MitchMash Bay Area: Unsung De La Salle Hall of Famer heads Class of 2025

Kent Mercer did more than heal many Spartans over 27 years of service, he showed them humility, grace

Kent Mercer throws out a first pitch in a baseball game last spring to honor his final year of service at De La Salle. On Saturday, Mercer was inducted to the De La Salle Hall of Fame / Courtesy De La Salle High School athletics

Five more accomplished graduates and two more championship teams will be inducted to the De La Salle Hall of Fame in a few hours. 

Among the who’s who of athletes who have graced the playing fields, gymnasiums or pools over the years include NFL stars D.J. Williams, Amani Toomer, Derek Landri and Maurice Jones-Drew, Olympic diver Kristian Ipsen, professional soccer greats Chris Wondolowski and Adin Brown, MLB baseball player Erik Johnson and the Barry basketball-playing brothers, Brent, Drew, Jon and Scooter.   

The all-around athletes have been astounding, including Greg Brown-Davis, Rashad Floyd, Matt Gutierrez, Justin Alumbaugh, Patrick Walsh and Michael Hurlbut, to name but a few. 

Add in legendary football coaches like Bob Ladouceur and Terry Eidson, the architects of the best-selling book and Hollywood motional picture ‘When the Game Stands Tall,” and basketball icon Frank Allocco, and it’s hard to imagine a more rich athletic history tied to one high school. 

We’re talking locally, regionally or even nationally. 

Yet, between all those athletes, coaches and teams it’s hard to imagine a more vital inductee than Kent Mercer. 

2025 DE LA SALLE HALL OF FAME |  Biographies

That’s because the 56-year-old diagnosed, healed and advised nearly all the Hall of Famers. He was the athletic department’s fulltime athletic trainer for 25 years, three years after helping out in a supporting role and 13 years after he graduated from the Concord campus in 1987. 

Strong, generous, tireless

Yes, Mercer was an athlete for the Spartans as a captain on the school’s first water polo team. He also was an excellent swimmer and played freshman basketball — with current cross country and track coach John Pelster — and two years of lower-level football. 

But it was his calm, strong, generous, tireless nature while taping ankles, diagnosing setbacks and healing the wounded in their most vulnerable times, that landed him smack dab in the middle of De La Salle’s finest. 

De La Salle athletic trainer Kent Mercer is being inducted into the Concord (Calif) school's athletic Hall of Fame on Saturday / Courtesy De La Salle athletics

He’ll be honored Saturday along with Brady Amack (football, 2008 graduate), Drew Barry (basketball, 1991), Blair Hurlock (track/cross country, 2014) and Marquis Morris (football/ track and field, 2014) and the 2000 baseball team and 2011 football team. 

“Invaluable,” De La Salle Vice President for Athletics and East Bay Athletic League commissioner Leo Lopoz said. “The amount of athletes and coaches and families he influenced in every sport is endless.” 

And that influence was nothing but positive, said De La Salle alumni director Tim Roberts. 

Spoiled Spartan

“Humble, principled and deeply devoted to the school’s Lasallian mission,” Roberts said. 

Mercer was named the 2022 De La Salle Distinguished Alumnus of the Year.

“I’ve been spoiled,” said Mercer about a month after he retired from his post in June. “What I’ll miss most are all the very special people in all the sports. This is a very special place.” 

He should know. His three older brothers attended the schools, as did he and his wife Kim’s two sons Tanner (Class of 2019) and Zachary (2025). 

Mercer moved to North Carolina this summer, but returned this week and was back on the sidelines, a place he was a fixture for more than a quarter century, for Friday’s football game, a 35-14 Homecoming victory over Cathedral Catholic. 

• CALIFORNIA GAME OF WEEK | DLS takes down Cathedral Catholic

After earning a degree in exercise physiology at Chico State and a master’s in kinesiology at Cal State Hayward (East Bay), Mercer landed a job at Golden Gate Fields, mending injured jockeys. 

With an eye on getting a college job, there was an opening at De La Salle. He jumped at it and never looked back, replacing Mike Blasquez (now at Cal) in 2000 and working side-by-side with Doug Bauman the last 17 years.

Mercer worked his first eight years solo, which entrenched him with all the sports. 

Hard, correct decisions

“It’s been just a wonderful place to be,” Mercer said. “Such a great environment with amazing people, coaches and student-athletes.” 

The hardest part of the job was telling kids they had to sit out — “but that was made easier by coaches who always backed me up. There were some tough decisions but everyone here is aligned that a kid’s well being is more important than the sport or winning,” he said. “There were hard decisions but right decisions, which made it easier.” 

Spending time away from his family was also difficult, but when his sons attended the school and played sports, it was next to heaven.  

“Surely stepping away is a bittersweet decision,” he said in July. “It’s hard to leave. But I want to spend more time with my wife and family and I can always come back to visit.”

Like this weekend. With all the other top athletes and teams. 

Roberts said that Mercer had one more big qualifier other than his mending ways.  

“He’s just one of the finest humans that you’d want to come across,” he said. 

The Hall of Fame ceremony on campus is open to the public, starting at 3 p.m. RSVP for the ceremony here