Cultures unite in West Side soccer program

By Chris Dierken and Leif Reigstad
Bengal News West Reporters

It’s an overcast and muggy Saturday morning at Front Park, quiet but for the sounds of sneakers squeaking on the slick pavement of the parking lot as dozens of children play in the West Side International Soccer program’s first-ever street soccer tournament.

In the middle of the parking lot there is a tall statue of Commodore Oliver Perry, casting his gaze out toward Lake Erie’s blue waters, visible just over the I-190. A few children sit at the base of the statue waiting to be subbed into the action.

Most of these children come from refugee families, immigrants from war-torn countries like Somalia, Burma, Iraq and Kenya. Mateo Escobar, who runs West Side International Soccer with his fiancée, Amanda Swallow, had told them not to wear cleats, but flats instead, shoes that are designed for playing soccer on hard surfaces.

Swallow and Escobar, on the soccer program:

But not one of them brought street soccer-specific shoes. A few are wearing cleats. Others are wearing beat-up Jordans or torn, low-top Converses. One child’s tattered pair of black skater shoes peaks out from beneath baggy and faded blue flannel pajamas.

Last session, Escobar and Swallow purchased purple jerseys and tee shirts for the players. Next year they’ll have a full uniform.

“A lot of these kids don’t have proper dress,” Swallow said. “They come out to practice in the bitter cold wearing tattered clothing, hand-me-downs that have already gone through ten children. We try to do what we can to help with that.”

In addition to holding practice sessions on Saturday afternoons, Escobar and Swallow also provide players with nutritious meals and transportation to and from practice. Swallow picks up the players herself in a large, beat-up black van, driving a route that takes her all over the city.

They also take players on service trips, volunteering at places like Friends of Night People and helping to rehab run-down homes.

“There’s just so much more that we want to provide,” Swallow said. “But sometimes it gets frustrating because we just don’t have the means.”

For most other youth soccer clubs, the majority of financial support comes from the parents paying their child’s way. That is not the case with West Side International Soccer, which serves a low-income population. Despite being financially strapped, Escobar and Swallow have seen the program grow from 40 kids to more than 150 in just over a year, since it started.

West Side International Soccer’s all-volunteer staff relies almost entirely on donations from the community—churches, schools and some other soccer programs have all pitched in.

“We want to provide them a safe environment where they can come and have fun and build relationships with each other,” Swallow said. “There are so many stresses just from being out on the street. When they’re the only English-speakers in their family, there’s a lot of pressure. Sometimes they’re raising themselves, and that gets them into trouble.”

During the street soccer tournament, one of the players—a thin, lanky 18-year old wearing worn grey sneakers, with the laces tied around his ankles—constantly jaws at the referee and trash-talks opponents.

Given the troubled backgrounds of many of these players, Escobar and Swallow said behavior like this is not a surprise. But this particular player has been with the program since the beginning, and has recently shown improvement—he has even told Esobar and Swallow that he wants to volunteer with WSIS and coach some of the younger kids.

Late in a game, he gets tripped and skins his knee on the pavement.

“I don’t want to play anymore,” he said, holding his knee in disgust.

“OK then, don’t play,” the referee said, and the player walks off the court. But he comes back a few seconds later.

He wants to play.