It’s hard enough for The Overlake School boys’ soccer coach Bob Bristol that his team plays its regular season in the fall, and must cope with a six-month layoff before the state tournament begins in May.

But Bristol, who just completed his 15th year of coaching — longer than some of his players have been alive — had to deal with a much larger foe just as his team was coming back together to gear up for a state tournament run.

Back in February, he suffered partial hearing loss in one ear along with discomfort in his jaw and further tests revealed that Bristol had a growing brain tumor around the acoustic nerve in his right ear.

“It went very fast,” said Bristol on the two-month period between his diagnosis and the surgery. “Everything was moving along… but I wanted to know if I could hold it off until the summer because of the soccer. But I realized the potential for greater hearing loss. The longer I waited, the worse it could be.”

After successful surgery, Bristol, who was in constant communication with the team through phone calls and text messages when he was unable to make it out to games or practices, made it back on the sidelines and eventually led the Owls to a second place finish at the 1A state soccer championships.

Bristol has been named the Reporter’s Coach of the Year for guiding the boys’ soccer team to the state title game over two sports seasons in the midst of his own health crisis.

SUPPORT SYSTEM

Bristol waited until the very last moment, his final practice with the team in February, to tell them that he would be out indefinitely due to his impending surgery.

It was a difficult time for the coach, who lives and breathes soccer during the down time between seasons, watching old tape and reading every soccer coaching book he can get his hands on to come up with new ideas for his team when they reconvene in the spring.

“They were all on board, and real supportive,” Bristol said.

Under orders not to return to work for at least one month after the surgery, which was on April 26, Bristol jumped the gun and by the beginning of the fourth week, decided he was well enough to rejoin the team.

“I couldn’t drive… so I would take the bus from Seattle, (Forbes) would pick me up from Redmond, and then he’d drive me back and I’d take the bus home during rush hour,” recalled Bristol, who also teaches history at Overlake. “I wanted to get back and teach, but the one thing I wanted most was to get back to coaching. This team had some special qualities and you want to see them through to the end.”

The athletes themselves, however, knew just how much Bristol meant to the team and the program, and the outpouring of support during his recovery left Bristol speechless.

“It was pretty amazing,” he said. “They were sending me things, and they wanted to come to the hospital and see me. Their parents were sending me food, cards… when I came back you could just see that there was something special, something unique going on.”

A SCHEDULING NIGHTMARE

According to Bristol, the main reason that Overlake plays soccer in the fall is that, like most of the Emerald City League teams, they do not have a football program, and the only other fall sport is cross country.

But when springtime comes, Bristol must coordinate with baseball, tennis, golf and lacrosse, of which 16 of his 22 rostered varsity players participated in, to figure out what the ideal soccer practice time would be.

“I would literally look at the schedule and say, ‘baseball’s practicing here, tennis has a match here, lacrosse has a practice here,’ so what is the best time to get the most kids here every day so we could train?,” Bristol said. “If we got everybody on the same day, it was generally lucky.”

Unfortunately, the Owls were without two vital players for the 1A state championship finals and semifinals, all-league midfielder Trevor Partington and stellar defender Marcus Munoz, who were 150 miles away at the 1A/1B/2B state tennis tournament where they placed sixth.

Though the duo made it to Sumner with 15 minutes to spare in the title game and got to shoe up, their absence no doubt played a factor in the final score of 3-0, the first and only time Overlake was shut out during the 2009-10 season.

“For our kids that play spring sports, we said that would take precedence over soccer if we made it to the state tournament,” Bristol explained.

But it was a year to remember, as 11 seniors and an amazing supporting cast came together and reeled off the program’s first unbeaten regular season at 16-0-1, a squad that Bristol ranks as one of the best and most talented he has ever coached.

“We knew that we had a lot of athleticism,” Bristol admitted. “Our seniors, we kind of pushed them — we had a combination of very good players, and those that may not have been as skillful, were very good athletes. We took advantage of that as much as possible, and (the seniors) pushed everyone at practice. They set the bar that everyone had to work hard to get up to that level.”

As Bristol continues the rehabilitation process from his surgery, he can often be found in his living room watching World Cup soccer action, studying team’s zone defenses in the hopes that he will learn something new to share with his kids next year.

“You can’t not do something between seasons and expect a better result,” Bristol explained. “You have to go and keep studying, whether it’s watching films, or the World Cup, or reading books, but you need new ideas to get better. I challenge the kids to do it, so I have to do it too.”