Dydasco
Photography by Peter Bonilla.
Blaring car horns. Highways every few miles. The smell of fresh bagels and pizza dominates the air of a mixed urban and rural environment. Whether it’s for you or not, this is North Jersey and New York City. Caprice Dydasco, who lives in a North Jersey neighborhood just outside of NYC, flocks to the city whenever she gets the chance to, whether it’s to treat herself or to go on an excursion with her teammates. A hectic metropolis that’s constantly active, it’s impossible not to find something up to her liking to do in the city, but Dydasco has specifically fostered an appreciation for the SoHo, Greenwich Village, and Lower East Side neighborhoods.
It’s a stark difference from what Dydasco grew up with in the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, which has a current population of just a little over 340,000 compared to NYC’s 8.3 million. But for the past six years, the east coast has been home for Dydasco. First, it was Washington D.C. from 2015-2018, and since 2019 it’s been New Jersey. She wasn’t sure that she could handle the transition at first but has since cultivated a community for herself here.
During her early childhood into teenage years, Dydasco and her family would spend their weekends at the Waipi’o Soccer Complex. From sunrise to sunset, it was soccer 24/7 for Dydasco, her two siblings, True and Zane, and their parents, Jose and Misty.
Yet there’s a more familial aspect to it all when you hear Dydasco talk about Hawaii and soccer. Everything she did, she did with her family. Her dad trained both her and her siblings from the time they were six up until they graduated from high school. She’s fiercely loyal to those closest to her, along with the people and the culture that influenced her as she continued to grow into who she is now.
And now so many years later, with an entire ocean separating her first home and her current home, that’s still what it’s all about.
“Growing up in Hawaii really molded me into being a very loyal person,” Dydasco said. “Because we always have the aspect of no matter if you're blood-related or not, you're always family.”
Palolo Valley is just a few miles down the road from where Dydasco grew up in Honolulu. It’s about three and a half miles long, and once Dydasco and her siblings each hit the age of five, their dad would start to make them run laps around it. Zane, as the oldest child, did it first, then Caprice, and finally True.
“It was so scary,” Dydasco said. “He'd be like, 'Alright, I'm gonna leave you,’ and he'd just start taking off. I'd stand there and throw a fit every time. Every block, I'd cry, and he'd just keep running, so I had to keep running to catch up to him because I was scared I was gonna get taken or something. But looking back on it now, that obviously made me fit and mentally tough and was sorta a good tactic.”
Soccer is a given in the Dydasco family. Caprice’s parents met during a soccer game. Jose is a coach and the director of girls soccer at the club team FC Hawaii. Zane played collegiately at the Air Force Academy from 2009-2012. True is currently in her fifth year playing midfield for the University of Oregon.
“The Dydasco’s will always be a soccer family,” Caprice said. “Even now with my nieces, it's so funny. My dad will be training them out in our backyard and sending us videos of them learning how to strike a ball. He's already making them strike a medicine ball barefoot, like these are things that we all went through. I'm like, 'Wow. These are your grandchildren, and you're doing this already.’ So it's just what the Dydasco’s do.”
With there being a five-year age gap between Caprice and True, it was tough for the two to relate to each other early on in their lives. Their dad wasn’t training them together the entire time that Caprice was in high school and True was in middle school, and Caprice never felt like they had anything in common as a result.
Jose started training the two of them together when Caprice would come home from UCLA for the summers, and True started high school. Caprice took True under her wing, and the two formed a bond that has gotten stronger every day. A huge goal of theirs is to one day play competitively with each other.
“That was always our goal - we’ve always wanted to play together,” Caprice said. “She'd play with the women's league, but I left for college right when she was allowed to play with the older girls, so we’ve never gotten to play together ever. That's still our goal, though, like after we're both done playing high-level soccer, we want to play in an old ladies league together and just kick a ball around.”
Of course, like any good sibling relationship, their bond is also based upon competition, and specifically competition between them. Zane and Caprice both attended and starred athletically at Kamehameha Kapalama High School, and by the time True was testing for middle schools, she either had the choice to attend Kamehameha like her two older siblings or to attend Punahou, which is Kamehameha’s main rival.
