Soccer Unites People

A few months ago, I had an opportunity of a lifetime to live in Mexico. I spent about five weeks volunteering at an incredible orphanage in Puerto Vallarta.

The first couple days of volunteering I traveled via taxi between my grandmother’s condo and the orphanage. On the third day of the experience, I gathered up enough courage to try to find my way home by foot.

The experience was both terrifying and exciting. I started on the right path, but suddenly I found myself going in circle. The more I walked, the faster my heart beat, and I don’t think it was because of my fitness. As a person who is scared of dogs, the combination of being lost and stray dogs were not calming to my nerves.

After being drenched in sweat from the heat and probably anxiety, I stumbled upon a futsal court. The sound of a soccer ball being crushed against the cement wall put a huge smile on my face, and my anxiety vanished.

There were two eleven-year-old boys taking turn shoot on each other. I stood there observing them for about five minutes, until I built up enough courage to use my Spanish to ask if I can just kick it around with them.

My first shot was pretty embarrassing. With a one step approach I skied it, and the ball sailed over the fence into the garbage filled river that ran underneath the court. Fortunately it got better after the first shot.

Shortly after, another one of their amigos joined us, and we started a two on two game. After about an hour of an intense match under the scorching sun we ended our game. One of the kids asked me if I played professional, I laughed and told him no. With some extra change in my pocket, I gave the boys 50 pesos to get a soda to share. After we started to part way one of the boys, Felipe, asked me if I was going to return the following day.

That day’s adventure was about being lost and found, but that experience was about soccer and how it can be such a powerful tool that can unite strangers. For all I know they probably thought I was Mexican, so I never told them I was Cambodian American.

Soccer: Not Just a Game!

Tears streamed down my face. Post-game treats didn’t taste good. Parents of my teammates used to tell me that soccer is just a game. But when I was young, soccer was never just a game to me.

I moved to the St. Louis Park, Minnesota from Cambodia when I was nine years old in 1998. Half a world away from home in a strange land and not being able to speak a word of English, I felt pretty small, scared and lonely. I carried on my shoulders these feelings for the longest time, until my gramma signed me up for traveling soccer that very spring.

Until this day I can never thank her enough. Soccer has been a footstool that has allowed my to stand eye level with everyone else that had a head start. It became a game that has helped define who I am today.

I can recall my first practice like it was yesterday. On a chilly spring morning my gramma dropped me off at Ainsworth Park in St. Louis Park. On one side of the field there was a great big hill, and on the other side was low-income housing. I showed up to my first practice in denim shorts and a grey tee shirt that read ‘World’s People’ across my chest. After the first practice was done, that was my history in the making.