ISLE PROFILE
'Mr. Soccer' proud of Hawai'i's growing success

By Leila Wai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Jack Sullivan, 70, helped pioneer Hawai'i soccer in 1974 and has been involved with the sport for 30 years in the state. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

But that's not the amazing thing: It's that the poster is rolled up and tucked away in the back of the room. And it's not Sullivan's most prized possession.

For soccer lovers in the know in Hawai'i, it wouldn't seem odd. Sullivan, who also has two soccer balls and a signed photograph of Pele, loves his soccer memories more than the memorabilia.

Sullivan, 70, has been involved with soccer in Hawai'i for 30 years, including its start in 1974 with the American Youth Soccer Organization.

"I remember practically every single kid who played for me," he said as he looked at the pictures of his soccer teams that lined his office walls.

He is proud of the recent success of Hawai'i soccer, from Brian Ching scoring and playing in his first Major League Soccer All-Star game Saturday, to Natasha Kai leading the U.S. Women's Under-21 National Team to the Nordic Cup title last week, to the Honolulu Soccer Club Bulls '85 boys team capturing Hawai'i's first U.S. Youth Soccer Association national title last month, to the two teams that won championships in June's National Veterans Cup.

"We've achieved these goals through tons of work, with coaches and parents and the whole soccer family," he said. "It has become a tremendous situation that we are doing these things.

"It's been a progression and it has taken a long time because we aren't a traditional sport."

An accountant by trade, his company Hawai'i Business Service helps people, especially the elderly, keep their financial records in order.

His downtown office is filled with plaques and pictures and what he calls "his proudest piece of memorabilia" — the Olympic torch he carried in 1996 in Newport Beach, Calif.

"It was chicken-skin time," he said. "They were just looking for community people and someone put my name in."

Considering the impact Sullivan has had on the soccer community, including helping to start both the men's and women's programs at Hawai'i Pacific and the University of Hawai'i women's program, it's no surprise his name was brought up.

"He's a great guy, he's got probably one of the kindest hearts I've ever seen," said David Trifonovich of Kane'ohe, who began playing soccer at age 12 in 1976.

Trifonovich, 41, director of sales for Rendezvous Tours, played for Sullivan on a youth all-star team.

"He's just an icon that has been there," Trifonovich said. "People get involved in the competition, but he's about the fun of the game."

It could be because Sullivan, also known as "Uncle Jack," is a self-professed non-athlete.

He was a manager for hockey, a bat boy for baseball, "couldn't do anything" in basketball and participated in skating, but "always came in last, until another guy fell down."

Sullivan got involved in soccer after years of coaching baseball because he didn't like the children being scared of making a mistake such as striking out or dropping a ball.

"Here is a sport where you eliminate those things," he said of soccer. "You don't have these negative things for timid kids. It creates responsible people with self-worth and the confidence to play other sports."

He said because soccer is so fast-paced, mistakes are often forgotten, and he likes AYSO's rule that every player must play at least half a game.

"It's more than being a fan or a teacher or a guru, it's all right from the heart for him," said veteran sportscaster Les Keiter, who gave Sullivan the nickname "Mr. Soccer."

Sullivan's push for soccer is surprising, considering he didn't grow up playing it. Instead it was hockey, in Boston.

He moved to Hawai'i in 1957, at age 23, when it was still a territory. He remembers Ke'eaumoku Street as a dirt road.

Almost 20 years later, he got his start in soccer, with his most public role as a publicity director.

"I don't know how old he is, but he's just as enthusiastic about soccer as the day I met him," said Keiter, Sullivan's friend since the 1970s. "Anything that has to do with soccer, he's right in the middle of it."

Most recently, Sullivan, the vice president of Hawai'i Soccer Association, helped with the USSF National Veterans Cup played in Hawai'i last month.

"He's always been an advocate of the game. It's incredible how he gets the publicity," Trifonovich said. "Especially in those days, he was an advocate of making soccer known. He'd get it in the paper and put it on the radio.

"We were 14 and they would talk about it on the radio, which was such a big deal to us. It was really nothing, but to Jack, it was always important."

The Men's Island Soccer Association's regular-season trophy is named after Sullivan, partly because of his involvement with helping to spread the word about soccer.

"For all he's done over the years, in support of soccer and MISO, and everything he did for soccer in Hawai'i that enabled us to be where we are today," MISO president Sergio Bolioli said of the reason the trophy was named after Sullivan. "He always offered his help and other services if we ever needed them."

Part of those services include helping out as an announcer at many league games played at Waipi'o Peninsula Soccer Complex.

He recently brought a cassette tape player to a game to play an instrumental version of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Unfortunately, the tape wasn't on the right spot and another song began playing.

It didn't stop Sullivan, who picked up the microphone and began singing a very mangled version of the national anthem, with humming in certain spots and the wrong words in others.

Regardless of the laughter coming from the stands, Sullivan handled it in with the approach he takes to most things.

"My mother used to tell me, you're not an Irishman, and you're not a Sullivan," he said, "unless you can make one person laugh a day."

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2457.