Joe Frimpong was used to joining a soccer game at a moment’s notice on the streets of his hometown of Accra, Ghana. Driving home from work one day more than 22 years ago, he saw a game in progress near where he lived in Orchards. He immediately went home, grabbed his son Alex and headed out to play some ball.
The coach of what was at that time one of Orchards Soccer Club’s recreational teams brushed Frimpong off because he wasn’t registered.
While leaving the field on that evening, an errant soccer ball flew his way. He returned it with some nifty foot moves, attracting attention from players leftover after registration had closed. He started his own team, then worked his way up to running two soccer clubs, winning a state championship and building a familial soccer dynasty with his son and twin daughters, Tina and Crystal.
Salmon Creek Revival
After a short retirement, Joe returned about nine months ago to directing coaches at Salmon Creek Soccer Club because of his granddaughter.
“Going out and watching MacKenzie, he liked the feeling of being out on the sideline,” said Tina Ellertson, 10-year-old MacKenzie’s mother and Joe’s second eldest daughter. “He’s like ‘wow, I kind of miss it.’ He kind of nosed his way in there.”
Frimpong coaches the boy’s varsity soccer team at La Salle Catholic College Prepatory, with which he won Oregon’s 2009 Class 4A state championship. He is managing the Salmon Creek club in the short term, and said he needs about two years to build a solid foundation for the future.
“The most likely person to take it to the next level is Tina,” said Frimpong. “There’s a time when we need to retire and let the young people be groomed to take over.”
Orchards and Columbia Start
Two years after starting as a recreational coach with Orchards, Frimpong joined Columbia Premier Soccer Club, now part of Vancouver United Timbers.
Sunny Dulai, current director of coaching for the Timbers and formerly of Columbia, said Frimpong came in during the club’s infancy and turned it into a cohesive unit with a professionally experienced staff. He became the coaching director in 1998 and brought in Dulai as the club’s assistant.
“It’s just something I like to to do – start with a club that is floundering and take it up and massage it and reposition it in the community,” said Frimpong.
He left the club in 2004 to watch his daughters play at college. He had a short stint as the girl’s soccer team at Hudson’s Bay High School in 2007 before returning with Salmon Creek’s club in 2010.
It Runs in the Family
The Frimpong family has represented Vancouver well in the collegiate and professional soccer world at such locations as Southern Oregon University (Joe), Westmont College and UC Santa Barbara (Alex) and the University of Florida (Crystal).
Ellertson was inducted into University of Washington’s hall of fame, played for the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup Team and the U.S. National Team in Shanghai and now plays for the Magic Jack, a women’s professional team in Florida.
Now it’s up to granddaughters MacKenzie and 3-year-old Mya to carry on the Frimpong (or Ellertson) legacy.
Education and Family Come First
Frimpong originally played at his high school, on the streets and anywhere else available. He came to the U.S. in the mid-1970s specifically seeking an education.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at SOU in 1977 and his MBA from the Portland State University in 1979. He now works as a financial analyst for NACCO Materials Handling Group in Portland.
On the sidelines but not in the background is his wife of 32 years, Eka, whom he met while at SOU after she moved to Oregon from Nigeria.
“He was the one who picked me up from the airport,”she said. “He was almost the first person I saw in the United States.”
Eka said her entire family has adopted soccer as bonding and vacation time, fostering all their individual talents.
“As long as we have Friday date night, we’ll be fine,” she said.
Frimpong said he has about two years left coaching, but nobody seems to believe him. Everybody who knows Joe seems to think that he’ll never completely leave soccer behind.
