When Rachel Melroy ’02 began her senior year, she’d never played competitive tennis. She didn’t even own a racquet, didn’t own a pair of tennis shoes. But her roommate, Alyssa Kennedy ’02, convinced her to come out and play for the team. Melroy turned out to be head women’s tennis coach Ann Koger’s biggest surprise of the year. You could call it The Blue-Chip Effect.

“Rachel accomplished so much in a very, very short period of time,” Koger says. “With a heart of gold and a will of a thousand warriors, she took on the game of tennis and played in quite a few matches for Haverford.”

Meanwhile, Alyssa Kennedy’s tennis performance last year was no surprise to Koger. She already knew that Kennedy was capable of competing — and winning — against the very best. “Alyssa came in here as a freshman wanting to play big-time tennis,” Koger recalls, “and it was apparent in everything she did — the body language, the talk, the dedication and determination. But she tended to hit the ball too hard. We had to work on her consistency.” Kennedy went undefeated that first year at the team’s #4 spot.

Growing up in rural Mohnton, Pa., southwest of Reading, Kennedy acquired an early taste for athletic competition. Her father, Richard, an emergency-room physician at Ephrata Community Hospital, taught her how to play sports. All sports. She was playing soccer in the third grade and in fourth grade she joined a school team for the first time: wrestling. “I joined the team along with some other girls and it was a tough experience,” she explains. “Because it is an obviously male sport, the coaches don't like it much if a girl can win a wrestling match against a guy. But I realized how much I loved sports.” Kennedy played basketball, soccer, and tennis in high school (Gov. Mifflin). The tennis team won districts her sophomore year. A shooting guard, she was an integral part of the basketball team during her senior year. Nancy, her mother, runs the family’s business (raising dressage horses) and is credited with instilling fiery competition. “She’s really feisty, and I get that from her,” Kennedy says. Her older brother, Matt, swam competitively at the University of Delaware.

Kennedy had a favorite 10th-grade biology teacher at Gov. Mifflin who mentioned Haverford as a strong school and the idea stuck. Two years later, she found herself interviewing at Haverford, along with Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Penn State, and several others. “Everyone was just so personable here,” she recalls, “and I just couldn’t believe how much people trusted each other. For example, I remember noticing that the student mailboxes were all set to open right up. That was amazing to me.”

Kennedy played basketball her freshman year and “stuck it out” for the season even though she was not getting as many minutes as she wanted. A bout with mononucleosis nearly kept her from participating in spring tennis.

After witnessing her freshman-year tennis performance, Koger and her staff envisioned Kennedy as the number-one player on the team. During her sophomore year, she did just that, refining her court tactics and becoming a savvy player. She held that position for three years, showing the most growth as a player in her senior year. She graduated with two conference titles: singles in 2000 and doubles (with Anya Moyston ’05) in 2002. As a senior, she was all-conference first team in both singles and doubles. When President Tritton sought a good game, he would arrive at practice to hit with Alyssa or Anya, knowing that either would test his skills.

Over her 22 years of coaching women’s tennis at Haverford, Koger counts just three players as certified blue-chippers: Patty Dinella ’86, who holds the College’s all-time record in singles and doubles; Amanda Figland ’88, nationally ranked all four years; and conference champion Marcelle Siegel ’92. Both Dinella and Figland were Varsity Cup winners. Alyssa Kennedy is Koger’s fourth blue-chip player.

Kennedy sat out her sophomore and junior basketball seasons, and concentrated on her tennis game. She sought out top local teaching professionals Craig Conrath and Oliver Merril. She spent first semester junior year at the University of Melbourne, traveled throughout Australia and played in several tournaments there. “Alyssa always had lots of desire to get better,” Koger says, “and she worked very hard to achieve everything she did here at Haverford.” During the summer of 2001, Kennedy became the first Haverford player to compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s summer circuit, comprising mostly NCAA Division I players. “I think that’s when Alyssa found she could compete with the best of them,” Koger says. “She told me they weren’t better than she was, just more consistent in their play.” Kennedy routinely hit with Haverford’s men’s teams to improve that consistency.

Achieving at Haverford meant having to make difficult decisions. A biology major, Kennedy faced long hours in the classroom and lab (often working late at night to accommodate practices and games) and became a certified EMT. She was on call Sunday nights at the Lanark Fire Company during the season and successfully balanced those duties with her number-one ranking and team captainship. “I didn’t even know about it, and I was grateful the beeper didn’t go off during one of our matches,” Koger says.

As her senior year approached, several women’s basketball players asked Kennedy to rejoin the team. They needed a stopper on defense. There were several new talented players, and a new coach, Jim Osborne, who had coached at Trinity College (Vt.) and consulted for the University of Vermont’s women’s team. Kennedy regrouped and talked it over with her parents, tireless supporters who traveled to nearly all of Alyssa’s tennis matches, including the traditional winter break competition in Florida. “I just love basketball, and I love playing,” Kennedy says.

It was a natural decision to rejoin the team, and she did it in dramatic fashion, with only a week to practice before the season started. If the team was looking to improve its defense, it also got a player who knew how to score. In her first live game in two years (and Osborne’s first as Haverford’s head coach), she scored a career-high 19 points and grabbed 6 rebounds in the season-opening win over Hilbert (N.Y.) College.

“Alyssa was just an outstanding gift to the program as an individual and as a player,” Osborne says. “I’m so glad she decided to come back. She had an attitude that permeated the entire team. It didn’t matter what the score was, she always gave her all and always had an upbeat positive attitude. I can’t say enough good things about her.”

Kennedy proved that her return performance was no fluke and finished the season as the team’s MVP. She scored 18 points against Ursinus College and 17 in the season-ending win over Washington (Md.) College. In between, she racked up 7 rebounds against Mt. Holyoke College at the Seven Sisters Tournament and dealt 5 assists versus Muhlenberg College, both performances season highs. She drained three of Haverford’s record 10 three-pointers in a loss to Hood College; Kennedy led the team in three-point shooting percentage (30.2%). She also led in minutes per game (34.4) and was second in steals (36).

“It was so refreshing and positive to be part of that team,” she says, “and Haverford has so many good young players. They should be very good next year.”

Kennedy moved to Washington, D.C., this summer, where she shares a house with her brother and several Fords from the Class of 2002. After studying for and taking the MCAT’s, she plans to work in the lab at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., before possibly pursuing a career in pediatrics. “I’ve seen some amazing things during my EMT work and at my dad’s hospital, so some kind of work in medicine is in my future,” she says. As for sports, she plans to keep up with her tennis and play pickup basketball at the Y.

“This is a strong, dedicated athlete,” Koger says. “She lifted weights, ran, did everything a coach wanted. She has a strong desire to win and a strong sense of sportsmanship to go with it. She didn’t have much patience for people’s complaints about workload. She was involved with her EMT duties and she was very active in recruiting for us. She was very well known and respected among students and faculty. Whether she’s working or studying for the MCATs or actually taking the test and applying to medical school, those attributes will take her far in life.”