47 minute read
Second Look
Franz River Campus
Development of the Franz River Campus continues apace. Pictured here is the new Walter E. Nelson Physical Plant building.
Artist and author Makoto Fujimura visited University of Portland (via Zoom, from his studio in Princeton, NJ) in early September to give the Zahm lecture, an annual talk on faith and reason. Days later, on September 11, 2021, Fujimura relaunched the Kintsugi Academy, which he co-founded as a way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, an event that gave his work new focus. What follows is an excerpt of Fujimura’s remarks.
BY MAKOTO FUJIMURA
HIS IS KINTSUGI, teaware that was mended in the 20th century. As you can see, gold is creating a design. Kintsugi masters use Japan lacquer. It’s a fairly secretive tradition because the lacquer is notoriously difficult to handle and it’s highly poisonous and toxic. It’s like poison ivy except it’s five times stronger. Only a few masters exist, and they mend these bowls using the lacquer so they can be reused. Instead of gluing the bowl back together as if nothing has happened, Japan lacquer masters mend it but use the fractures to create these designs and so it is literally new creation. The Japan lacquer becomes the river of gold that runs through the cracks. The resulting bowl, the Kintsugi bowl, is far more valuable than the original, even though the original may be of renowned ceramic value.
In consumer culture, the broken vessel is something to be thrown away, buy a new one, or you fix it so it looks brand new again. In Japanese culture, something that is broken is an entry point into beholding that fragment as beautiful, something that is valuable.
To me, that signifies something, that this is part of God’s way of showing us how we might go through brokenness and trauma and be brought into new creation. We recall Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. It is astonishing to me that he would come back as a human at all. After all the suffering that he’d been through, he could’ve chosen to be anything, but he chose to be human. And his post-resurrection appearance, not only is he resurrected humanity, but it is also a wounded reality. Jesus’ wounds are still with him, and that’s a profound reality of the new creation. Rather than staying with perfected reality beyond the grave, beyond suffering, Jesus wanted to remind us that it is through his wounds that we are healed. It is as if he is communicating to us, signaling to us, that our wounds, our traumas, our brokenness are but an entry point into greater promise that Jesus brings on post-resurrection day. And so we live on this side of the resurrection, and we can look at a Kintsugi bowl and remind ourselves that this is part of our journey, our journey home, our journey of new discovery, our journey that allows us to see beyond our own Ground Zero experiences. Even literally standing on top of the ashes, we can see God’s work in front of us.
Kintsugi by Kunio Nakamura. Box ©Makoto Fujimura.
MY PAINTINGS ARE considered to be in the contemporary art vein and yet they also use traditional Japanese materials, going back to 8th-century Japan and refined in 15th/16th- century Japan especially.
I was very fortunate to receive a national scholarship and to go back to Japan and spend six-and-a-half years there mastering the craft of Nihonga, a Japanese style of painting, and that’s what you see here. These are the materials for Nihonga. Pulverized minerals mixed with natural hide glue. It’s all water based. The work can be monumental. There are layers and layers. Sometimes there are over 60 to 100 layers as preparation before I start. I call what I do slow art. I try to slow things down to resist the quickening of time.
Part of this slow process for me is prayer. It is a way for me to understand my role as a human being creating beauty in a broken world. I have to have the pigments be pulverized, the minerals be pulverized. Once when I was speaking in New York City at one of my galleries, a friend said to me that process of pulverization, of creating something new, is exactly what God does with us. I thought that was profound. I did not realize in the ’90s that I would be directly impacted by 9/11. I lived three blocks away. My children became, that day, Ground Zero children. And the trauma of that day still continues to this day, but I kept on working with these materials, which became a metaphor of my life. God is pulverizing me, and God is also creating something too.
Charis-Kairos (The Tears of Christ), Copyright © 2011 Makoto Fujimura
Walking on Water—Glacier, Copyright © 2021 Makoto Fujimura
THIS IS WALKING ON WATER—GLACIER, a 12-foot painting that has been featured in the “Re-Membrance” exhibit, commemorating the 9/11 terrorist attacks; the 3/11/2011 Great Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing nuclear meltdown; and the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.
Close up, you can see the sand-like pulverized minerals. They’re literally prisms, so when you look at the surface of my paintings, if you stay with it 15 to 20 minutes, you start to see a hue of refracted light that comes off of the prismatic pigments. They have this rainbow hue. Your mind shuts down for you to begin to see that light. Slow art.
This painting is from a series of paintings, mostly abstract works, large paintings that deal with pulverized azurite and malachite, and they are poured over the canvas. I literally walk on top of the paintings. And then that becomes part of the metaphor of thinking about the response to trauma, in this case the 3/11/2011 disaster in Japan, the tsunami, and the ongoing nuclear meltdown. How do I as an artist respond?
MAKOTO FUJIMURA’S most recent book, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making, was published by Yale University Press this year.