She chose Punahou.
“She was like, 'I don't even want to test for Kamehameha because I'm already known as Caprice and Zane's little sister,’” Caprice said. “She wanted to pave her own path and do her own thing. She's very independent in that way and knows that my brother and I have been through it all at Kamehameha and in club soccer. So she kinda wanted to live her own life, which I totally understand. But when we train, we still to this day get so competitive. She'll even text me if I post something and say, 'Why are you wearing that? It's so ugly.' She's just so cutthroat.”
The rivalry continued once True committed to Oregon, which is a conference rival of UCLA’s, although the two never faced off in college.
“We have a good banter,” Caprice said. “Our family was at an Oregon-UCLA game, and she got really mad at me because the stadium gave me a UCLA hat. So I wore it to be nice, but I was wearing an Oregon shirt. After the game, she didn't talk to me at all. She was pissed at me. She was like, 'I can't believe you would wear a UCLA hat at my game.' She wouldn't talk to me for like 20 minutes, and my mom was like, 'You need to go over there and apologize.' It got super serious. But now I'm older, so I'm kinda far removed from UCLA at this point. So it's okay.”
“That's just true love.”
Growing up, Dydasco didn’t see many players who looked like her in the professional ranks. She didn’t think it was possible for someone who looked like her and for someone who came from Hawaii to be playing at the highest level of professional women’s soccer.
That’s why when she thinks of all the people that helped her from the time she started playing, she understands that it’s her responsibility to do the same for Hawaii’s current youth.
Hawaii is more popularly known for its hospitality, food, and beaches and less so for its ability to produce professional soccer players. When Caprice was growing up, there weren’t enough girls on the island interested in playing soccer, so she played with the local boys’ teams up until she was 12.
“There was me and one other girl who played on a boys team because there weren't enough girls playing on our island,” Dydasco said. “Then, when we went to high school, I started playing with girls, but we still didn’t have enough girls to play 11v11. National team camps were the only times I’d play 11v11. For club soccer, we'd be like, 'Alright, you have nine, and we have eight, so we'll play 8v8 and pull the goals in.’ So until I went to national team camps, I'd be like, 'I haven't played 11v11 since the last camp.”
Hawaii has not produced many professional players, with Dydasco, Natasha Kai, Meleana Shim, and Bobby Wood being on a short list of players to represent their state at the highest level. When Dydasco was growing up, there were always a few local players who would go to Division I schools, but only every three to five players had a chance at making it as a pro, and then they had to hold on to their roster spot.
With the efforts of Dydasco and her fellow Hawaiin peers that are now succeeding as pros, soccer has taken off in Hawaii.
“I wouldn't say Hawaii is known for soccer,” Dydasco said. “But soccer is growing there, and now there's a lot of big clubs partnering with smaller clubs. The Rush, the Surf, and then there’s the Slammers. They all came to Hawaii to partner with other clubs because they recognized that we do have a talented pool of players, so they can get guest players throughout larger tournaments and just stay connected to Hawaii too. So that's been a really cool thing to see expand.”
In addition to the uptick in current youth players, there are multiple club teams for girls now where a full starting lineup of 11 can be fielded for games and tournaments. No more eight-on-eight or nine-on-nine. Her family is still directly connected to the growth of Hawaii soccer, too, as Jose is still coaching club teams.
“My dad, he coaches a lot of teams, and he has a lot of players within the US national team system,” Dydasco said. “It's really cool to see that Hawaii soccer has grown a lot. Even just when I’m talking to coaches, they're like, 'Yeah, I've been to this tournament and that tournament, and the Hawaii teams are doing really well.' We'd always get killed like 8-0, 7-0 when we’d go to big tournaments. Now they're making it to really good tournaments along with being very skillful and just having great players. It's really motivating because when I go back, I'd love to contribute back to the soccer community. It's really rewarding and great to know that people are recognizing us.”
