Quotes from Blaze Soares

About beng on the 1st team with Sol and Adam, Blaze said:
"Everybody knows about them -- they've proved themselves over the years. Looking at them, they look ready, and I can't wait to play by their side." (HSB)


About how Brad Kalilimoku and C.J. Allen-Jones will push him for his starting spot, Blaze said:
"They all can play. We're a great family and I think that's what's going to make us successful, that we're all so close." (HSB)


About how he's dragged a 70-pound tire up a hill at Kailua Beach to build speed and strength ever since his sophomore season of high school, Blaze said:
"It's more challenging, so when I run on grass or turf I feel way faster." (HSB)


About having to attend HPU for a year before being able to attend UH to play his freshman year, Blaze said about the year off from football:
"That season made me appreciate so much about football, showed me how much I love football. I think it opened up my eyes. It made me want it more. I think I got complacent my senior year and I didn't really appreciate the sport. We're privileged to be out here and call ourselves Warriors. It's not something every person in Hawaii can do. For a local boy, this was my dream to come over here and play and I'm living it right now." (HSB)


About naming Blaze after one of his clildhood buddies (Blaiseden Barnes), Blaze's father Wayne said:
"We were good friends when we were young and we grew up together, and ever since we were young I was the quarterback and he was my center." (HSB)


About Blaze, who made the varsity as a freshman and started in his sophmore year, Castle coach Nelson Maeda said:
"He was always a good runner -- he was very physical, just committed and had a passion for the game. He had the tools and the potential to become a real good linebacker. Very instinctive, he has a good feel for where he's supposed to go, what he's supposed to do, and where the offense is trying to go." (HSB)


About how Castle's defensive scheme countered their lack of size with speed and aggression, and those lessons still influence him, Blaze said:
"We were undersized; everybody thought they would just run us over. But the way Coach Nelson Maeda, Coach Tony Pang Kee and Coach Harry Paaga prepared us was to just go for broke. When you leave that field, you leave everything behind. That's the way we were taught and I think that's why we were so successful over there. I take that with me everywhere I go." (HSB)

HSB Note: "Two other Castle graduates, defensive lineman Victor Clore and quarterback Bryce Kalauokaaea, joined Soares for his early morning workouts on the beach pulling that trusty tire up the hill. After doing more running and football drills in the sand, they'd head to the 24-Hour Fitness in Kaneohe for a lifting session. Every other day they'd run with the Castle players at the campus field."


About making it through the 220s for the 2nd straight year, Blaze said:
"I was training on the beach every morning, but I was just training for 100 meters, so I was kind of worried. But I pulled through. Everybody was pushing me. It was tough, but I felt like I accomplished something real good today." (HSB)


About how he was the sparring partner for Brian Viloria for a brief time in the 6th grade, Blaze Soares said:
"I couldn't touch him. He had all of the speed." (HA)

"It was OK. It's like when you get into a regular fight. You have to go out there and bang." (HA)


About how he and 13 friends created their version nof a mixed-martial-arts fight club, meeting at a friend's house after school in high school, Blaze said:
"We went over there and trained. It was our own thing." (HA)