Every time Dr. Stephen Paul has been called on, heβs jumped in with no hesitation.
His latest pivot, as he likes to call it, heading up the UA reentry team for student-athletesβ return to campus during the coronavirus pandemic, may have the furthest-reaching impact.
And may seem like the hardest one of all.
βItβs more in your face because the consequences are worse,β Paul said. βIf I made a mistake in coaching, weβd lose, but here, itβs way worse. Thereβs a lot of pressure to try to get it right.β
Yet, Paul, 64, has changed the trajectory of many lives in three major accomplishments β as a pioneer coaching womenβs soccer, developing a sports medicine fellowship at Arizona and creating the first national training exam for Sports Medicine Fellows.
For the UA Campus Health doctor and assistant team physician, the approach is always the same. He sees a need and fills it.
Paul relies on the fundamentals he learned a long time ago in his first challenge β the one it always comes back to β coaching soccer.
βEverything I did with soccer gave me the tools to network, persevere and do it here. I think what we did with womenβs soccer is the same thing. Nobody had done it before,β Paul said. βItβs like, βhow do you do it? I donβt know. I compared it to what we did as a menβs team but what works better for the women? You just do that.β Same thing with creating a fellowship. I called friends. βHi, what are you doing with this? What are you doing with this? Well, that wonβt work here.β
βI think itβs just the ability to have your vision. I mean you want the best fellowship, right? And you want these men and women that come in to do it to have the best education and be proud of Arizona. Same thing. Thatβs your mission. And here, itβs the health and safety and trying to show that we can get people back to the university, maybe can open up and people can safely resume a facet of their life.β
This time around in what may be his βlast big challenge,β Paul heads up a team that includes doctors from Campus Health β Dr. Donald Porter, Dr. Bruce Helming, Dr. Michael Stilson, Dr. Dave Millward β and Randy Cohen, the UAβs associate athletic director for medical services.
In addition to planning the reentry for Arizona Athletics, he is also working on the return of UA Dance/Performing Arts and ROTC.
One of the first things you notice about Paul is that heβs down to earth.
He is such a regular guy that his teammate, Cohen, said when you call him doctor, he immediately tells you to call him Stephen.
βItβs never about ego,β Cohen said. βHis mentality is that heβs no different. Itβs more of βyou can teach me as much as I can teach you.β Itβs always a team approach, βwhat can we do that is best for the UA and the students? How can we give the athletes the best possible care?β That mentality has carried over on this (reentry plan). Now itβs βcan we allow them to compete and keep them safe?β β
The first time Paul stepped up was as a freshman at Colorado College in 1975. He was asked to coach the womenβs club soccer team. Even though he was still in school, it didnβt seem daunting to him. He went on to coach eight seasons and collect a 110-46-7 record.
Along the way, a few big wins for Paul included womenβs soccer becoming a Division I sport at Colorado College, co-founding the Rocky Mountain Womenβs Intercollegiate Soccer League and winning the title twice, and helping to develop and host the first womenβs national championship β before womenβs sports joined the NCAA.
βI was lucky because the women (such as Laura Golden) that I was associated with back then were very passionate. And we all just got really passionate β this is our future, we can really do something,β Paul said. βIt was a drive to just do it. I donβt know, it was just right. I was around the right people. It was the right cause and everything else.
βBut no, I never really thought of it as I went along. It was more like a challenge. Meet the next challenge. Why canβt we be a club? Why canβt we get funding? Why canβt we be a varsity? Why canβt we be like the men? It was always taking on the next challenge of that.β
When the U.S. womenβs soccer team won its first of four World Cup titles in 1999 at the Rose Bowl, Paul was there with former UA soccer coach Lisa Frazier and other former players from the early going. They cried at the victory.
βTo see us win the first ever Womenβs World Cup was pretty astounding,β he said. β(Now) I am happy they have the opportunity. And happy they they almost have the equal opportunity. This current group would say theyβre not there, and I would probably agree. Itβs complicated, different contracts and stuff like that, but itβs not the same. Weβre still climbing.
βI think itβs really ridiculous. Who gets the publicity? Itβs the menβs sport, who are the better athletes? Itβs the women. Even in terms of coverage and everything else, itβs like, βoh, yeah, you guys are good, but letβs watch the menβs team.β Theyβve never done anything. And then women have won it four times. To me thatβs in your face. Still, we have a way to go.β
When Paul went to college, he thought about following in his fatherβs footsteps and becoming a doctor, but that was put on hold while he was coaching.
It wasnβt until he had a conversation with an interim AD and chemistry professor that he realized this was his next step. He was asked if he knew the difference between a vocation and an avocation. He realized that soccer was the hobby and medicine was the job.
A primary-care physician, Paul specializes in sports medicine and has stayed involved in soccer. He coached for many years at Tucson Soccer Academy and Foothills Soccer Club.
In 2015 while on sabbatical in Chile he was supposed to be a medical adviser for FIFA and the U18 World Cup. When they needed assistance, he stepped up and was hands-on. For Paul it was a βdream come true.β
βJust going to Chile was an incredible experience β and for my family to pause a year it was life-altering,β Paul said.
One of the lessons Paul learned in Chile was slowing down and taking moments as they come. Thatβs not so easy in Tucson, especially now that heβs leading the effort to bring student-athletes back to campus. The importance of this moment isnβt lost on him.
βIf everybody really took seriously putting on a mask, and trying to physically distance, there wouldnβt be spikes. There wouldnβt be, and thatβs exactly why weβre seeing them. And weβll continue to see him until thereβs a vaccine,β Paul said.
βThereβs something that goes on that triggers this to be more dangerous than the cold virus β weβll probably figure that out years from now. But itβs just sad we have to lose people because of the inability to put everybody else first.
βThatβs why what weβre doing here is so important because if we can do that β first with football and then soccer, volleyball β think of the statement it says to the college community. Think of what it says to the community of Tucson, et cetera. Hereβs the model. Hereβs how you can do it safely.β