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how to receive it send an email to artworks945@urbanministrycenter.org with "AWFC Newsletter" in the subject line. this week's 8/1/05 "Dreams
of Bonnie Scotland" It
was a dream. It was a dream a year ago when we
started things, to go to the World Cup. So we
dreamt. And our team was the dream team,
reaching down to trap the ball with our hands in
a moment of forgetfulness, booting in a goal
from 30 yards out in steel toed work boots,
answering a prepaid cell phone while playing
goalie in sunglasses, wearing soccer shorts on
top of blue jeans. So many months later the
dream got stranger. We weren’t in Charlotte
anymore. There was a six foot five Slovak with a
mo-hawk and no teeth chasing us around and
chanting “USA, USA.” It was me, my
coworkers, and nine of our homeless soccer
players wandering down a maze of cobblestone
streets, dressed in sharp soccer uniforms
looking professional with shin guards and socks
pulled up. There was an enormous castle on a
rock where the seat of destiny was housed,
statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.
Down below were a myriad spires, grey stones,
and beyond that undulating mounds of green that
carried on into the clouds on the horizon. We
kept having to ask people to repeat themselves
because everyone spoke a wee bit faster than we
were used. We ended up in a narrow valley full
of flowers and people lounging on blankets
having picnics. The castle leaned over the cliff
above us as we marched to the end of the valley
where there was a stadium. Flashes of warmth and
coolness fell upon us several times within a
minute as a fast sky full of clouds blew
magically overhead. In the stadium everyone sang
national songs. We danced together with motley
Norwegian fisherman, shale-blue eyed Irishmen, a
team of bald Poles, jovial Argentines,
introspective Chinamen, fit and dignified South
Africans. We ran in circles waving the American
flag. It was a strange and beautiful dream, and
when it was over, you really had to question
which reality was more of a dream. Our players
fit in so well, adapted so naturally, enjoyed
themselves so thoroughly. They seemed more at
home in Bonnie Scotland than I ever remember
seeing them anywhere else. The only choice is to
believe in both realities and let them converge
into one as we go forward. To
begin to report on our participation in the
Homeless World Cup, let me tell you that the
quality of soccer was fantastic. On a small
pitch, given the size of our players and the
size of the hearts of our players, we thought we
could close the game down and compete well in
the tournament. Compete we did, but not
competitively. Our players who had come a long
way in several intense months could not match
young, fit players with soccer instinct flowing
through their veins. In our first game we drew
the home nation Scotland, and were efficiently
dispatched of with a bevy of goals. We had been
training and working hard for months for that
moment, and to be beaten so handedly was tough
to handle. We reacted poorly, argued, blamed one
another. The performance elicited a dramatic
five-minute long vituperative lambasting by the
coach, which our players have never heard from
me before. “I don’t care if you lose one
hundred to nothing, you keep your head up and
your chest out, you congratulate other team and
you earn their respect; you represent your
country!” In
our second match we faced Slovakia and were up
by two goals in the second half. Perhaps a
coaching error led to our defeat as we broke up
a good rhythm with substitutions. In the waning
minutes we gave up the ball in the back four
times in succession and lost our lead. Led by
Tony Kelley and Stephanie Johnson, the USA team
brought tears to my eyes, celebrating as if they
had won, hugging the Slovaks, and cheering with
them after the game. We gave them small American
flags which they all had us autograph. The
Australians had been watching and joined in on
the fun. Our three teams formed an alliance and
cheered each other in all our games. When the
tournament finished Australia beat out China and
the Czech Republic for best new team. Our Slovak
friend Miro won the best goalkeeper award, and
we, the USA, won the Fair Play Award for
embodying the spirit of the Homeless World Cup.
