In the 11th year of soccer at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, it’s not unfair to say the program looks a little bit like a patchwork quilt of mismatched fabric that has sometime been hard on the eyes.
The program has always existed on a shoestring budget, even for Division II schools, with one coach asked to coach both teams, so it’s probably not surprising that there have been different coaches and divergent approaches to the game. You could say winning on a consistent basis has been consistently elusive.
But there is a thread of consistency that feels like it has held Vulcans soccer together, an understanding of the game and need to play with a kind of gut level fervor that involves everyone going in the same direction, no matter what.
The most visible and evocative representation of that willingness to give to teammates in order to make the team stronger will be on the field at Paiea Stadium today when former Vulcan Lindsey Poulsen, in a major battle with Stage 3 ovarian cancer, will be celebrated at the match against Concordia at 7 p.m., following the men’s game.
The outpouring of love for Poulsen is unmistakable, but that was the case before she discovered she had cancer.
“She was a big sister to me,” said Vulcans’ goalie Jenna Hufford. “She was, and she still is, my role model, I can’t put in words how much it has meant in my life to know her.
“If you imagined a picture of the most encouraging, supportive person you knew, who was extremely talented at what she did and brought that out everyone else? That’s who Lindsey is.”
Poulsen has all of that inside, but she also has this internal battle with cancer that recently took an unwanted turn when it became apparent that the chemotherapy was not at all effective. Poulsen is currently on medication designed to shrink the tumors and allow doctors to perform a 10-hour surgery in a few months that could remove all of the cancer.
These days, Poulsen is gaunt, well below her playing weight, and she’s pale, her stubbly hair is growing back, but that spark inside does not appear to have changed one bit.
“This always has been a second home for me,” Poulsen said of Hilo the other day while she watched the Vulcans battle Dixie State a couple of hours after she flew in from Oahu, where she’s being treated. “My energy isn’t what it used to be, but being around these guys fills me up, I feel almost like a part of this, still.”
The competitive fire hasn’t left. As she talked on the sideline, Poulsen nodded over to the visitors, then grumbled about her memories of Dixie State. “I always hated them,” she said, “they were thugs, they played dirty.”
But it isn’t just memories of playing with Hufford, Abcde Zoller and Nicole Statham — the only three remaining Vulcans who played with her as freshman when Poulsen was a senior — that connects Poulsen to the program.
“He’s the one I got it from,” she said, pointing to Hawaii Hilo interim coach Gene Okamura. “There is nobody more deserving to have a chance to coach this team than Gene, he is amazing.
“I learned so much from him,” she said, “because I was a freshman and he was a senior and out of everyone in the program, he was the one who was a kind of unofficial mentor for me; it sounds over-dramatic, but he was incredible to me in terms of his understanding of the game, his complete knowledge of where everyone on the field should be at all times.
“He would correct mistakes on the field not by telling you what you did wrong, but by making a positive suggestion about your positioning or whatever it was. When I watched him, I realized how much there was to the game, he opened it up for me, like you would open a door. He could see the field and the flow of play like no one I’ve ever been around.”
Freshman Poulsen was shown the way by senior Okamura; freshmen Zoller, Hufford and Stratham were pointed in the right direction by senior Poulsen.
There exists a genuine thread of fundamental soccer knowledge within the Vulcans’ soccer program, to a large extent because of people like Okamura and Poulsen who pushed themselves to get better physically and develop a more advanced soccer IQ.
“She showed us what leadership looks like,” Zoller said of Poulsen. “She wanted so bad for us to be a team, to play together and she was definitely the hardest worker, but in games? In games, you could feel her presence, her energy, out on the field, I mean, she just killed it, she was an inspiration.”
Statham said, “She made us proud to play for UHH, she left an imprint on everyone who knew her and her character, her spirit, carries on in all of us, still, to this day.”
Poulsen hopes to beat the cancer and be able to return to Hilo for a proposed Alumni game sometime next spring.
In the meantime, she is reinforcing the bonds she built here, making the slogan on the back of her commemorative pink jersey more than just four words.
It says, No One Fights Alone.
For Lindsey, and the Vulcans, it’s on.
