2025 Chesterton athletics Hall of Fame: Leslie Nelson, Class of 2001

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojan.com

Not every soccer player gifted with speed and agility, desire and technical ability can translate all those traits into goal-scoring ability. For reasons that defy explanation, they just don’t have the instincts to make it happen.
Leslie Nelson had the knack, all right. Otherwise, she could not have set the Chesterton career girls soccer record for goals (92), a record that stayed on the books for 20 years until Addy Joiner (113) broke it.
So, any discussion of the factors that led to the Trojans having the longest, most successful season and postseason in the history of the girls’ soccer program in the fall of 2000 must start with Nelson’s ability to score goals. But she is the first to stress that it was far from the only reason the Trojans went 22-2 and made it to the state title game, which had not happened until then and has not happened since.
“Our team grew together amazingly well,” said Nelson, whose last name is now Hallmen. “It was kind of one of those storms in a bottle, where we all worked so well together, and we had a positive group. It was quite the ride.”
A ride that included Nelson scoring 40 goals, an average of 1.8 per game.
Again, Nelson shared the credit for that outrageous statistic.
“You can be a great player but if you don’t have a great group with you, you’re not going to go anywhere,” she said.
Soccer is at its most beautiful when a team looks connected on top, and when the players in the middle of the field are equally well connected to teammates in the back and top.
Those connections grow more naturally when the players get along in life, not just when competing.
“What was so amazing was we had a team full of great players and very little ego,” Nelson said. “We had a goal and that was to get to state, and everybody worked their tail off and worked together.”
Nelson explained how that connection made her a more prolific scorer.
“I always had a knack for scoring goals, but I never scored as many goals on my travelling team or other teams that I played for as I did with this group just because we did work so cohesively,” Nelson said. “And there were girls who were so good at controlling the midfield who could see me or Amanda (Harsy) up front and know right where to put the ball, so it made our job easy.”
Nelson played four years of varsity soccer and it’s the relationships she thinks most about when looking back on those years.
“We were a group that naturally got closer and closer,” Nelson said of the Trojans coached by Kip Walton. “We would have our pasta parties and team-bonding things, but it wasn’t because we needed to do things to connect. We did it because we enjoyed what we were doing. And we did have some things that happened that brought us closer.”
Nelson would have been happy to leave it at that when referencing “things that happened.” Time doesn’t always make devastating tragedies any easier to think about, let alone discuss.
Kate Pokorny, a 1999 CHS graduate was such a beloved, respected member of the soccer program that she earned the coveted mental attitude award as a senior. She was a few days away from leaving for Purdue to study education to put her on a path to fulfilling her dream of becoming a teacher and soccer coach. She was close to finishing up her shift at a gas station convenience store on the Southwest corner of U.S. 6 and Meridian Rd. in a building that no longer exists, when she was murdered by the doughnut delivery man who is serving his sentence at Indiana State Prison.
Her former teammate was at the top of Nelson’s mind for the final two years of her soccer career.
“Kate was a big part of our run that season,” Nelson said. “Throughout the season, we had our little huddle cheers and one of the main things we said, game after game, was ‘state for Kate!’ She was with us every step of the way.”
It was more than teenagers are supposed to be able to handle.
“I’ll never forget the day. I called my dad at work because I had heard a rumor of what had happened,” Nelson said. “Then when we got the confirmation call, it really shook our world. Being in high school, you don’t really have that concept of tragedy, especially in a small town. It seemed like nothing bad ever happened in our town. It was surreal experience, even looking back at it now. All of us went over to her parents’ house. It definitely brought us closer together.”
The first home game of Nelson’s junior season featured a pregame ceremony in honor of Pokorny. The players all signed a soccer ball and presented it to Kate’s mom, Clare.
Nelson was close with another one of her teammates long before they were senior co-captains of the state runner-up that ended the season with a 5-0 loss to a Carmel team ranked No. 4 in the nation.
“The thing that I hold the closest to me, especially throughout my senior year, I grew up playing soccer with one of my neighbors who was my best friend for years,” Nelson said of Jessica Terstenyak. “We always had soccer together and our senior year we were the captains together and I really treasure those moments of us helping lead the team because she also unfortunately passed away many years ago after losing her battle with cancer.”
Nelson keeps the memories of Pokorny and Terstenyak in her heart and believes they both left a positive influence on her.
“It helps you to learn to appreciate every day, and it helps you to learn to not get so caught up on the little things,” she said. “It doesn’t always work because it’s inevitable we are always going to have those moments, too, but it’s a good reminder to cherish things and to make sure people know you care about them and just try to be the best version of you.”
The best version of Nelson as a high school athlete was as a soccer player. She was on the track team, and despite suffering from scoliosis that robbed her of flexibility performed well enough in the high jump to make it to regionals. Her powerful legs strengthened by soccer helped her to compensate for a stiff back. At the time, she didn’t really see the point of running without a soccer ball in the equation.
Her track coach, Steve Kearney, used to use the final event, the 4x400 relay, as extra training for many of the runners and would enter as many as eight 4x4 teams in meets.
Kearney shared his memory of a conversation with Nelson that still makes him chuckle, nearly a quarter century later: “You would have thought a soccer star could run the 4x4, right? Well, Leslie came up to me one day and said, ‘Mr. Kearney, I like high jumping, but I don’t like running all that much and if you make me run the 4x4, I’m quitting the track team.’ Half the time I made her do it anyway. I’d come up with an excuse like, ‘Leslie, Susie got hurt today running the 800 and we have a team that only has three runners. Can you just jog the 400?’ I wanted her to run. She was pretty fast.”
Years later, Kearney was delighted to run into the girl who didn’t want to run one lap around the track. She was not quite 20% into a run that was the equivalent of 104.875 laps around the track, competing in what now is her favorite of all races, the Chicago Marathon.
Kearney: “For over 30 years I’ve worked at a water stop in the Chicago Marathon and here comes Leslie at the five-mile mark. She comes by, grabs a water from me and says, ‘Hey Mr. Kearney, how do you like this now?’ ‘I love it!’”
Nelson: “He got quite the kick out of it. A girl he could barely get to run a 100 is running marathons now.”
Nelson took time off from running when her former job “one of the favorite jobs I ever had; I loved it,” at a veterinarian’s office began to take a physical toll on her, but she is back to doing it now that she’s working desk job at a doctor’s office. If she runs another marathon, it will be her 10th.
Nelson also works part-time as a travel agent, specializing in Disney trips, of which she has taken many. Leslie’s favorite ride: “Tower of Terror. It’s a little bit different every time you ride it. I love the spooky elements to it.”
Leslie, husband, Mark Hallmen, and daughter Amelia, 6, live in Valparaiso. She will be honored at halftime of next Friday’s football opener vs. Hammond Morton, and again at the induction ceremony dinner the next night at Sand Creek Country Club. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased by calling the athletic department at (219) 983-3730.