Besides the World Cup which was won by Italy,
these were the only awards given out. Gavin
White is the head immigration officer in
Glasgow. As some of you may know five African
nations were denied visas to enter the UK for
the Homeless World Cup. Despite letters from the
mayors of Gras, Gothenburg, and Edinburgh, the
UN, and the EU, our team was also denied a
special category of visa before entering the
country. Still, as Americans we had the chance
to enter as tourists. Gavin appreciated that we
went out of our way to be honest and forthright,
applying for visas that we did not need,
entering the country in our soccer uniforms, and
being honest with him about our criminal
records. To our relief he reversed the decision
made by the UK office in New York, and gave us
entry into the country. Gavin wrote us the
following note by email after seeing us off to
the States in Glasgow: “I'm glad you got the chance to participate in the tournament
and I hope that the experience will help the
team in the future as they continue to face the
challenges before them. You are a
remarkable group and you demonstrated all
that is best in the human spirit and I think the
crowds clearly saw that in Edinburgh. I'm glad I
met you.” Given
the chance, this is what our team has proven to
the world. Michael Schell, one of our players,
wrote the following in an Art Works writing
class the day he got back: "The
Homeless World Cup 2005 was held in Edinburgh,
Scotland, where 32 teams from many countries
came to share in the chance to play for the
Homeless World Cup.
What I learned from this experience is it
doesn't matter if you win or lose. It's about
your spirit as a team. It's a chance to grow
with other team members and to have fun playing
the game we all came to play. We live to learn
and we learned to live with each other. We were
selected to receive the fair play award for our
generosity to other teams and great
sportsmanship to come and compete with the best
of them. The
sites were splendid. There was princess gardens,
the castle, the mountains, fine dining, and many
extras. Also
it was luxurious to stay in Edinburgh first
dorms while in the tournament.
The best part of the whole trip was that
the USA was the most trusting and most focused
to play hard, and all other teams saw our
encouragement and wished us their best, and this
is what is important. If you do not have good
sportsmanship and a good team ethics, then you
can' t make it in life." Michael
battles to stay on his medications and completed
a drug program before our departure and has
remained clean. Given all the forces of chaos in
his life, his remarkably lucid account of the
Homeless World Cup is a great testimony to his
will to change and to the positive power of
sports. I wish everyone who has supported us could have marched with
us up the Royal Mile and down to the stadium in
the parade of nations. We were in between the
Ukraine and Wales. I wish you could have sung
“My country ‘tis of thee,” and “Who let
the Dog’s Out?” with us, and joined in to
support the Ukraine’s songs and the Welsh
cheers. Photographers were everywhere and the
crowds were excellent. We played our best game
of the tournament against Sweden in front of a
crowd of 2,000 people. We missed two penalty
kicks and lost the game 1-0. After the game
Stephanie came off the field and burst into
tears. In an interview shortly thereafter she
said, “This is a feeling I’ll never forget.
It’s wonderful. I feel important.” We
congratulate Stephanie and her teammates because
they are important. The average daily experience
inculcates all to harshly the opposite message
to people who are homeless. Our players have
shown that despite not knowing the rules when
they started, despite mental illnesses, criminal
records, being victims of abuse, etc., despite
being scared to death to get on an airplane,
that they, given the chance to, can adjust to
anything and succeed—even a steady diet of
haggis! Please stay tuned to our e-mails as we will be sending out a
formal report on the program as well as other
accounts of the trip, plus a whole documentary
of photos. For now, on behalf of all involved, I
thank all of you wholeheartedly for believing in
us and in the practical assistance this program
has offered not only the players but all those
who have experienced it. Kick
off Homelessness, Vive el Futbol!
7/8/05
Being
the coach of a homeless soccer team is like
driving around with a dead man in your car. No
actually being the coach of a homeless soccer
team is to driving around with a dead man
in your car, or at least the remains of dead man
which is to say the remains of some remains.
Whatever the phrasing, I ended up with a heavy
box containing a tin of ashes in the back seat
of my car for about a week because one of our
players had respected his dying mother's wishes
to take care of her husband, his stepfather, in
her absence. That vow fulfilled left our player
with the ashes in a small tin (cheaper than a
coffin), no family to contact, and lot of
uncertainty as to how to respectful
scatter/bury/say goodbye to the last strong
connection he had to his mother whom he loved
dearly for protecting him against an abusive
father. Leaving the ashes in my car was a way
for him to postpone that last farewell to his
mom.
