HAWAII DIARY 2002

Pictures too | Warming Up Poem

On this page . . . Getting Ready | Players | And . . . They're Off (July 7) | Anchors Aweigh (July 8) | Gearing Up (July 9) | An Ode to Cell Phones - Intermezzo | Rain Delay (July 10) | Toughing It Out (July 11) | Struggling in Paradise (July 12) | Guns Blazing (July 13) | A Day Off (July 14) | Impressions | Top 10 Quotes

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Getting Ready

We are taking a group of under 19 girls to Honolulu to play in the 2002 AYSO National Games.  Our invitation came late - May 7 - and so getting together a team that will take off for the Islands just two months later is a nontrivial effort by the organizers - coaches Michael Karlin and AJ.Willmer, Assistant Commissioner Jane Courtland, Coach Administrator Michael Sun and our wonderful friend Cindy Trangsrud, whose daughter Alison will, most unjustly be found ineligible to play because she played in U16 rather than U19 in the regular season.

But many anxious meetings and telephone conferences later, we have got together a group of 13 players -12 from Region 76 and one, Alex, from our neighbor region 78 (Hollywood-Wilshire) with which we have often co-operated at the National Games (more on this later).  And we have arranged air travel on American Airlines and a hotel stay with ICES Travel.  We have completed a ton of Games-related paperwork - ID cards, rosters, three different releases, player contracts, referee information (AJ and Michael are referees, too), schedules, packing lists . . .We even manage to raise some sponsorship money, including generous gifts from the parents and from SoccerSpace USA.  We didn't tell the kids, but we are really attending the annual convention of the Society for the Collection and Completion of Endless Reports (SOCCER) - when AYSO calls itself an organization, it isn't kidding.

We decide early against having warm-ups, bags, etc.  Here is a poetical explanation from Michael to Cindy Trangsrud on why we didn't.

Getting this group to practice is a challenge.  For one thing, we don't actually have a place to practice.  No improvement in field availability since AJ and Michael took a triumphant GU12 team to Kalamazoo in 1996.  Plus, BH schools don't let out until June 20, so the kids are overwhelmed with schoolwork, and in the case of Jenny and Laurie, graduation and all its attendant moments, sweet and sad.  And afterwards, some of the players already have out of town commitments made long before the Games were a possibility.  But we drag ourselves to a miserable quality patch of ground at Rancho Park, with no goals and no field markings and - on one memorable occasion - competition with some model helicopter enthusiasts whose craft kept buzzing us and challenged the coaches' vocal chords.

Half the team goes to see the LA Galaxy play on July 4.  The fireworks on the field match the great firework display that follows - although we could have done without the President Bush voiceover on some of the patriotic music that play as the bombs (and Roman candles) burst in air.

Players

We are a nicely balanced team - forwards both powerful and fast; solid midfields and defenders, and no fewer than four capable goalkeepers.  Here is a picture with captions.  We will post the formal team picture when it is available.

Our players are Casie Barnes, Emma Courtland, Miranda Homuth, Lisa Housman, Laurie Housman, Khira Jordan, Jenny Krischer, Jacq Lizarraga, Meaghan ReBell, Sandy Said, Sara Ullman, Anjuli Willmer and, from Hollywood-Wilshire, Alex Williams.  Each will make significant contributions on the field - Casie with solid defense and good passing touch that keeps getting better; Emma with exemplary defense, attitude and leadership, Miranda, a goalie whom we keep in midfield working hard and making beautiful passes, Lisa and Laurie attacking with flair and unrelenting courage and effort, Khira a skilful forward with a great touch, Jenny, her own harshest critic but a reliable and tenacious sweeper, Jacq a skilful dribbler with a monster throw-in who scores our best team goal, Meaghan, an excellent keeper and hardworking midfielder with a knack for keeping the ball in play, Sandy, our Hawaiian-born sweetheart, with great skill, anticipation and persistence, Sara, who seems to be able to run forever at forward and midfield, Anjuli, versatile, super-quick and a visionary tackler, and Alex, who does most of our goalkeeping, almost error-free and buoys us with consistent huge punts.

