VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

(Photo Credit: UVM Athletic Communications)

Shelburne

Soccer/Multi Sport

Inducted 2023

A standout soccer star who was the all-time leading scorer at Champlain Valley Union High and the University of Vermont, John Koerner also excelled in ice hockey, tennis, track and golf. He helped UVM to its first two trips to the NCAA Men’s Soccer Tournament.

At CVU, Koerner was all-state soccer player for three years and all-New England for one. He also was an all-state hockey forward for three years, scoring over 100 career goals, and was the state’s schoolboy scoring champion three straight years. He led CVU to two trips to the state soccer title game, winning the 1971 D-I championship. 

Koerner also reigned as the high school boys state tennis champion and was the Northern New England (Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire) champion. In 1972, Koerner was ranked third in New England in age 16 and under singles tennis. He also won several Vermont State Junior Boys championships in various singles and doubles age divisions during that era.

He was a two-time Vermont Sports Media Athlete of the Month in soccer and ice hockey. He played five varsity sports at CVU, also competing in track and golf, graduating in 1974.

At UVM, where he also played tennis, Koerner was an offensive force for four seasons in men’s soccer and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1988. As a striker, he scored 45 goals, still the most by any UVM player while his 26 assists and 116 points are also career records. Koerner was named All-Yankee Conference and All-New England in three seasons, leading the conference in scoring those three years.  He was New England’s leading scorer in 1975 with 15 goals and eight assists for a conference-record 38 points. All were UVM single-season records. UVM was 38-13-4 during Koerner’s career, winning a league title in 1975, when they went 11-2-0 and made its first trip to the NCAAs.

He was inducted into the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. 

In 2004, Koerner founded ’52 Kids’, a non-profit foundation that advances sustainable progress and enterprise for children in the Kamuli district of Uganda.