Sportsman
Bodvarsson also was a towering figure in Bay Area amateur sports, a relentless competitor in two-man beach volleyball and a powerful scorer in more than 20 years of senior league soccer.
"He's just a tremendous natural athlete," said Marvin Vinik, coach of the Berkeley Fog, a top-division team for over-30 players in the East Bay. "Whatever sport he touched, he was just fabulous."
Mary Pratt, Bodvarsson's former wife, said her husband channeled his stress from work into sports. Bodvarsson played for a semi-pro soccer team, The Swedes, in San Francisco and for years terrorized Bay Area beaches in four- and two-man volleyball games. Some members of the volleyball community have posted some classic Bo stories online.
"He never did anything halfway," she said. "He just loved two-man sand ball, and he played in lots and lots of tournaments with people half his age." Bodvarsson also loved tennis and basketball. But outside of volleyball, soccer was his game. "He understood the game really, really well. He was a beautiful player," said Vinik. "He knew how to get open, how to find open people and in the old days he was a scorer, a big scorer, very powerful, very fast."
Stunned as Bodvarsson's death left scientists at the Berkeley lab, the news rocked his soccer team, which has had more than its share of severe injuries this season. Players remembered a big guy with fast feet and a quick, dry wit.
Angelo Commandatore thought he'd regale the Icelander with tales of fly fishing for salmon. "He said, 'Listen, in Iceland we go to the river with a pitchfork and nail the bastards. ... That's how we catch them and this way we always go home with a meal!"
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