“So what’s in that box anyway?,” I
asked over the phone. “That’s G---, was the
response.” “Excuse me?!,” and so the tragi-comic
dialogue continued. “Thanks, coach,” the
dialogue ended, and I passed a week with a
faithful companion in my car until emotions were
collected and G--- was properly laid to rest. I
begin this week’s note this way to emphasize
the theme of family that has come to the
forefront for our homeless soccer team. Ray
Isaac called me Monday morning to suggest that
we get together as team for the 4th
of July, because, in Ray’s words, “Our team
is a family, and that’s what family’s do,
get together on the holiday’s and kinda come
together-like.” Ray was with Andrey and Myrah
and he said he could get in touch with Abdul. So
I swung through uptown and collected whom I
could find while my brother, Rob, who is
interning with Art Works FC this summer, picked
up Ray and his crowd. We met at Carla’s house
for bit of street soccer and a cook-out. Carla,
in case you wondered, is doing a
internship with me for her major at Belmont
Abbey. She came to the program through one of
our players, Randy, who used to be her boss a
few years ago at the Home Economist before he
ended up on the street. Carla herself is a
remarkable story. Almost ten years ago she was a
teen on the street eating at the Urban Ministry
Center, then in its second year of existence.
While raising her children Carla finished her
GED and earned herself a full-ride at Belmont
Abbey. Recently she has given Randy a place to
stay as he completes his process of getting back
on his feet. Carla has been a tremendous aid
with all kinds of details for the program, and
she and her roommate were great hosts last
Monday. Carla also purchased her own plane
ticket to accompany the team in Scotland this
summer. So
at our family get together we watched video
footage of the previous Homeless World Cup,
listened to Crystal, Carla’s roommate play the
guitar, ate hamburgers and hot dogs, and played
soccer with the neighborhood kids. It was small
group: I, Rob, Carla and her household, Ray’s
crowd, and Prince from Ghana, but the rest of
the team was glad to hear we had gotten
together. Myrah was the big news at the
cook-out. She had been sick, unable to keep
anything down, and had been like that the past
three days. Given her symptoms, despite her
protests that it couldn’t be, when she said
she was nearly a month late, we all concluded
that a new family member was on the way. In the
end, it was a stomach virus, but the support
from team members for what would have been an
unfortunate situation, was impressive. When
Thursday’s practice rolled around, Rob had
already passed a day feeling ill, Ray was unable
to come to practice because he was throwing-up,
Abdul sat out with an upset stomach, and Tony
nearly missed our team photo because he was in
the bathroom vomiting. All this queasiness a
negative consequence of the otherwise positive
fact that our team has become very close.
Of current practicing members of the
team, Clayton, Stephanie, Ray, and Fred have
found their way off the street. That leaves
another large group still staying with friends
when they can or sleeping outdoors. The
make-shift solution has been for them to share a
camp in the woods or stay over at Ray’s place.
Besides a stomach virus, the other thing that
has come out among the team is the idea of
having a house together, a transitional soccer
home. It seems our team, independently
has conceived of a “housing first”
model of recuperation for themselves which of
course mimics the current en-vogue idea in
Washington for treating the growing homeless
epidemic. So we hereby put that idea out in the
open for starters, and perhaps someday something
will come of it. For now we are focused on the
World Cup! I direct all of you interested in our
team to www.street-soccer.org.
There you can see the other 31 teams from around
the world and read about their own tribulations
and triumphs along their road to Scotland. Finally,
I encourage you all to see Art Works Football
Club in our last domestic appearance before we
fly away on the 17th this Monday
night the 11th at 7pm at Charlotte Sports
Connection. Directions are under “schedule”
at www.homleesssoccer.org.
Also be on the lookout for a feature on our team
in next Wednesday’s issue of Creative Loafing.
Thanks
for reading.
