History of Santa Cruz Soccer Camp
Santa Cruz Soccer Camp was started in 1984 by Hillel Rom and his vision to focus on enjoyment while coaching soccer rather than the dominant, drill orientated, competitive way soccer was being taught throughout the area. Within the beautiful setting of DeLaveaga Park in Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Soccer Camp provided instruction for approximately 40 campers during that first summer. Over the next 10 years Hillel Rom’s camp grew bigger every summer. When Hillel sold his camp in 1991 to Sean Sullivan it was providing quality soccer instruction to approximately 375 campers per summer. At that time, Hillel Rom was the Men’s University of Santa Cruz Soccer Team’s Head Coach. Sean Sullivan, at that time, was one of the star players for the Men’s UCSC Soccer Team and had been coaching at Santa Cruz Soccer Camp for the past couple summers.
In 1992 Sean not only took over the Santa Cruz Soccer Camp but also became the Head Coach for the Men’s UCSC Soccer Team. He kept the camp going over the next couple years with some help from a growing coaching staff and some experienced coaches turned directors. The camp then experienced a boom in the economy and with it came record numbers of campers, at increasingly over 500 campers a summer. In the beginning of 1995 Sean decided to leave Santa Cruz and sell the camp. It was then bought by three individuals who were already very familiar with the operations of the camp. Cori Houston and Bill Trimpi had both been coaches and directors of the camp while Mike Herzog was also a coach for the camp and former player of the Men’s UCSC Soccer Team of which Sean was the coach.
Bill, Cori and Mike worked even more enthusiasm into the camp over the next several years. With it’s new streamlined business operations, the camp was now bringing in an average of 525 campers a summer. After six years of ownership, Cori decided to return to school to get a Masters in Sports Psychology and sold her portion of the camp to Bill and Mike in the winter of 2001. Bill Trimpi and Mike Herzog continued the camps success while planning for the future. In 2005 Bill and Mike changed the business structure of the camp from an L.L.C. to Santa Cruz Soccer Inc. At the same time they implemented the directors program allowing coaches to step into the role of director.
Katy Scowcroft slowly began to fill this role in 2005 until becoming the head director several years later. At the same time Chris Nestlerode and Genki Watanabe started to fill their roles as head coaches and then assistant directors. In 2011 Mike Herzog sold the camp to Bill, at the same time Katy has taken on the onsite directing, Chris has taken on back end and administrative parts of camp. Dylan Vahradian, a long time camper-turned coach, joined the team of Directors in 2016. Togehter, Chris, Katy, Dylan, and Bill work to continue the magic of soccer camp that has continued for almost 4 decades.
We're always striving to improve camp and are always excited to share more experience with others.