And . . .They're Off (Sunday July 7)

We gather at LAX on Sunday at 1:30 in the afternoon.  Not too many stragglers, with one notable exception (ahem . . . you know who you were).  One of only two moms coming on the trip, Patty Barnes, has suffered a most herniated disk so she cannot make the trip.  This is a double blow, for we all love Patty and now we are down to one mom to help supervise a lively bunch of girls.  Fortunately, Michael's daughter Laura has a friend from Cornell University, Dale Davis, a senior who is visiting Los Angeles and miraculously agrees to accompany us - she's in charge of Laura's dorm at Cornell so supervising 13 teenagers is not too challenging.  We negotiate with the airline and get her a reasonably priced ticket.  Relief and joy all around.  More about Dale later. 

The flight is on time and uneventful.  As we get off the plane, a memorable moment:  The girls all pull out cell phones - only Khira doesn't have one for reasons which are too undignified to mention - and a squeal from Meaghan is heard, "I've got service!!!"  So it turns out that Hawaii is part of the civilized world after all.  (They do speak Hawaiian in Hawaii - so Sara give us some Hawaiian language instruction - "Aloha! Mahalo! Hakuna Matata!!)

We arrive in the early evening, the sun makes an earlier exit in the tropics than at this time of the year in LA, so even though we pick up a three-hour time change, it's dark when we get to the hotel, a Las Vegas-sized Marriott across the street from Waikiki beach.  A few bags end up in the wrong rooms as the players re-arrange their room assignments without necessarily informing the bell men, but it all works out.  People make their own arrangements for dinner - Michael, AJ, Dale and AJ's wife Debra, in town for a couple of days, eat pretty decent sushi and we all crash out.

Tomorrow, a snorkeling expedition - if we can retrieve the arrangements that seem to have gone mildly astray.  But Ed Robinson, our travel agent, who is staying at our hotel, is confident.

Anchors Aweigh (Monday July 8)

Today, we began serious preparations for competition by . . . going on a snorkel tour.  Yes, the Starlet II, a 100 foot boat, played host to our entire party - taking us to a mooring off Diamond Head where we splashed about with snorkels, masks and flippers, sliding off the boat at high (well, medium) speed, jumping off from a great (well, 18 foot) height, chasing after massive sharks and whales (well, a rather bored sea turtle).  Everybody got their first full-fledged exposure to Hawaiian rays - but only one of us got sunburned.

We all have a great time, even if getting up for the 8:40 am pickup was a challenge.  We reconvene at 5 pm for a 10-minute walk to a huge park with multiple soccer fields, where we have a high (well, medium) energy practice.  The girls are sort of getting ready for actual competition - but a burning desire to win isn't yet much in evidence.  Fortunately, this tournament is set up so that by Saturday morning we will have qualified either for the quarter finals or for a day and a half at the beach.  A win-win proposition, don't you think?

Gearing Up (Tuesday July 9)

The coaches spend the early morning getting mobile.  First, Michael goes for a jog at 6:30 am, part of it along the Waikiki sand.  From this experience he deduces that, approaching age 50, he will need wheels to get around faster.  So it's off to Hertz at 7:30 with AJ to rent a large Ford Crown Victoria - sofa on wheels, as an old friend from Missouri used to call it.  Then, at the other end of the rental food change, we meet up at 8 am with the renter of a 15-seater cattle, I mean passenger, van.  How we found this treasure is a story of Google and Karma, but the old girl seems to work well enough, although in spasmodic need of oil checks.  This is a good thing because, as you shall see, we are about to spend a large amount of time aboard.

Then it's off to the park for a short and enjoyable practice, sans Laurie, who is shaking off exposure to the sun during a surfing lesson.  And to the Convention Center - our first van ride - to register.  This works pretty smoothly except that Alex and her father, on their way directly from the airport to the Convention Center, get rather lost.  But at last, paperwork completed, uniforms checked, pictures taken, etc., etc., we go back to the hotel and get ready for the jaunt (hee, hee) out to the Waipio Soccer Park, where we will participate in a parade and the opening ceremony.  Michael and AJ have a nice lunch with Debra, who is off to the airport.