One UP professor’s observations of the art and resilience along the US–Mexico border, also known as La Línea.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY BLAIR WOODARD
BORDERS BETWEEN NATIONS ARE human creations. They represent the limits of a national self, the line where the imagined division between “us” and “them” takes place. For so many reasons, borders are places of fascination for me. Liminal zones. Sites of change. Points of no return. Places of opportunity and hope as well as of pain and sorrow. I have been studying the human exchanges between border nations now for over twenty years, and I still am captivated by their stories. What side of the line you see as the “other” side, “el otro lado,” can determine so much. The US–Mexico border is known as many things—gateway, frontier, escape, opportunity, separation, or simply as La Línea/The Line. One of the places along La Línea that I visit often is the Playas de Tijuana. These city beaches are in the farthest Northwest corner of Mexico. The district is made up of several neighborhoods and beaches that run south of the border for about a mile until colliding into the sheer cliffsides of the Baja Peninsula. The beaches are a destination for locals and tourists who come there to hang out, have dinner, swim, and celebrate quinceañeras. The beaches are a buzzing dynamic place where one’s senses come alive: the sounds of the surf crashing, norteño bands busking, kids laughing. You can smell the ocean, the fresh seafood, and tacos from the many restaurants that line the cliffside. The wooden planks of the boardwalk creak underfoot as people stroll along. But Playas is not just a place to get away from the city; it is also heavily political and full of global and personal meaning. It exists along the portion of the US border wall that extends more than three hundred meters into the Pacific Ocean. In the United States, on the other side of that wall, is Imperial Beach, which is deserted and under constant Border Patrol surveillance. The contrast between the vibrancy of the beaches in Tijuana and the vacant wetlands in the United States is telling.
As part of the contrast, the citizens of Tijuana have turned the border wall and the boardwalk into a living art exhibit. The art only exists on the Mexican side of the line, with murals expressing joy and hope as well as pain and sorrow. The wall is more than just a symbol of the relationship that the United States has with Mexico and the global south in general. It is more than just a barrier.
It is a sacred site. A place where crosses are erected and blessings are made. Where tears are shed and memories kept. Where hope for justice, empathy, and a better future is expressed.
I have been photographing these murals now for almost a decade, and I’ve observed that the wall itself is in many ways a living structure; as the ocean rusts it and wears it down, the United States keeps adding and rebuilding it. Because of these same forces, the artwork on the Mexican side is also constantly changing. The art fades with the salt air, and in some places, messages have eroded or been torn down. In other places, the messages have been painted again and again, layer upon layer. These constant changes turn an inanimate object into something that seems to have a life of its own through rebirth, decay, and eventual regeneration.
The murals vary. Some are overtly political. Others are more personal and reflect on a specific event or family member. Some are intricate and professional, formal art projects that have been funded either in the United States or in Mexico and created by teams that sign their work. Others appear to be more spontaneous and makeshift. All are impactful.
Starting at the ocean and moving inland, there are currently two large mural projects. The first is of several faces—portraits of 15 people who have been deported, individuals from all walks of life. This project, known as the Playas de Tijuana Mural Project, is under the direction of Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis. Some of those depicted in the portraits are the artists themselves. QR codes accompany these faces and tell their stories and many others in digital form.
Another mural portrays an upsidedown US flag with crosses instead of stars and a stop sign with the word “Lies.” The upside-down flag is an international sign of distress and is dedicated to the US military veterans who have been deported to Mexico. Their names are written on the slats of the wall in the opposite direction as the flag. On a recent visit I witnessed a deported US veteran painting more names and the word “Repatriate.” He expressed hope that this will be the last time he needs to paint on the wall. Recently the Biden Administration has pledged to bring these veterans back to the United States.
As you walk along the wall there are crosses and handprints. The names of loved ones. Posters and flyers with the photos of people who are “desaparecidos,” disappeared. You come to a doorway that seemingly no longer opens. On the door are a large heart and a single word: Love. Other words blanket the wall: Empathy, Justice, Peace. Paintings of animals, both life-like and cartoon, adorn the barrier throughout: birds, whales, and pandas. Next, a Bansky-esque figure with a rope and grappling hook. Then, flowers and human figures.
One of the murals that I’m particularly fond of—a monarch butterfly—has been preserved and repainted. The monarchs are renowned for their annual migrations both north and south. Some of the butterflies fly over three thousand miles from the United States to Mexico. They are the only butterflies known to make a two-way migration like many birds do. The beauty of the butterfly stands in stark contrast to the wall and makes the obvious point that no wall can stop a butterfly—or the will of people to overcome obstacles to obtain justice and a better life.
All the murals along the wall form a type of collage. A mosaic of different statements and emotions, which all come together to form a singular picture of resistance. Because the slats of the wall are triangular, you may see something in one direction that you have not seen in the other. It’s also telling that you can’t see the murals if you’re looking at the wall straight on. One has to look at the barrier from an angle for the images to appear. This is very emblematic of the relationship between the United States and Mexico on many issues. In some ways things that appear to be straightforward really can’t be seen unless you take into account different angles, different perspectives.
Ultimately, the border challenges us. The Line, La Línea, confronts us about how we view ourselves, other nations, other peoples, and what it means to be on one side of the line or the other. Part of what I believe we need to do as human beings is try to see people’s stories from the other side. Part of why I continue to go to the border is to look at the United States from the other side. What I’ve found is that in many ways “the other” side has a better view and a deeper understanding of “us” than we can possibly imagine. The opportunity to cross the border and to look back, to try to see oneself from another’s view, is a privilege that I do not take for granted. It informs so many parts of who I am—my teaching, writing, politics, and personal relations. Attempting to see ourselves and others from el otro lado is, in my opinion, a key to understanding. Seeing the line from the other side serves as a reminder that walls don’t work, that fear will not win over love, and that no wall will dampen the human spirit, or keep butterflies from flying home.
BLAIR WOODARD is an associate professor of history and environmental studies at the University of Portland. His research and teaching interests focus on US–Latin American relations and popular culture.
