Woman football player relishes her vocation as recreation leader for North County seniors

On the gridiron, tackle football player Lelatasiosamoa Vaeao is a USA All-Star who has played offensive guard, defensive tackle and nose tackle in games around the world.

But at the San Marcos health clinic where she works, she’s just “Lela,” the devoted and gentle-natured recreation supervisor who leads senior citizens in chair exercise, gardening, arts and crafts, cornhole and other daytime activities.

Vaeao, a 37-year-old Oceanside native, said playing football is a passion, but helping to enrich the lives of older adults is her true calling. Since 2005, she has worked with older adults at many local retirement homes and assisted living communities. At the end of February, she joined the staff at the Gary and Mary West PACE center in San Marcos, where she organizes and often leads activities for the center’s 237 senior participants.

Vaeao was raised by her late great-grandmother, Faa’samoa Auauna Amituana’i, whom she called “Mama.” Watching Amituana’i gradually slip away during her 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Vaeao said she felt it was her duty to return the love her “Mama” gave her by caring for other senior adults.

Lelatasiosamoa “Lela” Vaeao, recreation supervisor at the Gary & Mary West PACE center in San Marcos, talks about her job on Monday, June 20.

(Don Boomer/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“I fell in love with the work and realized it was my calling,” she said. “But then, I wanted to bring more sparkle into their lives, so I started doing activities to enrich their lives. I enjoy getting to know them one on one and enticing them to enjoy their lives a little bit more.”

Dr. Ross Colt, medical director at West PACE, said Vaeao has been a breath of fresh air at the center.

“When she came in a few months ago, she hit the ground running,” Colt said. “She brings a lot of joy to our participants and a lot of variety and new ideas.”

Lela Vaeao is the seventh of 10 children by the late Liatama Vaeao, a longtime pastor of First Samoan Full Gospel Pentecostal Church in Vista, and his wife, Sepoima Vaeao. As a girl, Vaeao said she was a “tomboy” who loved playing sports in the street with her older brothers. At school, she played soccer and volleyball, but she noticed her father never got the same “sparkle in his eyes” watching her games as he did when he watched her brothers playing football. Football was a family passion. Liatama Vaeao was distantly related to Junior Seau, the Chargers linebacker, who died in 2012.

Eager to get her father’s attention, Vaeao signed up in 2005 to play for the SoCal Scorpions in the Women’s Professional Football League. Due to her size — she’s 5 feet, 10 inches tall — and her background in athletics, she rose fast. She was an all-pro in her first two seasons and she helped lead the Scorpions to their first national championship in 2007. Her father passed away that same year, but not before he saw her triumph in the sport.

“I saw that sparkle in his eyes when he watched me play football,” she said. “And every time I pancaked someone (meaning knocked the player flat on the field) he would stand up and shout, ‘That’s my daughter, that’s my daughter!’”

Gary and Mary West PACE Recreation Supervisor Lelatasiosamoa “Lela” Vaeao leads participants through a chair exercise class on June 20.

(Don Boomer/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

In the years since, she has played for several teams, including the San Diego Surge, West Coast Lightning, California Quake and, most recently, the San Diego Rebellion. She has been on a hiatus from the team for the past year to care for her sister, who has kidney failure. But she plans to start playing again later this year.

She also plays for the American Football Events Team USA All-Stars, which has taken her to games around the world. On March 11, 2020, she and more than 50 other AFE team personnel flew to Honduras for a bowl game and they became stranded when COVID shut down international borders. A little over a week later, they were airlifted out by the U.S. Air Force. With the pandemic now fading, Vaeao said she’ll fly to Florida in September to compete for the AFE in a 9/11 memorial bowl game.

The PACE center in San Marcos was built to serve low-income seniors who qualify for Medicare and Medi-Cal. The PACE program, an acronym for Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, is designed to fulfill the needs of seniors who still live at home with no transportation of their own. Seniors get picked up at home and driven to the center a couple of times a week for full medical care, physical therapy and exercise, socialization, personal care services, a hot lunch and more.

Dr. Colt said that for many of the program’s participants, those semiweekly visits to PACE may be the only time each week they see or speak to another person. That’s why having caring employees like Vaeao can mean so much.

Connie McBride, an 80-year-old retired kindergarten teacher who lives at the Morningside Terrace assisted living center in Escondido, enjoys her visits to the PACE center, especially since Vaeao arrived. They first met years ago when Vaeao worked at Morningside.

“She’s an incredible lady,” McBride said of Vaeao. “She’s just a very kind person who’s very giving of her energy and time. She has this skill of meeting people where they’re at in their abilities and encouraging them to give something new a try. She’s wonderful.”

Lelatasiosamoa “Lela” Vaeao, activities director at Gary and Mary West PACE in San Marcos is also a professional women’s football player.

(Don Boomer/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)