“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing and learning to do.”

Those are the words of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known by his nickname, Pelé, the late Brazilian national soccer team winger who won three world cups.

They are also written at the end of the obituary for Dolores Jose, a lifetime Mineola resident and active member of the Mineola Athletic Association for over 40 years, who died earlier this month at the age of 73 due to an undisclosed illness. 

To say soccer was a big part of Jose and her family’s life would be an understatement. 

“Sundays at the Jose household was everybody running in 15 different directions to different soccer games,” Jose’s daughter, Ann Maria Bria, said in an interview with Blank Slate Media. “It was probably our top priority. We missed baptisms, birthday parties and sometimes weddings if we had soccer games.”

Jose was born on March 5, 1950, to Portuguese immigrants Irene and John Pereira–a founding member of the Mineola Portuguese Soccer Club and a Long Island Soccer Football League Hall of Fame member. 

Two years after graduating from Mineola High School in 1968, she married Ilidio Jose, another lover of the game who was a founding member of the Jamaica Portuguese Soccer Club.

Prior to her involvement in Mineola, Jose joined the East Meadow Wings women’s soccer team in 1978 where she played as a midfielder and goalie.

When she wasn’t playing soccer, Bria said was a “die-hard” fan of the Portuguese national team and at the club level followed the career of Portuguese legend Cristiano Ronaldo throughout his career starting in Portugal, then Manchester United in England, Real Madrid in Spain, Juventus in Italy, Manchester again and Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia. 

It wasn’t until she coached her daughter’s intramural teams that she became such a force with the athletic association, otherwise known as the MAA.

Aside from coaching Bria and her son David’s teams, Jose also served as president of the organization–which offers soccer, baseball and softball in the village–and oversaw the soccer travel programs. 

MAA President Frank Pizzardi said in an interview with Blank Slate Media the only way to understand how much soccer in Mineola meant to Jose and describe the person she stemmed from how he found out about her declining health. 

“Nobody in the organization knew that she was ill until a couple of days before she passed because she told her daughter to tell us to make sure we know when to register teams for the spring,” Pizzardi said. “She was always thinking about promoting the game of soccer.”

Bria said the last thing her mother would have wanted was to miss registering the teams, which play in the Long Island Junior Soccer League. 

“I saw the registration papers and that it opened on Jan. 4. If they missed their window I don’t want to know what would have happened,” Bria quipped. 

Outside her work with the MAA, Jose was a board member of the Long Island Ladies Soccer League, a division chair for the Long Island Junior Soccer League where she became a hall-of-fame member with.

 Instead of flowers for Jose, the MAA–a nonprofit–has put together the “Dolores Jose Memorial Scholarship” which will help children in the community who don’t have the financial means to participate in youth sports an avenue to play in the organization.

After being created on Jan. 5, the fund has already passed $18,000. 

Bria said her mother’s only wish was to make sure the kids were able to play and volunteering for her many organizations was a top priority for her.

“It’s unbelievable the support that’s come out from the community and the donations,” Bria said of the fund. “It’s so overwhelming.”