And whether she likes to believe it or not, she’s already had a massive impact and contribution back to the Hawaii soccer community. Before, she didn’t see players who looked like her in the professional ranks and didn’t know if she could make it. Now, she’s on a growing list of players who are being looked up to and who are currently being seen by little kids that look just like them. She’s proving to her younger self and to the current youth that they can make it.
“I don't see myself as a big role model for Hawaii,” Dydasco said. “But whenever I'm able to go back, it's great to connect with people and my dad's soccer club. People tell me, 'Wow, I love watching your games.' I love going to my dad's soccer practices and helping them out. My dad always tells me that they really appreciate it whenever I go out to their training and help out. It means a lot to them. For me to hear that, that's really cool because I get to do what I love while also paving the way for these future Hawaiian kids who want to play soccer and be able to know that if they come from an island, they can still play at a really good college and play pro. I just feel like giving back to the sport that has given me so much is a great way to sustain the NWSL, and for women's sports just in general… I just feel like it's my job to sustain this league for future Hawaiian girls and just little girls in general. Just to dream and want to be here where we are.”
Moving back out west would be a dream for Dydasco. Los Angeles is only a flight away from Hawaii. Her family has done the trip from Hawaii to LA and to other cities like Las Vegas and Tucson several times from Zane, Caprice, and True’s youth club and college soccer days, and they’re willing to make the trip time and time again.
She’s loyal to her home and to her family, which is Hawaii and the west coast.
But a flight from Honolulu to New York or New Jersey is around 11 and a half hours long. The distance from Honolulu to Harrison, New Jersey, is approximately 4,948 miles. Being further from her first home is hard, and she wishes she would get to see her family more. But right now, she’s home in New Jersey with Gotham FC and has created a community for herself in which she’s currently thriving.
She’s loyal to her home and to her family, which right now is New Jersey, the east coast, and her team.
“It'd be really hard to leave Jersey,” Dydasco said. “That's one part of me - I'm very loyal. Once I find my people and my community, it's really hard for me to leave something because I'm so bought into our team and our community. It's a great trait, but it's also kinda a bad one as well.”
Loyalty and family are probably her two most defining traits. She’s open with everyone she meets and always puts her friends and family over herself. It’s something she was taught at home growing up, and she took it to the soccer field, and she’s still taking it to Red Bull Arena all these years later.
“I was always taught to be kind and have open arms to people,” Dydasco said. “You just don't really know everyone's story. I think growing up playing soccer with the same group of friends on the same team my whole life, that really made me connected to my team and my friends and my family. Now I carry that into my pro career of just being a part of a team. What I contribute is just really connecting with people. Like no matter what role, whether I'm on or off the field, I feel like I do a really good job of connecting with people and making them feel valued. I'm a pretty positive person, but not everything is positive all of the time. So I just try to keep everything light-hearted, especially in this career. It's very cutthroat, and sometimes I do get in trouble for laughing too much, but I just try to keep things fun and light-hearted at the same time.”
There’s a very long list of people who she’s connected with since she first stepped foot on a soccer field. Every person on that list is someone who she considers a part of her family too. Maybe not her immediate family, but family nonetheless. She won’t forget any of them any time soon, and she’s hoping to add to that list as time goes on as well.
“Every day, I have to pinch myself,” Dydasco said. “Sometimes I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, training was so hard today.’ But my workday is done by noon. Who gets to do that? Work out, play soccer with their friends. I have to remind myself that this is an amazing job, but especially during games on weekends playing in a stadium, walking out in front of thousands of people, I always get butterflies because it's so unreal. I just think about my family watching, and I definitely play for them. They sacrificed so much for me to get me where I am. It definitely took our whole family and my whole soccer community. It's not just my own work and my own self-sacrifice, and my own dedication. It took everyone's contribution to get to where I am today. So I really play for my family at home, and that's extended family, coaches, friends. Even my friends’ parents who would get me to training by carpooling. I just think of all of them, and them watching, and I just want to make them proud and play well for them. I get to do this because of them, and it's really cool. And for the little kids in Hawaii looking at me and watching our games, I just want them to be like, 'Wow, that can be me one day.' Obviously, it's really hard, but they can do it if they really want to.”
Photography by Peter Bonilla.
