Southeast soccer's first family

~ The Nelsons have built the Redhawks into consistent winners.

Some married couples -- especially those who have been together for a while -- might cringe at the thought of spending every waking hour together.

Not Heather and Paul Nelson, who have combined their love of soccer -- and their love for each other -- to build Southeast Missouri State into an Ohio Valley Conference women's soccer power.

"I don't think there are any drawbacks," said Paul of he and Heather comprising the Redhawks' coaching staff. "It's our life."

The Nelsons' life, which includes three daughters ages 10 and under, has taken the Southeast program from non-existent status to lofty heights in less than a decade.

Southeast, which recently won its third OVC regular-season title since the Nelsons started the program in 1999, will host the OVC tournament semifinals and finals beginning Friday.

The Redhawks are the defending tourney champions after they captured the crown for the first time to claim the program's inaugural NCAA tournament berth last year.

"We'd obviously love to win it again," said Heather, the Redhawks' head coach.

Winning is something Heather and Paul -- Southeast's associate head coach -- do with great regularity.

Since a losing record during the program's first season in 1999, Southeast has reeled off eight straight winning marks, including this year's 11-2-2 ledger.

Southeast has an all-time women's soccer record of 99-47-16.

"They have done a phenomenal job with the soccer program and we are very grateful," Southeast athletic director Don Kaverman said. "Hopefully they'll continue for many years to come."

A Canadian connection

Heather, 42, and Paul, 48, are both natives of Canada, where each was an accomplished soccer player.

Heather, a four-year starter at the University of Saskatchewan, is a former member of Canada's National Team pool.

Paul played professionally for 13 seasons, including several years in the former North American Soccer League, which at the time was among the world's premier leagues, featuring the likes of Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and other all-time greats.

The Nelsons, who are from different Canadian provinces -- she from Saskatchewan and he from British Columbia -- first met in 1992 while they were coaching various teams during the Canada Games, a pre-Olympic competition.

Heather smiled when she recalled their first encounter.

"We had a lot of fun, but it was not romantic at the time," she said. "Our faces were sore from laughing so much."

Added Paul: "We met for about 36 hours and we went out once. We had fun, and then we went back to our own provinces. We didn't stay in touch at all, but I knew we'd meet again."

It happened the following year as the Nelsons coached at a similar competition.

Following that latest meeting, the pair stayed in touch over the phone.

"Heather called one day and said she had an opportunity to come to British Columbia to work on her master's," recalled Paul. "She did and we started seeing each other."

And it wasn't long before they made plans to marry.

Starting out in Florida

Before the Nelsons tied the knot, Heather received her first coaching position in the United States when she was hired to start the women's soccer program at Florida State for the 1995 season.

So the Nelsons, who would be married in 1996, moved to Florida, where Paul began his run as one of his wife's assistant coaches.

Heather was Florida State's head coach for four seasons, including a winning record in 1996. The Seminoles had losing marks the other three years.

While Heather believes she eventually could have turned around the Seminoles, there were some things about the program -- and Florida itself -- that began to sour her on the job.

First, Heather said, Florida State administrators promised her some things -- like a new soccer facility -- that they never delivered on.

"We played games on an intramural field, and we shared it with the men's lacrosse team," Heather said. "Teams did not even want to play on it. Maryland one time tried to get out of a game because they didn't want to play on that field."

Chimed in Paul: "Shawnee Park [in Cape Girardeau] is way better than what we played on."

Besides the field, Heather had just delivered the couple's first child -- daughter Jordan, now 10 -- early during their time at Florida State.

The Nelsons knew they wanted more children and weren't sure how wise it would be to try to raise a family while coaching at such a big-time university, especially where the commitment to its program wasn't very strong. They also didn't know if Florida was where they wanted to be.

"It was a balancing act," Heather said. "Florida State, the entire athletic department, is such a big program. We had just had Jordan and we wanted to have a family.

"Where did we want to raise a family? We didn't think Florida was the place."

Cape Girardeau calls

When the Nelsons learned that Southeast was getting ready to start a women's soccer program, they became intrigued.

And then Southeast administrators became very intrigued with Heather.

"They were very interested in me because I had started a program," she said. "And a lot of things were attractive here for us. They had won so many championships -- in softball, volleyball, track. Women's sports were really doing well.

"We liked Cape right away. We thought it would be a nice place to raise a family. We felt more at home here than in Florida."

So the Nelsons packed up and headed to Southeast, which Kaverman considered a coup of sorts.

"It's not often we can attract somebody from an athletic program like Florida State. We were elated," Kaverman said.

Ever since that initial losing season in 1999, it's been nothing but good times for Southeast women's soccer, even though the Redhawks make do with less scholarships than the NCAA allows and less than some other OVC programs have.

"It's extremely satisfying, especially how consistent we've been," Heather said. "We've been able to attract some very good players, and very high character people."

A very busy family

The Nelsons have added two more daughters, Taylor, 6, and Justi, 2, since moving to Cape Girardeau.

And Heather announced with a grin during Wednesday's interview that the couple recently found out she was pregnant again -- as if the Nelsons weren't already busy enough.

But both quickly pointed out that's the beauty of coaching together.

Paul spent their first seven seasons at Southeast as a volunteer assistant coach, but was named his wife's associate head coach before last year. There are no other coaches in the program.

In addition, Paul directs the Southeast Missouri Soccer Club, where he helps coach and train young soccer players, age 6 through high school.

"We're so busy with other facets of our life, with the three kids, Paul's club, it's nice to spend time together [as Southeast coaches]," Heather said.

Paul laughed when asked if it ever gets to the point where they spend too much time together.

"No, it's our life. I think we're both a little obsessive, and we're obsessive about each other," he said. "We like to spend time with each other.

"We've got nothing to hide. In terms of marital issues, we never have any problems on the soccer field."

The Nelsons admitted there are drawbacks, like all the time they spend away from their kids while on road trips or recruiting trips.

But the Nelson girls are at most Southeast home games supporting their parents.

"There are times we have to sacrifice, like on weekends when we're away," said Paul, who added finding time to sleep can be challenging for he and his wife.

Since soccer is such a big part of their life, the Southeast program often is discussed at the dinner table, which led to an amusing anecdote.

"I think we must talk about winning a lot," Heather said. "We took our kids to a Halloween costume contest and our 2-year-old, as soon as she found out there would be winners, she said 'Mom, I want to win.'

"I guess they've heard us talk about winning."