Humble Keeper
Before his recent retirement from professional soccer, Luis Robles ’06 earned the name “Ironman” and broke Major League Soccer records, but he is quick to direct credit for his successes to a couple simple lessons he learned from his UP goalkeeper coach.
BY KATELYN BEST PHOTOS BY MARY BETH KOETH
WHEN LUIS ROBLES ’06 decided to retire from professional soccer after 14 seasons, he didn’t plan to tell anyone. He knew he was done the moment he’d broken his arm while playing for Inter Miami; why make a big deal out of it? He figured he’d just step back.
It was an impulse that says a lot about the former Pilots goalkeeper. Robles excelled at UP, setting a school record with 346 career saves, and went on to become a legend in MLS, earning three Supporters’ Shields with the New York Red Bulls and setting an all-time league record for consecutive starts that seems almost untouchable. But Robles prefers not to make things about him.
That unselfishness manifests in many ways, small and large—from his fabled work ethic to his generosity with fans to the fact that when talking about his career, he tends to say “we,” referring to himself and his wife, Cara, more than “I.” That humility has defined him as a player and as a person— and he learned it, in part, at the University of Portland.
ROBLES GREW UP IN SIERRA VISTA, ARIZONA. His dad was a military man, retired from the Army but still working on the Fort Huachuca base just outside of town. Robles aspired to a soccer career from an early age, and the work ethic that he came to be known for as a pro cemented in his teen years.
“On Friday nights, instead of going out, we were out on the field working on our game,” remembers his best friend, midfielder Miguel Guante ’06, who also ended up at UP. “You know, I was working on crossing, and he was dealing with crosses, or shooting. We just couldn’t get enough of training on our own.” Together with two other guys from Sierra Vista, the pair played on the same club team in Tucson, an hour’s drive away.
By his junior year, Robles was getting recruiting calls from schools across the country. “It’s such a great ego thing, all these universities calling and saying, ‘We want you, we’re going to give you a scholarship.’” He got offers from Stanford, Harvard, and Brown—schools where he could have been a starter right away and gotten a big-name degree to boot.
The call he got from the University of Portland was different: there were no grand promises, no attempt to recruit Robles in the traditional sense. “The phone call was simply saying, ‘Hey, you have five college visits. We want you to take one of them here,’” Robles remembers. “It was very, ‘This is what we can offer.’”
He and Guante visited the same weekend. They took in a game—a 1–0 win by the Pilot men over Indiana—and got to know the coaching staff. “The line that got me was from Clive Charles,” he says. “I go into the office and we talk about recruiting. He says, ‘If you want to be a rocket scientist, go to Stanford. If you want to be a banker, go to the Ivy League. If you want to be a professional soccer player, come here.’ And that was it, I was done.”
Charles wasn’t bluffing (no pun intended). For one thing, Portland offered something few other schools in the country did: a full-time dedicated goalkeeping coach, Bill Irwin. The onetime Timbers keeper had trained a string of goalies who’d gone on to the professional ranks, including US Men’s National Team stalwart Kasey Keller ’10.
Beyond the program’s outsized list of professional alumni— and Charles’s and Irwin’s own resumes as professional players—Robles and Guante could tell that this was a place where they’d be both challenged and nurtured. “It was comforting for us,” says Guante, “but it was also challenging in the way that we wanted to be challenged. I think we always felt like we were going to develop on the field and off the field, be pushed in ways that we hadn’t been pushed before.”
IRWIN WAS IMPRESSED WITH THE 6' YOUNGSTER. “He fit the profile for a goalkeeper,” says Irwin. “Real good size. Good hands. He just, watching him play, he ticked all the boxes for us.”
Robles wasn’t really ready for college soccer, though. His potential was obvious, but he’d never gotten the high-level training needed to compete at that level. What’s more, the Pilots already had a starting keeper, senior Curtis Spiteri ’05.
“In Portland,” Robles says, “there’s honor in the way that they value their seniors and their upperclassmen. [Spiteri] was on scholarship; he was one of the best goalkeepers in the country.”
So the team made the somewhat unusual move of redshirting Robles for his freshman year. For UP to give some of their limited scholarships to goalies at all was one thing—to give one to a guy who wouldn’t play his first year was a big statement. It was an investment in Robles.
He remembers that semester as one of the hardest of his life. “During practice, I’ll be honest, I just wasn’t good,” he says. “That jump from high school to college…the ball was coming so quickly, the game was moving so quickly, everyone was so much stronger than me.”
Compounding Robles’s frustration, Guante was making a big impact. “Not only was Miguel a starter, but he was excellent, like, amazing, and a big part of the team.” The two were roommates, and Robles would be stuck at home while Guante was on the road with the team, competing and winning. when Guante’s dad was deployed to Iraq. Guante repaid that support when Robles’s brother also went to Iraq.
Irwin, meanwhile, gave Robles the individual training he needed to succeed. At some point, Irwin suggested he come to the practice field one morning a week for an extra training session. One day a week turned into two, and eventually the extra sessions became a daily ritual.
“I ruined his knees, I ruined his back,” Robles says of that training. “This is why I feel so indebted to him in every way. He was committed to me, and my experience really was about the graciousness of his time and his expertise that he passed on to me. If I didn’t have that, there’s just no way that I could have been the professional that I was.”