6/25/05
Dear
Fans of Art Works FC,
Friday night I walked towards the
intersection of Trade and Tryon up the hill from
College Street (those of you who don’t know
Charlotte, this is the very center of the city
surrounded by skyscrapers) to meet friends and
head down to the McColl Center for Visual Arts
where there was an opening. Coming down towards
me were two AWFC players, Myrah and Andrey, each
with small backpacks on and their heads down.
They weren’t sad or downtrodden, despite our
11-5 loss last week and despite the frustration
of living in a tent in the woods. Incidentally,
Myrah almost couldn’t make our DC trip because
of a severe spider bite she suffered while
camping out. Actually, their heads were down
because they were doing what anyone else would
be doing on a Friday night a month before they
were leaving to represent the United States in a
world soccer championship. They were passing the
soccer ball. “What’s up coach?” they
looked up and greeted me. I asked them to join
me for the art exhibit and we waked through up
town to meet my friends. No sooner had we met
them than did Stephanie Johnson roll in on her
bike. The bike she was riding was given to her
by her teammate Ray Isaac. Stephanie needed the
bike because presently she doesn’t stay on the
bus-line and it’s too long of a walk to get to
work and Ray figured he could help out.
Stephanie mentioned that “Prince” (who
scored 4 of our 5 goals on Monday) was only a
couple more blocks away. I started to think were
going to have an impromptu scrimmage. As it
ended up Myrah, Andrey and I walked about 10
blocks down to the art exhibit, passing the ball
or playing keep away the entire time. The
exhibit was nice. Andrey recalled living with
his Mom in New York and how she would take him
to “art places and things like that” before
she left him to be raised by his uncle when she
moved back down South. Andrey was about nine
years old. He mentioned he had spoken with his
mom last week for the first time in several
years and that she was really happy he had
gotten back into sports.
This week, we also want to say a goodbye to Oscar Duran. Oscar
is sad to be leaving the team after playing in
10 consecutive matches and making the majority
of our practices over the last three months.
He’s been a real leader and his upbeat
attitude has made a positive impact on his
peers. Still we’re happy to see him move on
and he’s more thrilled than anyone to move out
of Charlotte to the Belmont area where he is
living with a crew of construction workers. They
have job out there this month and next month
he’ll travel with them to Georgia. In a month
he says he’ll have a car, and before he goes
to Georgia or after, he’ll drive back for our
games when he can, he promises. At 1am after our
game and before our overnight trip to DC we went
by the house off N. Tryon where Oscar had been
staying since he was discharged from the shelter
for not signing back in one night. Oscar wanted
to get his things because after DC he wasn’t
going back to that house. The house was locked
and no one came to the door. Oscar said the
house was horrible. If rent was late, or even if
it wasn’t, the owner would knock at the door
late at night looking for favors. At least it
was indoors and some nights were quiet. After
DC, we went by the house again. Oscar went to
the door. I was surprised to see a shirtless man
in dreadlocks whose appearance connoted
everything libertarian and whose voice sounded
almost mayoral in tone come out screaming at
Oscar in the most bullying manner. “The old
man doesn’t want to give me my cloths until I
pay him more money. Forget it! I am out of this
hell.” We drove off. Oscar laughed, leaned his
head back and against the rest, and looked out
the window.
