Soccer Moms: The Next Generation
In a 180-degree role reversal, the kids are on the sidelines cheering and the moms are running up and down the field when the Women’s Island Soccer Association plays at Waipio
Debbra Colburn breaks away
from a defender
the competitive home to such private school teams as Kamehameha and Punahou before the Interscholastic League of Honolulu (ILH) came around. Today it has 43 teams in three divisions, including a makule division for those 30 years and up. And there are plans for an over-40 division “because a lot of the women are turning older and it’s hard at 45, 50 to be chasing 30-year-olds,” says WISA treasurer, player, mom and coach Holly Reiplinger.
Reiplinger shares a team with her daughter Moani Lau, who’s also a mom of 6-month-old Ka’ualoku Silva. Mom and
grandma are hoping one day to have three generations of He Kini Popo playing together.
A soccer player shoots for a goal at the Waipio Soccer
Complex
Cecily Williams of Orange Krush says she doesn’t consider herself athletically inclined, but she takes soccer all in stride. “I played my first game when I turned 40,” she says. “I kept telling myself that I’m running from 40 - I’ve been running from 40 for three years now.”
Williams’ two sons Ryan and CJ play soccer, and she remembers yelling to them from the sidelines to run harder. “I just decided, you know what, I better try this out, see what it’s like on that field. And when I got out there and realized that field was really big. My younger one said my very first game, ‘Mom, you did OK, Mom, but you gotta run, Mom. You gotta run.‘He was only 6 back then. ‘You gotta run.’”
These soccer moms are doing just that.
For more information, www.islandsoccer.com/wisa.htm
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