We have chosen a name - it's the Hulagans!  An improvement on AJ and Michael's regular season team's name - the Nads (as in Go Nads - geddit?) - or the tournament team, featuring many of the same players, called Revenge of the Nads (oh God . . .).

At 4:50, we (troops, Jane, AJ, Herb and Dale) are in the van and the Crown Vic.  And the adventure begins.  First, it takes half an hour plus to get on the freeway, and this only thanks to a bit of daredevil driving to cut off one of the longer delays getting to the onramp.  After that, everything moves at snail's pace - Hawaii traffic makes us long for LA jams - but 13 miles later and just a couple of miles from our destination, we go awry.  The National Games website directions are crucially misleading (they don't specify the exit number and actually make you think it's earlier) and we get into a horrible mess in an area which has recently developed so much that our slightly out of date maps are massively wrong and can't really help us.  At one point, we get flagged down by a local man who promises to get us to the park.  But our new found and slightly inebriated friend William takes us, in all good faith, to another brand new soccer and baseball complex and now we have no idea how to get back.

Suffice it to say that only after Dale and AJ do some very nifty map reading and guesswork (voodoo and a live sacrifice of one of the players probably also helped - we'll let you parent readers guess which of them had to go), we make it at 7 pm into the complex and, dashing through the fields, we just get in as the last California team into the parade.

It's worth the angst and the detours.  The Waipio soccer complex is magnificent and the stadium turf like sponge.  All the colors and fans and the early evening Hawaiian skies make for a series of beautiful canvasses on which to feast our eyes and make our hearts soar.  The National Anthem is sung fetchingly by cute pop idol Shanna Crooks. The speeches are mercifully short and friendly - the highlight for me was the female captain from the Navy who told us the land on which the complex is built is owned by the Navy and leased for a song.  A horde of official bumblebees (referees) make up the last part of the parade, a flock of multicolored doves does an all-natural fly-by, balloons float festively skyward, fireworks sizzle and fizzle, Polynesians dance and drum, and nearly 200 soccer teams mill around happily under the eyes of hundred if not thousands of parents, siblings and friends in the stands.  Aloha and Mahalo, AYSO!

An Ode to Cell Phones (Intermezzo)

The ode is on hold until we come up with a better opening line than "Tinkle, tinkle, little cell!"!  But what would we do without them?  Cell phones have made this tournament work.  AJ and Michael call each other dozens of times a day to keep kids and vehicles coordinated. . . If you must read poetry at this stage, please refer to Warming Up.

Rain Delay (Wednesday July 10)

Michael takes off early, giving a ride to Dale who is going on a hike and then heading for the fields where he is due to officiate two Soccer Fest games.  He gets to the fields with embarrassing ease, but none of the team are there to witness his improved navigational skills.  He gets to referee two skilfully played games, one as an assistant in BU12, the other as the center of a GU14 game.

The Soccer Fest is both a great idea and a huge disappointment for us.  The idea is that every team shows up and the players are randomly assigned to teams who are given jerseys and sent off to play what are essentially pickup games.  In U19, it's co-ed, which certainly promised added spice for our competitive girls.  Soccer Fest games tend to prove how little coaching is really necessary, since the coaches have just met the players and pretty much have to throw together a line-up on the spot.  The kids take over and play as if they had been a team forever, with minimal help from the coach.

But we didn't get to play (or coach).  There was just enough rain to make the tournament organizers fearful that the fields would be spoiled for the tournament proper that starts tomorrow.  So after two games (for U12s and U14s), they canceled play for the rest of the day.  We think they overreacted - most of us from the mainland have never seen fields like these and can't imagine what they were afraid of.  The girls had to cool their heels for another day - some of them made it to the swap meet at the Aloha Bowl, others went to the beach or the pool, frequently in the company of the boys they have befriended.  (Yes, there are boys upon the island - deal with it.)  The lack of opportunity to experience the feels in a noncompetitive setting will turn out later to hurt us considerably.

