Soccer as a Countercultural Sport

My friend Paul Semonin, long a critic of mainstream American culture, remarked that soccer is a subversive sport.  It has certainly seemed so to me over the past week.

First our Old Nicks team was euphoric over a 2-0 loss.  Why?  Well, we had just two subs and managed to play the best team in the league even for long stretches.  We had a lot of possession and worked hard and smart the whole game.  Also, to be truthful, we are usually pretty happy regardless of the score because it is a joy to play together with people you respect and enjoy.

Then, a day later came the second leg of the Western Conference finals between Portland and Salt Lake City, in Portland.  Portland had lost the first leg, 4-2, and also lost this game, 1-0, so lost 5-2 on aggregate.  But as the end of the game neared and the Salt Lake City players began a long celebration, most of the 20,000+ Portland fans--rather than walking out in disgust or booing-- serenaded the team with a song: "I Can't Help Falling In Love with You."  Click here for a short video.

In soccer, as in life, "winning" can be both difficult to achieve and subjective.  Likewise, "losses" can be transformed by friendship, loyalty, and passion.

501(c)(3) Status Awarded--But Let's Stay Grounded

I am delighted to share the news that the IRS has approved Yo Ghana! as a 501(c)(3) organization!  This has two major implications: 1) Those who donate to us can deduct that donation from their taxes; 2) We have much more legitimacy than before.

That said, several of our board members have already been warning me not to lose sight of the importance of accounting for every penny of what is donated to us, even as those pennies start becoming a bit easier to come by.  We shall continue to be an all-volunteer organization, with our funds going to facilitate both connections between schools in Ghana and the Pacific Northwest and to strengthen the educational prospects of Ghanaian students.

It is always tempting to try to solve problems by "throwing money" at them, and this is especially so in Africa, where needs can seem overwhelming and local resources meager.  But more and more informed people are arguing that the best development incorporates local ideas, labor, materials, and money.  Hence Yo Ghana! will seldom, if ever, simply fund 100% of a given project or scholarship.  We will expect our local partners--schools as well as students--to continue to blend our resources with their own.  In fact many Ghanaians tell me that the best thing Yo Ghana! can accomplish in a given school or community is to encourage local initiative--which is often the exact opposite of what a big wad of cash from an outside NGO does.

And, by the way, if you are interested in contributing to an organization that is trying to help in a way that respects local initiative, there is a Paypal button on our website: http://www.yoghana.org/.  I promise that we'll do our best to make sure that your gift is used not only with good intentions, but with good results.  Not only that, but your gift is--and I have the pleasure of at last being able to say this with certitude--tax deductible.

From Neighborhood Teammates to High School Rivals

For me, as a parent, watching Jesuit play Central Catholic tomorrow in the 6A boys' soccer championship game will be bittersweet, at best.

 

From second through eighth grade my son, Peter, and my wife and I were part of a shifting group of families who almost all lived within a couple of miles of each other in NE Portland, whose sons shared an unusual level of interest and skill in soccer.  As parents, we not only enjoyed watching our sons play, but we also became good friends.  There was always some turnover, but not much until they started playing classic soccer in grade five--essentially a year-round commitment.  Julius, our fastest player, decided to run track year round and has been very successful.  Sam, a fabulous midfielder and distributor, went off to become a star quarterback, just as I told his mother he would.  And some didn't leave by choice.  Classic soccer is like a family in which you get booted out if your son reaches puberty late or has a bad day during try-outs or there aren't enough players for two teams.  But other neighborhood players joined, and we had quite a cohesive and strong classic team by the time the boys were in eight grade, one that--in part because of the close relationships--was occasionally able to knock off the big suburban clubs that drew most of their players from across the Portland Metro Area rather than from two or three elementary schools.  Northeast United, our club, stopped at high school, but from a young age many of us had talked about our sons playing soccer together as young men in high school and club.  It hasn't turned out that way.  Most of the players and their parents headed to the big suburban clubs that we used to so relish beating, and the great majority of the young men divvied themselves up between three high schools: Grant, Jesuit, and Central Catholic.  Now juniors, there are three each on the Jesuit and Central Catholic varsity teams.  A few days ago, former NEU teammates also faced off when Jesuit played Grant.  Seeing each other at such events has become a bit like seeing someone you promised to go to college with, start a business with, or keep in touch with--but didn't.  There's a lot of history and warmth there; but time has intervened.

Does this much bother the young men?  I doubt it.  They are resilient, probably even take a little extra enjoyment in playing people they know well, especially when they win.

But it's hard on us parents.  While watching Henry lay the ball off to his midfielders I'll of course be hoping he makes a mistake while also remembering what an unselfish player he was even five, seven, nine years ago.  Mostly, I'll be thinking of how quickly everything changes.

The Humiliations and Gifts of Foster Parenting

One of the most important events in my life occurred more than a quarter century ago, when for three very lively months I was a single foster parent.  Which is to say that I quickly moved from being a laid-back, easy-going guy to a man constantly confronted by his short comings.  If you want to believe you are a saint, never, ever, ever, ever become a foster parent.

It soon became clear that my seemingly sweet foster son had been through hell (extensive physical, sexual, and emotional abuse), that he was full of anger and hurt, and that before he would trust me he would test and test and test me.  Parenting strategies learned from books and working in a day care were quickly exhausted, and I was revealed to myself and to my boy to have much less empathy, love, and patience than I had thought.

I decided that all I had going for me was a determination to stick with my foster son until I was carried out of our little apartment in a pine box--or a straight jacket.  And there was something wonderfully liberating about that, about realizing that all I really had to offer my traumatized boy was a promise to never give up on him.  And that seemed to be enough--in no small part because he chose to love and trust me, notwithstanding the many betrayals and cruelties that adults had already inflicted on him, and my own many frailties.

We seldom approach perfection.  There are many days when mere competence eludes us.  But we can just about always choose to hang in there.

I soon lost touch with my son of three months as he moved on to what I hoped would be a permanent family.  I like to think that I offered him a little, albeit far from flawless, bridge from a life of trauma to one that has been full of healing and accomplishment.  I know that he offered a great deal to me.

Josh Swiller's Peace Corps Memoir and Dissolving Identities

I've long been impressed by The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa, by Josh Swiller, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia in the 1990s.  The book featured in my piece on the Peace Corps in Africa published two years ago in African Identities, and I recently re-read the book as part of my work in writing what I hope will some day be a book on American views of Africa since 1945.

Swiller found what he was looking for in Africa, "that place past deafness," as he put it in a 2007 interview with Peace Corps Writers.  The Zambian villagers didn't think much about his deafness, and Swiller soon felt integrated into village life in a way that he never had been back "home."

But, like most PCVs, he also found a lot that he hadn't bargained for.  He gradually became alienated from most of the village, and the project that he had become most devoted to, building a new clinic, turned to ashes.

Zambia, then, radically reworked Swiller's self identity.  It not only showed him that being deaf was less central to that identity than he had supposed, but also that his assumptions about individual agency and power were something of a mirage, that he had much less control over his life--and certainly over the lives of others--than he had imagined.

2007 Interview with Swiller