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
Rae Takenaka of Orange Crush
battles two No Ack teammates
for a header
At Waipio Soccer Complex on Sundays, it’s the kids who sit on the sidelines and the moms who lace up and play. In fact, soccer moms make up more than half of the estimated 800 players in the Women’s Island Soccer Association - Oahu’s only soccer league for women.
Twenty-eight-year-old soccer mom Pomai Napoleon says she loves “being able to share all of this and pass it down to my little girl. Hopefully she’ll be as interested in it as I am.”
“She was probably 2 months old and I was already (back to) playing soccer,” Napoleon says of her now 6-year-old daughter Jimie Napoleon-Kanaha, who’s starting her first year of AYSO in the fall. “Soccer is definitely a love I’ve always had. (My team-mates) they’re sisters ... extended family. I can’t think of anything better to do on Sundays than sit here all day. It’s one of my favorite things to do.”
Sitting nearby, teammate Jen Miles points out a few of the moms on her Division 1 team, the Superstars. “Jules right there running, she has boys. Chris, running down the middle, has two boys. And Michelle right here has a boy.”
Holly Reiplinger of He Kini Popo gets
physical against the Superstars
What does Miles think of her teammates who are moms? “I love it,” she says. “I think it’s the best way to raise their kids - around soccer. ... They’ve got a million baby sitters. We take turns.”
Last Sunday, Wayne Kagehiro and Ray Akiona were watching their wives, teammates in the 30-and-older division, compete. Both women had followed their children into soccer years ago.
“You sign up your kid and you don’t realize you get hooked on it,” Akiona says.
“That’s how it starts, yeah?” says Kagehiro, whose wife, Gail, still gets butterflies after 18 years of playing soccer.
Akiona describes the level of play as “just as competitive a game as I’ve seen,” and says he admires the wives’ability to compete. “They’re awesome. They’re terrific. They set some good examples to get out ... and get active.”
Staying active and keeping in shape is something that soccer moms say they love about the league, which attracts players ranging in age from 16 into their 60s. There are also the friendships, competition and a support system when you need it.
“When you start playing with ladies,” says goalie Donna Fouts, “you see people going through divorces. I’m a widow - that happened since I was playing. One woman had cancer, we saw her going through that. You develop these friendships, these bonds that are pretty incredible. Soccer is kind of the thread that holds you all together.”
Jimie Napoleon-Kanaha, 6,
gives her mother Pomai
some mid-game advice
during a match at the Waipio
Soccer Complex
In this league it’s not uncommon for players at one time or another to sit out a couple seasons to tend to their pregnancies, only to return as soon as they possibly can.
For Marcey Beasley of Mililani, the wait was five weeks after having her youngest child Keara nine months ago. A big part of her being able to return to soccer after having each of her three children was having ready-made baby sitters in the form of team-mates and players she’s befriended over the years.
“I have to say the best (thing) has been the support from my team. They’re always willing to be an aunty on the side and babysit,” says Beasley, whose sister in Nebraska isn’t quite as lucky.
“My sister (who lives in the Cornhusker State) is like, ‘You can play? What about the kids?’” Beasley explains. “She plays, but it’s not like that for her. She has to find a real sitter and pay them.”
WISA started in 1972 - two years before AYSO, the American Youth Soccer Organization, came to Hawaii. It started with five teams, and at one time was
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