close-knit soccer community and felt right at home. "I loved playing soccer at Delaware," she says. "We weren't the top of the top, but we were mid-level Division I and we had a really good team. It wasn't just soccer. We got along well. We were girls who wanted to go out at night and look cute."