In the evening, we take the team to the Convention Center for the not very imaginatively named youth event.  There's lots going on but the lines, especially for the activities that our players are interested in, if not like Disneyland, are intimidating.  The food is execrable.  Michael and AJ escape to Benihana's but the team is trapped under Dale's watchful eye.  We allow them to leave early and they walk back to the hotel and more familiar pleasures (pool, beach, boys, etc.).  Laurie refuses to walk and hops on a bus.  Curfew is 11:30 tonight, we have an early start, and it is respected by all.

Toughing It Out (Thursday July 11)

The first day of competition.  We pile into the van and the car and make our way to the fields.  We are on Field 17, and with a game against a team from Salt Lake City.  We win 2-1, but the game takes a terrific toll on the girls.  Despite numerous warnings about being properly hydrated and respecting the conditions, too many of them are short of water and simply not prepared for the huge field with grass that keeps the ball in play.  Jacq unwittingly gives us three minutes of rest in the second half by hitting a thundering shot into the face of an opponent - they pay a running clock here so there was no injury time.  The other player was all right, we believe, but it was what I call a pillow shot, where all the coach can do is bring a pillow out to the player.  Our goals, from Laurie, give us a lead early in the second half that we never relinquish.

By the time of our second game, against a fantastic Aiea, Hawaii team (eventual winners of the tournament), which we lose 5-0, the gas tanks are low.  We get help from the Honolulu police and our National President, Joel Mark, who take turns with their golf carts getting our cooler and tent to the field, which is not too close to the parking lot.  But we have lost Meaghan for a game because of a slight scratch on her eye, which we later get treated at a local hospital.  She'll be fine.  Jacq has a more serious encounter with the medical world, needing an IV saline drip from the paramedic and a short trip to a local hospital to get re-hydrated.  A few hours later, she's just fine too but we will watch her very carefully.

The girls are resilient.  They are athletes and they play a sport that involves a lot of physical contact.  None of them shy away from it.  They get up after being knocked down and they play through a certain amount of pain.  Quite a few of them have bought new cleats ahead of this tournament and are paying the price in blisters, a minor matter in the general scheme of things but excruciating when trying to play two hours of soccer a day.  Their basic courage and lack of real complaints (no one could begrudge them a moan or two) are deserving of recognition.

At the same time, they are having fun and it seems that win or lose, within minutes their spirits are back up and they are enjoying each other's company.  The bus rides back from the field always seem to be lively and, if the maturity level of the chatter is not always at the highest, well - they are mostly 17.

  Struggling in Paradise (Friday July 12)

In our second day of competition, we put in a tremendous effort on a gorgeous Hawaiian day and have nothing to show for it.  Today, we are well prepared and watered.  The first game, we play a second Hawaii team, from the Big Island, a good one but nothing like the amazing team we played yesterday.  We have an early chance or two but we allow three preventable goals and the second one, coming just as we were getting back in the game, really is too much for us.  The girls befriend each other after the game, especially as we trade pins for a Hawaiian necklace and a hug from each of our opponents.  A special word of praise for Laurie, who, sunburn and all, puts in four quarters of phenomenal effort and skill.  The girls applaud her at the end.

The second game is pure frustration - the classic 1-0 loss in a situation where we utterly dominated and missed numerous chances.  Khira headed wide on what was an admittedly difficult chance set up by a great cross from Lisa, Miranda, Sara and Meaghan all had close first half misses; more chances in the second half didn't quite go in including a mad goalmouth scramble.  Lisa and Miranda put in some glorious crosses that just don't get the reward they deserve.  The Avondale, Arizona team scored with literally one chance in the entire game.

The game was pleasing because it was the first in which the girls started to really adapt to the conditions and play the kind of knock the ball around on the ground soccer that is the only way on a huge, soft, grassy field.  They called for the ball, got open for each other and defended very tenaciously.