Irwin’s voice would loop in Robles’s head as he played, telling him to stay focused or keep his eyes on the ball. Much of what the coach taught applied to life off the field, too. Two themes in particular have stuck with him since.
First, “take care of the little things, and the big things will work themselves out,” Robles says. “I think in the end, the big
More than anything, he was determined to pay back the trust the school had placed in him. “I just wanted to, if anything, not embarrass Bill,” he remembers. “Guys talk in the locker room. They know who’s on scholarship…. And here’s a guy who’s not going to contribute in any way, and he’s on scholarship. And then by the way, he’s not good in training?”
Ultimately, though, that year was critical to Robles’s development, both as a player and as a person. “I don’t know if I could have developed properly if I went to a school where they made me a starter right away,” he says. “Also, just from a character development standpoint, it was a good year, because I needed to be knocked off whatever perch I was on.”
To Guante, the way Robles handled that difficult year says a lot about him. “Something that you see less and less of every day is players that are that talented being patient enough to see it out,” he says. “Versus maybe just entering the transfer portal and going somewhere where they’re going to play right away.”
The Pilots program wasn’t a school of hard knocks, though. It was, as advertised, a nurturing environment, almost a second family. Irwin and Charles would invite homesick students over for a homemade meal or to do a load of laundry. Players from the men’s and women’s teams would meet up at night to get in an extra training session.
Robles and Guante strengthened their friendship in that family setting. They’d talk about their goals within soccer; Robles was there for Guante when Charles passed in 2003 and things worked out because he helped me define what those little things are: having the right mentality in practice, knowing that practice isn’t always going to be perfect.”
Second, “the one that I always loved—and still love—is, leave the place better than you found it.” Robles was hungry to play, but he also knew that ultimately, everything was about the team’s success, not his own.
“You commit to what the group’s doing, and you’re mindful of the next person that’s coming in, so that when you leave, it’s not felt, it’s just seamless,” Robles says. “That’s something that I tried to be mindful of in college, which allowed me to not be insecure, right? If I’m pouring into other people and thinking about the legacy piece, even when I move on…instead of looking over my shoulder, I want the person right next to me, walking with me, so that we’re doing this together.”
AFTER GRADUATING, ROBLES WAS SELECTED in the 2007 MLS SuperDraft by DC United. But MLS was still considered a backwater at that time, and he dreamed, like so many players do, of playing for a big European club. He landed a deal with FC Kaiserslautern and headed to Germany.
For a while, everything was falling into place. He started with the second team, moving up to the first team the next season; a few months later, he landed the starting spot after the club’s top keeper, German international Tobias Sippel, was injured, and he held that spot for the rest of the season.
Robles, New York Red Bulls, makes a save during the New York Red Bulls v. Colorado Rapids, Major League Soccer regular season match at Red Bull Arena, Harrison, New Jersey. March 15, 2014.
That summer, he married Cara, his high school girlfriend, and represented the United States at the 2009 Gold Cup.
Robles broke into the national team because he’d been doing well in Germany, but Kaiserslautern hired a new manager that summer, and ironically, spending time with the national team instead of the club knocked him down the depth chart for the 2009–10 season. Robles rode the bench most of that year, then moved to Karlsruher SC, where he took a similar path—spending his first season as a starter and falling out of favor the following year.
Five years into his time in Germany, his career seemed at a dead end, and he and Cara were dealing with a series of personal challenges. They were far from home at a time when family felt more important than ever.
“It was a dark time in my life,” he remembers. “My dad was dealing with some health issues, my wife’s dad had stage four oral cancer, we had just experienced a miscarriage, and we were pregnant again. So, there were a lot of things going on. And it’s sort of what led to the clarity that we had [about] coming back to Major League Soccer.”
Robles’s agent struggled to make any connections in MLS, he said in a video the league produced in 2016. Robles had a problem: per the league’s byzantine roster rules, because he’d played with the national team, he had to go through the allocation order, rather than signing directly with a team. Except those rules had been designed for stars like Tim Howard and Landon Donovan, not for a guy who hadn’t been
Robles may have retired from professional goalkeeping but, with a family of five, there are still a lot of balls in the air.
capped in three years and had hit a rocky patch in his career. To use an allocation pick on a relative unknown like Robles was a big risk.
Cara had an idea. If his agent couldn’t make something happen, why not do it himself? “She said, ‘Why don’t you just Google it?’” he said in the 2016 video. “Are you kidding me? That’s so lame. I’m not going to Google ‘Major League Soccer.’ Well, anyways, she won.”
Robles got in touch with Ali Curtis, who was in charge of player relations for the league. He told Robles the Red Bulls were interested, but it would be tough. He’d have to prove himself all over again.
In the end, after nine other teams passed, New York used their pick on him.
“They were willing to take a chance,” says Robles. Like the Pilots once had, the Red Bulls made an investment in him. “There’s no chance that they had any idea what they were getting. I had no idea.”
Any MLS fan will already be familiar with what New York got with Robles. His return to the US came at a moment of renaissance for the Red Bulls and for the league: Portland, Vancouver, and Montreal had just joined as expansion teams; international stars like Thierry Henry, Robbie Keane, and Tim Cahill were choosing MLS; and the league’s average attendance was rivaling that of the NBA and the NHL. Two years before Robles’s arrival, the Red Bulls had moved into a new soccerspecific stadium in New Jersey.
