Ryder Stearn is fulfilling his commitments early.
Stearn is a senior at Penn Charter High School, and he’s been a soccer player for as long as he can remember.
He grew up playing the sport, he comes from a soccer family where his brother was a star player for the Quakers and his mom is the coach of the Penn Charter girls soccer team.
Soccer is just something he’s always done. And at Penn Charter, students are required to play two sports.
Stearn is knocking them all out in the fall.
“You need the credits, you have to play two sports, and I play soccer all year, so I wanted to do something else that’s like soccer,” said Stearn, who lives in Mayfair. “I figured I’d give kicking in football a try. Last year I kicked two games, I was more of a backup, but this year I’ll be kicking a lot more.
“Last year the starter was Jimmy Melnick, he did the kicking and he showed me how to do it and what to do. He kind of just taught me. It wasn’t easy, but I don’t think it was hard. It’s very similar to kicking a soccer ball. It’s challenging, but not too hard.”
He learned his second sport because he’s pretty darn good at his real sport.
For the next few months, Stearn will be a football player, but for his entire life, he’s a soccer player, and that’s where he shines both for his club team with PDA in New Jersey, and at Penn Charter.
He enrolled at Penn Charter in eighth grade, so it took some time getting used to playing with new players. Most of his former teammates are now playing at Father Judge.
“It was hard at first, but now I love it,” Stearn said. “I have a lot of friends at Judge. It’s fun because we play them, so it’s fun for me to play them. I’m still friends with all of those guys, and it’s a fun game.”
While he didn’t have his neighborhood friends when he got to Penn Charter, he did get to experience some fun when he was a freshman and his brother Jason was a senior.
It was one of the few times that they were on the same team, and it was great for the younger Stearn to continue to learn from his role model.
“That was a lot of fun, getting a chance to play with my brother,” Stearn said. “I always looked up to him as a role model. He played soccer and his junior year he did kicking, too. I always want to do better than he did because he was my role model, and he always tries to help me get better. He’s helped me a lot, he’s a very good role model and leader.”
That’s where little brother continues to follow in his big brother’s footsteps.
Steam has been helping the Quakers for years on the field, but lately he’s tried to give the team a little nudge with his voice.
He’s not demonstrative by nature, but he’s finding it easier and easier to speak up as he grows into his role of team leader.
“My role this year is to be a leader, I’m one of the captains with two other teammates,” Stearn said. “I’m really looking forward to leading the team, I’d love to help lead us to the league title. We have a very good team, if we play hard every game and take care of what we’re supposed to take care of, we should be able to win.”
While he’ll be leading the team with his voice, Stearn’s biggest job is to make sure the Quakers defense holds up.
It’s not easy.
The Quakers do have a lot of talented players, but playing soccer in the Inter-Ac is brutal. Just like in football, every team is loaded and has goals of winning the championship.
But Stearn likes what Penn Charter has.
“As a defensive player, I pretty much make sure nobody scores and keep everyone in front of me,” Stearn said. “I try to control the ball, because then you control the game. I like to talk a lot, so I’ll tell people simple things. I try to help out as much as I can. And sometimes you need to hear something before you do it. I try to do that.”
Stearn has high hopes for Penn Charter this year. He also has high hopes beyond high school.
Next year he hopes to play college soccer. He’s emailed a few coaches and will continue discussions into the school year.
Ideally he’ll find a place where he can play while also majoring in either engineering or finance.
He knows he’ll be ready for both at Penn Charter.
“Penn Charter is great, academically, even if you’re having problems, there’s always someone to help you,” Stearn said. “You’re learning a lot, but it’s not hard. They’re making us better for college. My brother is in college and he said going from Penn Charter to college is easy because you’re prepared.”
He just hopes he helps Penn Charter as much as the school has helped him.
“We haven’t won a league title here, so my goal is to have a great season, be near the top of the standings and hopefully beat (Germantown Academy) on PC-GA Day,” Stearn said. “I really want to win a championship here and this is the last year. We have a lot of talent, if we do what we’re supposed to do, we should be good. Then it’s just win games in a very tough league. There’s no playoffs, so every game counts. We have to be ready.”