Game-time is 10pm on Monday at the
Charlotte Sports Warehous 5/21/05
Dear
Fans of Art Works FC, Art Works FC lost its second game of the outdoor season last week by the score of 7-2. Quite a good result when you consider some of the following details. Goal scorer number one was Andre. He scored a good hustle goal following-up a misdirected shot by Leo Johnson. Andre is in his early twenties and not an official team member. He has come to a few practices and expressed much enthusiasm about the team. He was unusually recalcitrant on Monday night, but we convinced him to come anyway. In the van ride to the game he revealed that he had just learned that his younger cousin had been shot to death. The rest of the team was in high spirits, and two women on the team were vocal in telling Andre not to bring everyone’s spirit down before the game, that this soccer team was positive, and that they didn’t need any negative energy. Andre, already emotional, felt wronged. In short the situation was volatile. After getting out of the van Andre and others kept at one another until we were able to get Andre back in the van and drive around the block a few times in order to have a heart to heart. Andre and I talked about composure, having your own goals, and allowing others to say and act as they please as long as you stay focused on your goals, as well as other about other more personal details. Fortunately, team leader Stephanie Johnson apologized to Andre when we got back from our little drive. Still, why had the girls acted so negatively to Andre’s unfortunate condition? Well it might have to do with Marguerite’s new job. She works nights at UNCC in the laundry; but, having nowhere to stay during the day, she gets little sleep, less than 3 hours, making her understandably cranky. Stephanie, on the other hand is stable right now, but she has clearly become a team leader, starting nine games in a row and second only to Tony Kelly in practice attendance. Leadership responsibilities are not always the easiest thing to handle when you are just getting your own life in order. I was proud that Stephanie reconsidered her position and put team unity ahead of ego after the initial altercation. Consider
also goal scorer number two, Tony Kelly. Our
single most consistent player on the team, Tony
is a young man, 25, completely on his own. He
never knew his dad and his mother died shortly
before he graduated from high school in Dallas,
Texas. He then moved to Charlotte to live with
his sister who herself was struggling to make
ends meet. Then Tony earned his nickname,
“Statyk,” after being struck by lightning.
As a result Tony has a variety of health issues,
some real, some psychosomatic, others a complete
farce. Tony
has many admirable characteristics. He is
helpful at the soup kitchen, he stands up for
and supports his friends, and he held down a
great job at Jillian’s last fall before going
to Iowa to look after his dying aunt, or perhaps
he followed girl there (?). On the other hand,
Tony is woefully immature and pulls any number
of stunts from hilarious impersonations, silent
treatments, loud cursing, denying his own racial
heritage, etc. to get attention. Last week he
simulated a diabetic seizure for which we
suspended him from practice and limited his
playing time on Monday, making him fully aware
that any other such activity would mean he could
not compete again with us. Tony scored on an
outlet pass from our goalie Clayton. He outran a
defender and slipped a one-on-one past the
goalie with his weaker right foot. Seeing the
joy on Tony’s face, like seeing the relief on
Andre’s launched the whole Art Works team and
fans into celebration. Teammates’ and
coaches’ frustrations were forgotten in a
moment of camaraderie. Another
reason a 7-2 loss was a good result was because
two of our strongest more consistent players,
Abdul Wright and Michael Schell, who played in 6
and 7 games respectively of our last 7-game
season, checked themselves into drug treatment
last week after relapsing. Each are now 12 days
into a 28-day program at the McCloud Center on
Remount. Each had spoken frankly about their
drug addictions with the coaching staff, but had
not exhibited any symptoms of relapsing,
Completely of their own volition they
matriculated in these programs. We were proud
not to have them last week.
4/14/05
Dear
Fans of Art Works FC,
We are proud to announce that the first
glimpse of photographer Ben Depp’s work about
AWFC can now be viewed by means of a slide show
on our website: www.homelesssoccer.org.
Ben is a great talent. He captures the
refreshing oddness of our team, but just as well
the genuine nature of our players’ efforts,
struggles, and successes.
It is sad that one of our players,
Feliciano Robles declined coming to practice
last week because he had no tennis shoes and it
hurt his feet to play in his boots. Conversely,
it is a great joy and relief to know that thanks
to the fine leaders of Sports Endeavors, Inc.,
also know as Eurosport, the largest traders of
soccer equipment in the world, Art Works FC with
be completely outfitted for play and the days of
taking shots in work boots and jeans will soon
be a memory.
Coming up . . . Art Works Football Club
with a have a scrimmage and dinners with Girls
on the Run this Thursday at 2pm. We hope
everyone will come to the start of our outdoor
season this coming Monday at the Charlotte
Sports Warehouse. Time of the game will be
posted on the website as soon as it is made
available.
4/7/05: |
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