It was against that backdrop that the Pilot standout was to become one of the league’s iconic players. In 2016, he earned the title of “Ironman,” first breaking the record for consecutive complete games played, then consecutive starts, and finally consecutive appearances. By 2018, when he was finally forced to sit a game out due to injury, he had started an astounding 183 games in a row.
Luck is certainly a factor in a streak like that. No matter how meticulously a player trains and prepares, freak injuries happen—as do illness, family emergencies, and other unforeseeable obstacles. On the other hand, nobody gets there without doing just about everything right.
There was no magic wand. Just as Irwin had taught Robles a decade earlier, it was the little things: he ate well and got enough sleep. He hit the weight room religiously and practiced yoga to maintain his strength and mobility. He spent hours watching film. All that preparation added up, and the rest worked itself out.
Irwin’s second lesson was also still on Robles’s mind. The team won the Supporters’ Shield three times during his tenure, and he was named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in 2015. But when he looks back on his career, he says he doesn’t miss playing; he misses the ways he was able to impact other people.
To that end, he served on the executive board of the players’ union, advocating and bargaining on behalf of teammates and rivals alike. He also relished the opportunities his club gave him to volunteer in the community.
“They had their community partners,” Robles says, “and whatever that was, I was all in. If they needed me to deliver groceries, I’d do that. If they needed me to play with the kids during a soccer camp, I did that. If they needed me to go visit a kid who was dealing with pediatric cancer, I would do that. And to me, it never felt like an obligation. It just felt like a great responsibility, a great way that I can be generous with other people.”
IT WAS PERHAPS WITH IRWIN’S ADMONISHMENTS to value the group over the individual in mind that Robles thought, after a short stint with Inter Miami, he’d slip quietly into retirement—seamlessly, as he put it—and into this next phase of his career. Currently, he works for Overseas Network, managing hospitality and accommodation sales to the US market for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
In the end, he did make an announcement, after some urging by the friends he’d made in the soccer world. “It’s not just for you,” he recalls Gregg Berhalter telling him, on the podcast The Call Up last January. “It’s for the people who were part of your career, part of the journey.”
In his announcement on Instagram, he wrote, “My career is full of memories and great stories yet the thing that sticks out the most is the people whom I’ve met along the way.”
KATELYN BEST is a freelance writer.
The Clive Effect
The impact of UP’s legendary coach Clive Charles endures.
BY DANIELLE CENTONI
IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, it’s the small gestures that stick with us. Something said in passing. A small memory from an ordinary day. An otherwise fleeting moment that somehow lodges itself deep inside, takes root, and changes us forever— in a good way, one hopes.
UP’s legendary coach Clive Charles had a gift for offering small gestures that mattered to people, that still matter, even years after his passing. A former English football player, a defender for the Portland Timbers, the coach who led the Pilots to their first NCAA Championship during his 1986 to 2002 tenure, Charles mentored his athletes to achieve their maximum potential. Several made it to the highest levels of the sport. They became pro athletes, Olympians, World Cup winners. But even more than his successes on the field, his true legacy seems to come from how he treated people.
Allen Hopkins Jr. never played for Charles. In fact, the player relations consultant for Major League Soccer, and former pro soccer broadcaster for ESPN, FOX, and NBC, merely crossed paths with him, but Clive still made a mark. The first time was back in 1995 when Hopkins was 22, fresh out of college, and working at San Diego State as the youngest full-time men’s assistant soccer coach in Division I soccer. He was so young that four of his players were older than he was.
“It was my first tournament, and it was in Portland,” Hopkins recalls. “I go up there and meet Clive, and as a Black player coming up, you glom onto anyone who looked like you. That whole weekend he’s looking after me in his own way— a head nod here, a joke there, checking on me. That energy always stuck with me.”
The memory of that weekend grew, twenty-six years later, into the Clive Charles Initiative, a program aimed at increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the hiring of coaches for men’s (and soon women’s) Division I soccer programs. “People need to see themselves in the game,” says Hopkins. “That’s what Clive did for me so many years ago. It’s important to see someone you identify with in a space [where] you want to be.”
Hopkins, co-founder of the Soccer Collective on Racial Equity (SCORE), which supports the Black Players for Change and the United Soccer League Black Players Alliance (USLBPA), was inspired to craft the initiative during the spring of 2020, as protests for racial justice raged around the nation. “I realized representation has to go from the bottom up,” he says. “It’s probably more important to have 10 Black coaches at the college level than three coaching major league soccer. The pipeline needs to be nourished.”
The initiative was formally launched this past spring. Schools that opt in are essentially making a commitment to include Black and other underrepresented candidates in the pool for coaching vacancies. SCORE keeps an updated list and facilitates finding suitable candidates. So far, 17 head coaches have taken the pledge, including University of Portland’s Nick Carlin-Voigt.
“I feel like Clive is a hall of famer; he just doesn’t have that official title. But you look at his legacy, people who have played with him, the love and respect for him is ubiquitous. I wanted to honor that,” says Hopkins.
If a few chance encounters with Clive Charles over the course of a busy tournament weekend could empower Hopkins to push for lasting change in the sport, consider the impact Charles had on those who spent years with him. We asked a few players to tell us, in their own words, how playing for Charles impacted their lives to this day.
DANIELLE CENTONI works in UP’s marketing and communications department and is a longtime freelance food journalist, cookbook author, and soccer fan.
MICHELLE FRENCH ’98 UP WOMEN’S SOCCER HEAD COACH
Olympic medalist and four-year starter for UP from 1995–98, during which time she helped lead the Pilots to three NCAA Final Four appearances and three West Coast Conference championships (1995–97).