The second game was the first in which we felt we had a legitimate gripe against the referee.  He "bottled it" in failing to award a penalty in the first half - a piece of refereeing you see all too often where a referee doesn't want to call an early foul because it occurred in the penalty area.  He utterly failed to protect Lisa, who was repeatedly fouled by the opponents she tormented with her speed and quickness all game.  The Avondale number 22 was finally given a yellow card far too late in the second half to restrain her thuggish behavior, which rendered Lisa unable to play more than a few minutes the next day.  Both coaches, including your diarist, are experienced referees, we understand the referee has a different perspective (geometrically and psychologically) on the game and we don't complain to referees when we are coaching, but in a diary we feel we can tell it like it is.  Refereeing did not cost us the game, but it left a sour taste on what was, considered fairly, a dominant performance by us.

In case you think we are just sore losers, we may note that the Avondale team scored 108 sportsmanship points and thereby came just about last but one in GU19 and indeed third to last out of all 91 girls teams from U12 through U19 (1/2 a point ahead of the worst and 24 points behind the next worst).  Its sportsmanship score was worse than all but 10 of the 92 boys teams.  Avondale also picked up two yellow cards against us and four overall - compared to the 9 yellow cards handed out to the other 23 GU19 teams combined - only one other team had as many as two in five games.

In the evening, AJ and Michael have dinner at the Royal Hawaiian, a grand old hotel, its pink exterior providing a faint memory of the Beverly Hills Hotel.  On Fridays, an unimaginably luxurious buffet is served - referring to the limited a la carte alternatives, our Hawaiian waiter tells us that "I see you looking at the menu - and that concerns me."  It's so good that AJ calls his older daughter Dejah and boyfriend Steven, who are staying at another hotel, and gets them to come over to partake of the feast.  A frou-frou drink and a beer make the evening seem even smoother than it already is - and the two of us (or at least Michael) are far too sleepy to survive until the time for the bed check.  The news the next morning from Dale is that the curfew was given its due by all.

  Guns Blazing (Saturday July 13)

The girls know this would be their last game and they finish in style, comprehensively defeating a Mountain View, California team that had been beat up physically in earlier games.  We only have Lisa, our fireplug, for a quarter - the brutish Avondale #22 had given her a Charley Horse too deep and sore for even Lisa to overcome - and she is someone who will absolutely play through pain if it can be done.  But we fire on many cylinders, with goals from Laurie, Jacq, 2 from Sara (one of which it is fair to say she knew little about as it deflects off a something - was it a shot? - from Khira), and Khira.  The best moment of the game comes when Emma graciously acknowledges from the middle of the field that the coaches' admonitions about passing the ball around has just sprung our forwards from midfield, and at the end we string together 10 or 15 passes since we shouldn't be scoring more against an already badly beaten team.

Many of the girls go to Chinatown - which they enjoy.  Michael and AJ go right round the island with Steven and Dejah to check out tomorrow's outing to Waimea.  We find places to swim and have fun and eat and shop and even a Starbucks - is nowhere sacred?  In the evening, everyone is on their own.  Michael and AJ visit the Ihilani Resort where the BU12 team and families are staying.  The resort is very plush, with artificial lagoons and huge public spaces - there's a picture of the outside on the BU12 pictures page which doesn't really do it justice.  AJ and Michael are given a pleasant poolside dinner by Cindy.  Getting back late, all seems peaceful.

Tomorrow - Waimea and then home.  We will get more pictures up early next week after we get back to Los Angeles and recount the ending and some impressions of Hawaii, the Games and other matters.

  A Day Off (Sunday July 14)

No soccer on this final day, so we organize a trip up the east coast of the island of Oahu and around the North Shore to Sunset Beach.  After checking out and stowing the bags, we proceed round the island - reminds us of an old joke about Israel, equally applicable to Oahu, "Why is the speed limit in Israel so low?  To prevent the tourists from seeing the whole country in one day."  We have a very tasty lunch provided to us by Marcelo, a handsome young Brazilian dude with a small restaurant on the coast road near Waimea, then off to the Waimea Park, where most have an ice cream and some stay for kayaking while the majority head off to Sunset Beach.

