Drexel Coach Kyle Zoldy Has Cherished Memories of His Time at La Salle

For Kyle Zoldy, playing hockey at La Salle College High School was a life-changing experience. It’s been nearly 13 years since Zoldy graduated from La Salle. But his experiences at the school determined the direction of his life and certainly influenced his decision to remain involved in hockey.

After leaving La Salle, Zoldy went on to play at Drexel. Today, he’s the head coach of the Dragons’ nationally ranked ACHA Division I program, when he’s not tending to his responsibilities as an executive at Comcast.

For Zoldy, who grew up in Quakertown and had always attended Catholic school, enrolling at La Salle was a case of following in his father’s footsteps.

“I was looking at Lansdale Catholic, or La Salle,” Zoldy recalls. “My dad was an alumni of La Salle which was the primary reason it was on my radar; he had a great experience there. He loved the values and brotherhood it was about.”

Hockey also factored into Zoldy’s decision to enroll at La Salle. I’d been playing competitive hockey my whole life,” he said and La Salle had one of the better programs in the area. I had gotten in touch with (head coach Wally Muehlbronner) and started talking to him. I visited the school, did the official tours, visited practice and just fell in love with everything about the place from the academics through the athletics, and ultimately took a chance going there.

“Coming from a small Catholic School in Quakertown I went in there not knowing a soul and left with a handful of brothers and teammates that I played four years of hockey with and are still great friends to this day.”

Visitors to the La Salle campus may notice two signs, one reading ‘Enter to Learn,’ the other ‘Depart to Serve.’

Zoldy took those admonitions to heart.

“Enter to Learn is the kind of the first thing you see when you’re coming in,” he said, “and whether its learning academically, athletically, or just having the right values of selflessness, sacrifice, and kind of a true brotherhood mentality, looking out for the guy next to you, you’re learning that all throughout the days that you’re on campus.

“Then when you leave every day the last thing you see is that Leave to Serve sign and I think that’s your calling to being to the world all of the teaching and lessons you’ve been fortunate enough to be blessed with at La Salle. 

You try to deliver that just in being a good person, being a good father, husband, whatever it might be. For me, I’ve tried to take it on a little bit and continue serving in a hockey capacity, as the coach at Drexel. Wally obviously played a big role in inspiring me to pursue coaching.”

Zoldy says the faculty at La Salle, along with his fellow students, helped him grow and mature as a person.

“There are a lot of people that spend most of your time with,” he said. “Certainly, certain professors have a greater impact than others and then too, some of the upper classmen you spend a lot of time with if you’re playing hockey, lacrosse, or football, whatever it might be. I think it’s who you have the opportunity to spend the most time with that has an impact on you.

“For me, obviously, a lot of it happened within the hockey program. I think Wally instills a mentality in his players right off the bat that the team always comes first. Work ethic will always be prioritized above skill and that was something that always resonated with the seniors, the juniors, all the way down to the freshmen.

“That was instilled in me and it’s something I still take (with me) to this day. Always putting your teammates and others first and again never being outworked in anything, whether its work, life or hockey, take pride in that work ethic.”

Zoldy feels La Salle prepared him well, for college and the world beyond. “La Salle challenges you to excel and prepares you to do well in university and college after high school,” he said, “but I think above all your communications skills get strong at La Salle. Obviously communicating with the professors, they’re great. They want to interact with their students and the same thing with the coaches that you meet.

“So, taking the work ethic, the challenging aspects of the academics at La Salle of always being eager to learn more and challenge yourself, and your communications skills, those are certainly the big things that served me well in my career, even before Comcast.”

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