Clive had a way of making the game extremely simple and incredibly enjoyable, really without even trying.
It was his personality. You have to have joy out there when you’re playing, and if you’d get to a point and the joy wasn’t there anymore, he’d have a conversation to get you back to that spot.
He was such a prankster. He’d say, ‘Frenchie, Frenchie come here, I have something for you. Open up your hand.’ Then he’d put a gum wrapper in my hand. ‘Go throw this away for me.’ Every year there would be a naïve freshman who would come in. Let’s say her name was Sally. He’d say. ‘Ok, Sally, come over here. I’ll race you for $100.’ Sally’s like ‘Yes! Let’s go.’ Everyone who was already there knows what’s going to happen, and they’re like, ‘Come on, Sally, you got this!’ Everyone lines up, cheering. He’s standing up, does a couple stretches. They get on the starting line. Ready, set, go! Sally shoots off and Clive takes a couple steps. After a while she realizes Clive’s not running. She’s like, what’s going on? And he says, ‘You got to pay attention to details. I said I’d race you; I never said I’d beat you.’
More than anything on the field, it was his human side, his sense of humor, and his ability to connect with anyone in the room and make them feel important. He was one of the first coaches I had who really saw the game in a different way and treated players in a different way. During my recruiting trip, he sat me down in his office and said, ‘Frenchie, I can’t promise you that you’ll make the national team, but I can promise you you’ll leave this university a better person.’ To have an impact on a student that lasts beyond what they can accomplish on the field says more than anything else.
I try to emulate him the best I can. He has impacted my coaching 100 percent. It’s a big responsibility, the role we play as coaches at a university.”
UP ATHLETICS
TIFFENY MILBRETT ’95 UP VOLUNTEER ASSISTANT COACH
Olympic medalist, World Cup champion, National Soccer Hall of Famer. Helped lead Pilots to first-ever College Cup in 1994. Three-time NSCAA All-American.
“I’m fortunate Clive wanted to stay around Portland. That changed everything for me.
I had gone to his Fred Meyer soccer camps. I had watched him play for the Timbers. I started playing for him at 15, when he created the FC Portland Academy. I was an athlete and goal scorer from very young, dreaming about the Olympics, but it was just a dream at that point because Olympics for women’s soccer didn’t exist until 1996. I just knew I wanted to do whatever possible to get to the highest level I could be. And Clive just kept coaching me there.
Clive was a huge catalyst in helping me become the player that I was, but he wasn’t just a coach to me. He gave me unconditional support outside the game too. He was always available and I felt like I could be myself with him. I would call him and he would help me through some difficult things, offering support and advice. The important piece was he’d be part of your life.
He’s my biggest influence as a coach. Everything he did I try to emulate. I reflect back on what I saw him do and what I heard him say, and I ask myself: What do I want to say to the players? How do I manage the situation? Am I being like Clive?”
UP ATHLETICS
LINDSEY HUIE ’05, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS FOR WOMEN’S SOCCER FOR UC IRVINE; STRIKERS FC COACH Member of UP’s 2002 and 2005 NCAA Championship teams, four-time All-American, former women’s national team player, and UP Hall of Famer.
“I remember he took us to the children’s hospital one night.
I thought it was just going to be one of the team-building things we’d sometimes do, like breakfast together or a ropes course. He had us look at the building of the cancer ward. Of course, none of us knew he had cancer at the time. He said, ‘The people up there have real problems. You need to live every day on purpose, like it matters.’ That was a moving moment for me. He made me stop and think and wonder: Do I really have a purpose? What is my calling? What am I going to do with my life after school? I decided to get a master’s in marriage and family counseling.
Tomorrow’s promised to nobody—and that’s a direct quote from Clive. I live every day like that, so that I know that I’ve lived today very much on purpose. And I try to impress those principles on the girls that I coach, the importance of giving full effort, because you never know when is that last game you’re ever going to play.
After he passed away, I got his name tattooed on my foot because I didn’t have him around anymore to call, and I wanted to be reminded.”
DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES
Congrats to the Olympians
PORTLAND PILOT ATHLETICS was well represented at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, with five alumni athletes competing in three different sports. Woody Kincaid ’15 (pictured above) raced for the United States in the 5,000-meter and 10,000meter events in Tokyo. He finished in the top three of his 5K preliminary heat to reach the finals and placed 14th overall after crossing the line in 15th place in the 10K. Soccer alums Christine Sinclair ’06 and Sophie Schmidt ’10 (alternate) played for the Canadian Women’s National Team and brought home the gold—the first time Canada has won the gold at the Olympics in women’s soccer. They defeated Sweden in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw. Megan Rapinoe ’08, playing for the United States Women’s National Team, scored two goals in the 4-3 win over Australia, which earned the US team a bronze medal. And Hugh Watanabe, who started his collegiate career with the Pilots, got to experience his first Olympic games playing on Japan’s senior national basketball team. Congrats to all the Pilots who competed!
50s
1957
Chuck Wilber ’57, ’60 notes that he and his wife have been married for 66 years, with seven children, 20 grandchildren, and 14 great grandchildren. “My wife still gardens our one-acre yard,” he says. They help organize a Commonweal Local Community group, and Chuck published two books this year: Life as a Pilgrimage: Faith, Economics, and Social Justice and Was the Good Samaritan a Bad Economist?
