Wake Forest Athletics
Leave a Little More: How a Wake Forest Soccer Connection Led to the Creation of a Picture Book
4/4/2023 7:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer, Les Johns
Through a friendship formed between two Wake Forest Sports Hall of Famers, Samantha Cronin and Tacey Hesmer brought their creativity to life.
The Cronins moved to Raleigh in August of 2019 and quickly connected with the Hesmers, living within five minutes of each other. Although their time with Wake Forest men's soccer didn't overlap, they were always connected.
William Hesmer played for Wake Forest from 2000-03 and was a semifinalist for the Mac Hermann Trophy – the highest individual award in college soccer – as a senior. Sam Cronin, meanwhile, arrived as a freshman in 2005, leading Wake Forest to three-straight College Cup appearances, culminating with the first national championship for the Demon Deacons in 2007.
Both were inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame earlier this year.
"It's a small world," Samantha Cronin said. "Even though they didn't overlap, they still knew each other and stayed in touch. Then they both played in the MLS. Although we were loosely connected, we never overlapped on teams or anything."
The families had already sparked a close friendship by the time the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020.
"It was certainly a depressing, isolating and challenging time, especially with young kids," Samantha said.
Enjoying a socially-distanced Bible study on the back porch while their children played, the Cronins and Hesmers just tried to grasp any sense of positivity they could, while also sharing scripture and wine together.
As it turned out, Sam's wife Samantha is a writer and William's wife Tacey is an artist. It was during one of those back porch Bible study sessions where they stumbled upon a way to combine their gifts.
"I shared with her the story I'd written," Samantha said about her children's picture book.
"Why don't we do that together?" Tacey exclaimed.
"She's an artist through-and-through and has such a big heart for kids," Samantha said. "Her eyes lit up."
That's how "Leave a Little More," written by Samantha Cronin and illustrated by Tacey Hesmer, came to fruition. It was released last summer.
"The book is all about reminding kids and the adults reading, too, that there's real value in little everyday moments and decisions you make in your days, whether you realize it or not, that everything you do is leaving the world better and different than before," Cronin said. "You don't have to overtly save the world or start a charity to make a difference. Small moments matter. We felt especially during that time, that the message really resonated."
Once the spark between the two was kindled, they met every other week to work on the project, laying out ideas and sketching the artwork.
"Even if we create it just for our kids, it would have value and provide something positive during this very difficult, dark time," Cronin thought.
Samantha's career followed along with Sam's MLS career, as he played professional soccer in Toronto, California, Minnesota and Colorado.
"Professionally I was on a career path in a somewhat creative industry, but focused more on client services and advertising," Samantha said. "We were moving all around the country following my husband's MLS career. My career moved along wherever we were planted."
It was during Sam's two-plus years in Denver when the Cronins started their family.
"I'd always loved anything creative, writing and reading," Samantha said. "I'd always enjoyed and excelled in those things in school. Especially as we started our own family, I became excited about writing, particularly picture books. I always tried to carve out time to do it, but was also working a full-time job along with dealing with all of our family needs.
"I ended up stepping away from my career with Google, which was an awesome job. The goal was to create space to be more creative to see if I could bring these picture book concepts to life. But what would that look like?"
Along the way, Samantha made connections with an agency that assists authors in navigating the publishing ecosystem, a skill that she put to use in bringing "Leave a Little More" to life.
"That was a somewhat unexpected twist in terms of what Tacey and I are doing now," she said. "It's been a great way to learn what publishing is like and to see if I had the skills to make that happen on a personal level."
She took some workshops to advance her skills and one of the assignments was to write a picture book manuscript.
"What I wrote back in 2017 doesn't look that dissimilar to what shows up now in published form," she said.
Life threw the Cronins a few curveballs. Sam got traded and had to deal with a concussion. Another child was on the way as well and they had to figure out the right move.
"Life got a little bit crazy, although I was still working for that same company in publishing," Samantha said.
That's when they ended up back in North Carolina and reconnected with the Cronins.
"Throughout our soccer experiences, our lives have always been tangentially intertwined," Samantha said. "There's the MLS career path, the Wake Forest connection, but we also each have three kids who are almost the same ages.
"We live within five minutes of each other. We were just kind of drawn together as one of my first friends and points of contact in Raleigh."
Tacey's art breathed fresh life into Samantha's creation and they channeled their collective energy into getting the book published.
"That's how it started," Cronin said. "She took my vision and ran with it in a way that I never could have without her. She is creative in amazing and cool ways."
As they explored paths to publishing, they wanted the positive impact to be two-fold: They believed the message was something that needed to be heard but also wanted there to be a charitable component.
"We spoke with Sam and William about it, and it led to the U.S. Soccer Foundation, who we've now partnered with officially," Samantha said. "It's obvious that soccer has played a big role in our lives, and honestly brought Tacey and I together."
Samantha and Tacey have spent the last several months promoting the book and have developed interactive events with several elementary schools.
"We're just finding ways to get the word out," Samantha said. "We have interactive events with schools that end with a watercolor — every kid gets a copy of the book."
The two families still spend plenty of nights together on the porch.
"Hang out at one of our houses, where the kids can run around and play," Samantha said. "Have a drink, chat and catch up. That's the sweet spot for both of our families right now. Let them run and we can take a minute to laugh and sit still."
While the promotion and sales are still ongoing, Cronin has definitely taken a few moments to reflect on what her and Tacey have accomplished together.
"We created this," Samantha said. "It's icing on the cake where more people are getting their hands on it than we initially envisioned. It's incredible there's a charitable component. But to have something tangible and say, 'Hey, we made this.' As adults, that's not something you experience as much as you do as a child. They're constantly learning new things or creating stuff. That's so good for us as people and there's less opportunities to do this as an adult.
"Everything you do throughout your day matters. Your day is full of these little moments that matter. The message is landing, and that's pretty cool to see. I hope it's written in a way they can enjoy it at a surface level, but also that the message is breaking through."