At 4 pm, we pile back into the van and the Lincoln Town Car. (Did I mention that the Crown Vic had died on us and had to be replaced by Hertz?  It was the 70K on the odometer van from Fly By Night Rentals that gave us no trouble, not the 3K "luxury" car.)  Michael checks in at the fields to pick up the team photos and also two luminous lime green T-shirts, his reward for refereeing - they really did treat referees nicely.  He learns that Hawaiian teams have won 6 of 8 divisions, including several all-Hawaii finals, further suggesting that there was a significant advantage to being adapted not so much to the fields as the conditions.  The two finalists in GU19 both came from our group, marking the second straight National Games in which Michael and AJ's team managed to be in the group of death (in Kalamazoo, not only did our GU12 team play - and win - the final against the first place team in our pool, but three of the other four teams in that pool played the semifinals of the consolation bracket, and two contested the final).  Our hats off to the wonderful Aiea team, who beat us 5-0 and played as gorgeous a game of soccer as any upper division team we have seen outside the club arena - actually, they would have been competitive at a high club level, too.  Aiea gave up one goal in 7 games, and that to a team they beat 6 to 1.  Good for them.

Back at the hotel, they have given us a hospitality suite, where we shower and change, and then off to the airport for an uneventful flight home - overnight, so bleary faces emerge from the plane at 5 am at LAX.  Hugs and thanks and the adventure ends with sleepy good humor.

Impressions

Oahu is a beautiful island, but this tournament was not really set up for us to see too much of it.  To be honest, our teenagers did not evince any great interest in the historic and gorgeous place they had been brought to.  Except for the snorkeling, which simply got us a few yards offshore and only just east of Waikiki beach and our trip round the island on the last day, the team didn't really get a lot of tourism in.  Nor did  they seem like they wanted to - many of them would have preferred to go see the finals on Sunday, but AJ and I, disregarding our own admonitions about checking with the players before organizing non-soccer events, decide that the players should see something of the island beyond Waikiki and the soccer complex.

The coaches too didn't get much more of a look, but this was because they had to work so hard in the absence of an adequate quota of parents.  Looking at the photo of the family members of the BU12 team, which had a year to organize their trip, makes one appreciate all the more the challenge where there were just three responsible adults beyond the two coaches.  Fortunately, both AJ and Michael had been to the Islands more than once, and Michael will be returning to the Big Island in August.

Waikiki is a rather dire location.  The boardwalk is pretty enough, but nothing special compared with, say, Venice Beach or the shoreline at Santa Monica.  In fact it's quite tired, its hotels a little faded and the restaurants utterly pitiful - fast food, impoverished sushi or hotels with modest facilities that all closed down early (the Royal Hawaiian Friday night buffet was a shining, but very expensive, exception).  Made us long for a CPK or a Cheesecake Factory.  Perhaps there were tourist attractions that weren't unutterably low-brow, but if so they were well camouflaged.  The whole place had a rather run-down, sub-colonial feel.  And the homogenizing influence of the mainland was pervasive.  We returned to a Wall Street Journal article by a Hawaiian staffer lamenting the demise of the Hawaiian shirt in the Honolulu business community and its replacement by bland attire from the Gap and Banana Republic.

Beyond Waikiki there is real beauty, perhaps not quite as spectacular as the other islands, but well worth a visit, and Oahu clearly has the best beaches in the Hawaiian Islands.  Sunset Beach was just glorious and there were other lovely sights.  Wish we had more time to see them and tell you about them.

Top 10 Quotes (we're working on 'em)

I've got service! (Meaghan, on learning her cell phone works even in Hawaii)

Aloha! Mahalo! Hakuna Matata!! (Sara's Hawaiian language lesson)

You have the right to remain silent (the bed time Miranda warning, named after the player least in need of it)

They should see what we play on in New York - we play in the snow.  (Disgruntled coach when the Soccerfest gets "rained out")

Retail R&R (shopping at the Aloha Bowl swap meet near Pearl Harbor, in lieu of the Soccerfest)

They asked the 12-year olds (Sandy, explaining how the activities at party at the Convention Center were chosen)

Not if it has a mommy (Herb, Khira's dad, and with Dale, one of two vegetarians in our party, describing his choice of foods)

Last updated December 29, 2005 at 04:45 PM

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