1959
We recently received an update from Barbara Ann Svegel ’59: “I was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during my senior year at school after an interview at, I believe, a federal building in downtown Portland. During this career I lived in cities in Ecuador, Argentina, Iran, Thailand, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Liberia, and the Philippines. I met and married my husband, a fellow employee, in Argentina. We had three children who were born respectively in Argentina, Iran, and Thailand. Their upbringing in a variety of cultures has led them to be very easy going with people from any background. I was widowed in 2009 after 45 years of marriage. I now live in a senior housing village an hour south of Washington, DC.
I use a UP lanyard for my apartment keys, so the university is still important to me every single day. Thanks for the education and preparation for a fantastic adult life.” We are sorry for your loss, Barbara, and we so appreciate that you wrote to us.
70s
1973
We recently received a kind note from S. Celine Schumacher, SSND, ’73. She writes: “Having spent my life in education, I especially enjoyed reading the ‘Dear Educator’ series. I have occasionally been pleased to receive surprise letters from former students 30 to 40 years after they’ve graduated telling me how I have impacted their life choices. As teachers, we don’t think about the profound impact we can have on our students. I decided to retire from teaching at the end of the 2019/20 school year. Little did I know when I made my decision in January,
SEND US YOUR NEWS
If you are from the classes who graduated during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, we’d like to hear from you! Don’t forget to fill us in on what you’ve been up to. We know you’re out there, and we know you’re doing interesting things.
Write to portlandmagazine@up.edu
Right There, Every fall, as students are Right Here settling in to new routines on campus, Cassy Esparza ’14, assistant director of admissions, hits the road in search of next year’s class. Her recruitment regions are Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico, and it’s not unheard of for her to have a day like she had a few weeks ago: visits with students at four different high schools in Albuquerque, then an hour-plus drive to Santa Fe for an evening meeting with students and parents. (She tries to remember to eat.) These trips involve long days and lots of miles, but the relationships she is building and the inroads she is making with students from historically marginalized populations make everything worth it.
It wasn’t that long ago that she was in their shoes. Cassy is from Utah, her parents immigrated to the US from Mexico, and she was the first in her family to attend college. She remembers how much she had to navigate on her own. She wants to tell students about University of Portland— what it offers, what it doesn’t—and she also counsels them and their families on college in general, things like how to apply and what to expect. Sometimes hers is the only table with admissions materials translated into Spanish, a change she initiated long ago when she translated a brochure with her mom and UP professor Marcela Cinta. Now, these communication pieces are created with institutional support. That kind of clear communication and access, that transparent relationship-building not only with students but also with their families, are what she’s been working toward for seven years. And she’s seeing progress.
She often tells the students, “I’m right there with you.” And this year she means it in a new way; she is getting her MBA at UP and will soon be a double alum.
that I would end that year with several months of virtual teaching—a new challenge as I ended my teaching career! After taking a sabbatical year, I am now again engaged with secondary students, tutoring them one-on-one in physics, chemistry, and math.” Thanks so much for writing, S. Celine, and warm congrats on your retirement.
80s
1983, ’85
Brenda Braxton ’85 from KGW and recording artist Julianne Johnson ’83— emceed the Volunteers of America 2021 DePriest Award for Excellence event televised by KGW. Board of Regents co-chair Kay Toran ’64 is President and CEO of Volunteers of America.
1987
We received the following update from Wade McJacobs ’87: “Wade McJacobs has published his second book, Dare to Read: Improving Your Reading Speed and Skills. After teaching special education for 31 years, Wade is currently lecturing with the Bureau of Education & Research. His lecture is titled ‘Helping Your Struggling Reader Be More Successful (6–12).’ His focus is to build confidence first then comprehension, with an emphasis on teaching students to be alert to their contribution to the exchange between reader and author. Wade lives in an empty nest with his wife in Beaverton.” Thanks for the update, Wade.
00s
1986
The following is an update found in Clark County Today regarding the appointment of alum Nancy Retsinas ’86 to the Clark County Superior Court: “For the last six years, Retsinas has served largely as a mediator, helping families collaboratively navigate ante-nuptial agreements and marriage dissolutions. She has also had a lengthy career practicing in various areas of law, including consumer protection, family law, criminal law, and juvenile delinquency. In 2020, she moderated Clark County Council listening sessions on systemic racism, and has been a board director of the mental health agency The Children’s Center since 2002.” Congratulations, Nancy, we wish you all the best!
2003
Sally Starker ’03 and her sister have opened a new rock climbing gym, Valley Rock Gym, in Corvallis. The Corvallis Gazette Times recently featured the gym’s partnership with Corvallis Climbers of Color and monthly BIPOC Climb Nights. Their goal, according to their website, is “to create a safe and inclusive space for the BIPOC community to connect and support one another and to increase access to the sport of climbing.” They have also started a scholarship fund to lower financial barriers for youth in the community and for summer camps. Congrats to Sally and to all of those working to make Valley Rock Gym a welcoming and accessible space to climb.
Electric Truckin’
For Ryan Szto ’21, the joy of engineering begins with the simple notion of being in the field. “I hated sitting behind a desk at school,” he says, “so I didn’t want to do that at work.” Ryan is a product validation engineer at Daimler, a truck manufacturer, whose offices are ten minutes away from campus. There, Ryan is working in the growing field of Daimler’s electric-powered semi-trucks.
