Coach Buddy

I remember his passing like it was yesterday. We are all at the Perry home on Shower Drive: me, mom, dad, my sisters and all our friends. The adults talked a lot, cried a lot,  laughed some, played music, and told stories. I was ten years old and mostly I remember feeling so alone in a house full of people. I remember wanting to be near him but also being too scared to stay by his bedside. I was witnessing his spirit slowly leaving his body. In a matter of days, my coach was gone forever. 

Memories of Coach Buddy come and go like the tide washing ashore at Hāʻena. Sometimes they come crashing upon me like waves during a storm, and at other times they slowly roll over me all calm and cooling. Often they are so vivid that I need to remind myself he is no longer with us. It has been nearly six years since the worst day of my life took place and yet these memories still haunt me, remind me, find me.

From age five to ten, I was blessed to spend a lot of time with him. I remember the 3v3 competition in Waikoloa.  We won the championships as the underdogs. We were only 5 years old. Kani, his youngest boy, was even younger. He was still strong at that time. ALS had not yet stolen his will. Champs at 5, what a feeling!

I remember losing some championship games too. Coach Buddy would always say, “My fault.” Whenever we lost, he always took responsibility. He never blamed us, the players. He never doubted our ability to win. If we lost in a big match, it was always because of something he did: “I should have kept you in or I should have chosen another formation.” He was so strategic in his thinking and if the strategy he chose was the wrong one, he was always the first to admit it. There’s a lesson he taught me at a young age, but one that I am only realizing now, six years after he left us. He taught me that we all make mistakes, but it is important to own up to it, especially if you are the one in charge.

Not everything I remember has to do with soccer. Coach Buddy taught me to love the outdoors. He taught me how to love getting my hands dirty. He used to quiz me on the different fruit and vegetable names that his clients would give him. “Heart of palm. Kumquat. Squash.” If I could name them, I could take them home. He took me to Kapāpala Ranch. I remember the freezing cold and the time just flying when we were up there. The forest was our playground. We rode horses, ATVs, went hunting, and swam in the resevoir. It was so much fun to be outdoors away from all the distractions that interfere with my life nowadays. He didnt need the TV to be on all day and it would probably irritate him to see how much social media I look at daily. When games got switched to Sundays, he would say: “This is my church. Outside in nature. God is here too.” Coach loved the outdoors and working the land. There was always something to do, to plant, to weed, to clean. If he could choose between sitting inside and sitting outside, outside would win by a landslide. He taught this to his boys: hunting, planting, smoking meat, catching crab. They continue to teach me. 

Even though we were young, he used to yell at us A LOT. Me, especially, because he knew that worked with me. It never made me upset like it did some of the others. It motivated me to do better. His yellings always had advice in them. “Get on defense! Hustle off the field!” with a few other colorful words mixed in there. He never let us slack off and boy did he yell when he felt like we were not playing our hardest. He had these rules that he made us memorize. Rule #1: When another player or coach taunts you, smile at your coach. I never really understood that one until this year. This year I let another player taunt me and irritate me to my boiling point. I should have remembered what Coach Buddy used to say, but instead I fouled him, fouled him hard. Up came the red card, the ejection followed, and then the loss. I sat on  the sidelines during the next game, unable to help my team. Another loss. And then, I remembered his rule and I finally understood. Coach Buddy was an athlete himself so he knew that the psychological game was just as important as the physical one. He had enough spirit for all of us. When we were down in a game and tempers were high, all you had to do was look at him and smile and he would flash one back as if to say, “No scared! You got this.” Sometimes his smile had a hint of rebellion in it: “Let them foul you and get the free kick. Then when the refs are not looking, return the favor.” His eyes were always thinking, plotting, telling. 

At the end of his life, when his voice was failing him, when his body was failing him, when we could no longer understand his grunts or motions, his eyes still had so much to say. After I fouled that player and paid the consequence, after Coach Buddy’s rule clicked in my head, I realized something important.  Even though I lost my coach, my mentor, my father, and friend in his physical form, he is still with me in so many ways. I carry him in my heart. I hear him when his son Kaleihaliʻa coaches me. I see him in his boy Kahaku when he works the land or when he hugs me real hard. I feel him every time Kani cracks a joke or does something kolohe. I see his smile in Kāhinu, the only girl of the Perry clan, when she dances hula about his beloved Maui. I remember his rules and apply them to my life. Somehow, even from beyond the grave, he is still coaching me and cheering me on.