FOOTBALL OF A DIFFERENT SORT
In entirely non-football-related news: please, please, please read the NYT article “Outcasts United,” written by friend of the blog Warren St. John about the Fugees, an all-refugee youth soccer league in our backyard of Clarkston, Georgia.
The article is just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, along with the photographs multimedia stuff accompanying it. Luma is a local hero in our neighborhood, and seeing her get some substantial support and recognition for her work warms the cockles of our otherwise dusty, cold heart. If you’d like to support the Fugees, visit their website and click the soccer ball to donate.
Bring tissues. It’s that kind of party.
Lions on the prowl: Fugees take the field.
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TCOAN - ” . . . no helmet laws.” Well played!
Orson - Many thanks for sharing the link. I continue to be amazed at what I learn here in addition to good sandwich recipes.
All - For those of us who were touched by the story but don’t live in the Greater Clarkston / ATL area, I’m willing to bet that there are similar opportunities to lend a hand where we live if we’d just pause long enough to find them. Reading about the soccer coach’s efforts reminds me of a passage from Robert Fulghum’s follow-up to his classic, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. In the follow-up, he tells of a friend who didn’t care much for the warm and fuzzy kindergarten story because the joys and safety of kindergarten simply don’t exist for many children in this world. Fulghum acknowledges that fact and then issues a challenge to all of us with these closing words:
“I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will doabout it. I do not want to know what you hope for, I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity, I want your muscle. As the wagon driver said when they came to a long, hard hill, ‘them that’s going on with us, get out and push. Them that ain’t, get out of the way.’”
From It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It
Comment by Never Saw Molly Hatchet — January 25, 2007 @ 12:00 am
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Pocho–
I have a feeling that one of the commenters here (you probably know who I’m talking about) would be right at home with the inbreds from Clarksville who screamed “Go home, N*****s!” to the Fugee players after a game.
People like that are why I am so in favor of no helmet laws.
Comment by The Conscience of a Nation — January 24, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
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Orson…THANK YOU for posting this. If Mr. St. John is a friend of yours, please tell him it is a glorious piece of work. You know what sucks? I was so touched by the story, but felt like crap after reading some of the comments.
Why can’t we ALL feel good about this story? Pulitzer material.
Comment by Pocho — January 24, 2007 @ 3:39 am
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The soccer players I’ve known never even tried out for football, baseball, or basketball. And those people never tried out for soccer.
Low scoring b/c they don’t run enough? Well, I guess the US trade deficit is caused by the lack of solitaire being played on Leap years by Dutch lesbians.
Communistic? And how many people on a football field have the right to call their own shots? As much as I love the support, it surprisingly leaves little or no freedom of choice. Soccer, on the other hand . . .
Sport with a purpose? Is there a new Rick Warren book called “The Purpose-Filled Sport?” I’m on my way to Wal Mart to find out.
Comment by MCab — January 23, 2007 @ 9:25 pm
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What’s dumb about the soccer arguments is that nobody views it as being strange at all to be a fan of say both football and basketball. But as soon as soccer is mentioned some of the dumbasses get all threatened.
Last Sunday’s Manchester United vs Arsenal game was proof that you don’t need lots of scoring to be exciting (though the goals at the finish were pretty damn cool, even for someone who was rooting for Man U).
Comment by oc phil — January 23, 2007 @ 3:36 pm