Daimler’s electric vehicles will reduce fuel waste and costs, particularly when it comes to local transport and stop-and-go traffic. Where gas-powered vehicles waste fuel when stopped, electric vehicles regenerate their batteries. Daimler currently has a fleet of generation-one electric trucks already on the roads and in testing.
Ryan’s team tests the thermodynamic and mechatronic—which he describes as “anything electrically controlled within a vehicle”—features of electric trucks with a focus on weather-condition tests. The trucks are tested at the Swan Island office, but the team also travels to see how the vehicles perform in different environments. This summer the team traveled to Las Vegas to perform “hot weather tests” in temperatures as high as 113 degrees. Soon Ryan plans to be behind the wheel himself. He is currently working on getting his Commercial Driver’s License so that he can drive the trucks he tests. —Murphy Bradshaw, Portland magazine intern
2004
Christy Spielman ’04, currently principal at Meadowlark Elementary, took the reins at Sheridan Junior High School this summer. Under Spielman’s leadership, Meadowlark Elementary earned its second National Blue Ribbon and has maintained its status as a national model Professional Learning Communities site. In addition to her leadership roles, Spielman has coached youth sports for years and currently serves as the assistant girls’ basketball coach at Sheridan High School. Good luck, Christy! We can’t wait to see what you do next.
2007
We received the following update from Luke Raynor ’07 and Hannah Wentz: “Luke Raynor and Hannah Wentz were married in September 2020 at the Oregon Coast in the presence of their parents and closest friends. They met on a mountain and celebrated their love out in nature, despite a change of plans due to wildfires, floods, and COVID-19.” Congratulations, Luke and Hannah!
10s
2010
The Bonneville Power Administration presented Kevlyn Baker ’10, with the BPA Workplace or Technology Innovation award as part of its 2021 Administrator’s Excellence Awards program. Baker graduated from St. Mary’s Academy, Portland, in 2006 and earned a BS in electrical engineering from University of Portland in 2010. The award recognizes Baker’s remarkable development of BPA’s COVID-19 tracking tools through the application of cutting-edge data visualization software known as Power BI. Pulling from publicly available information, she created automatic data feeds that update the agency’s COVID-19 dashboards.
2012
Katie Doyle ’12, ’15 and Kurt Berning ’12 are ecstatic to announce that they were married this summer in Vancouver, WA. Education professor Eric Anctil officiated, and the couple was joined at the altar by eight other beloved Pilots. They afford special thanks to UP’s Alumni Weekend for reuniting them one summer. Warm congrats to the newlyweds!
2013
We received the following note from Gabriel DellaVecchia ’13: “I earned my PhD in educational studies with a concentration in literacy, language, and culture from the University of Michigan. Although I never imagined five years ago that my successful dissertation defense would be via Zoom, being virtual allowed family and friends from all over the world to be part of the audience. I was cheered on by two UP professors who influenced my journey: Dr. Karen Eifler, who inspired me as a teacher, and Dr. Jacqueline Waggoner, who supported my initial efforts with research in education. My wife and I currently live in Detroit, and we will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in January.” Congratulations and thanks for the update, Gabriel! Francis Finnegan ’13 completed his second master’s degree in May of 2021, receiving a MS in database management and business intelligence from Boston University. He has been working in the Washington, D.C., nonprofit field since 2014 as a legislative analyst and a data analyst. He is currently with the Center for Legislative Accountability wherein he is solely responsible for all the data in the largest and most extensive legislator ratings program in the country. He just finished traveling the country with his fiancée, Allison, who was a travel nurse and has settled in Washington State. Welcome back to the Northwest, Francis! We look forward to seeing what you do next.
2017
Malika Andrews ’17 is now host of NBA Today, a new ESPN studio show which will provide daily coverage of the NBA. Malika will be joined by ESPN NBA analysts Kendrick Perkins, Chiney Ogwumike, Vince Carter and ESPN senior writer Zach Lowe to form the NBA Today panel.
20s
2014
We received the following note from Lesley Anne Dawson Albert ’14: “I took advantage of work-fromhome life during the early months of the pandemic and wrote a children’s book about my dog, Tilly! It came out in June and info can be found at doubledanepress.com. Definitely excited to share this with the UP community!” Well done, Lesley!
Genevieve (Paul) Wallenburn ’14 and Kevin Wallenburn ’14 welcomed twins, Penelope Rose and Bonnie Anne, into their family in December 2020. Genevieve is an accountant for Lovevery, a Montessori toy company. Kevin is accounting manager for Griffin Underwriting Services.
2015
Kim Turner ’15 has been teaching abroad in Thailand for three years after three years teaching in the Portland area. Kim reports that her time at UP, along with Fr. Art Wheeler’s encouragement and support, have been hugely instrumental to her teaching success. She has started a YouTube channel about teaching.
2021
Katie Wojda ’21 and Sage Taylor ’21 were awarded this year’s Gerhardt Awards for their leadership, dedication, and service to God and community. Katie engaged with the Moreau Center and Campus Ministry during her time on The Bluff, and she invited others to work alongside the community at St. Andre Bessette as the campus volunteer coordinator. Katie is now working with Jesuit Volunteer Corps with a Spanish-speaking community in Chicago. Sage was the president of ASUP during his senior year and showed his commitment to his fellow students by serving on multiple COVID-19 protocol committees. Sage is now a Jesuit Volunteer in New York City. Congrats, Katie and Sage. Be sure to check in!
