Portland Magazine
Athletics
December 1, 2021
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.
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.”
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?”
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.”
DANIELLE CENTONI works in UP’s marketing and communications department and is a longtime freelance food journalist, cookbook author, and soccer fan.
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