Patrick Henry High School team fields players from around the world.
It’s a warm April evening, with a steady breeze snapping the American flag atop Patrick Henry High School’s stadium. Twenty-one boys soccer players finish their warm-up and form a tight huddle on the field.
From the circle emerges a deep note as team co-captain Erick Kilosho strikes an African drum. He continues. And the rhythm wafts through the air. The boys’ voices rise up: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s go, PH! Let’s go, PH!” The djembe’s tones from another world keep pace with the chants.
Then the team squeezes together for a giant hug. And the game begins.
On the field for Patrick Henry are 11 players — nine of them foreign-born. They hail from three countries: Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania. The goalie is first-generation American; his parents immigrated from Guatemala.
Including the players on the bench, the Patriots speak six languages. Soccer is their lingua franca.
Even the soccer is not all the same. These boys grew up in big-city suburbs and small Southern towns. They dribbled their first balls at the edges of refugee camps or neighborhoods they later fled. Each country has its own soccer style and rules — or lack thereof.
“Soccer is different in Africa,” explains Erick Kilosho, with a grin. “There’s no referees. There, you’ve got to tough it out.”
But on the field, all season long, PH’s soccer team is not two dozen players from around the world. They are one team, playing one game.
For the past 15 years, it has been Coach Chris Dowdy’s job to turn athletes from South Korea, Nepal, Mexico, Rwanda, Burundi and Roanoke into a running, passing, scoring force to be reckoned with.
How does he do it?
“We hang out a lot together,” Dowdy chuckles. The team shares a meal the night before each game. They gather for movies on Friday nights. They exercise and eat together during the off-season. They take trips to Charlottesville to see former teammates play on the University of Virginia’s soccer team. “I just feel like the only way you’re going to be close is by spending time together,” Dowdy says.
For most of the past eight years, the team has taken a long weekend beach trip before the season gets going. The point is to knit together these players from vastly different backgrounds. Dowdy assigns the cars the kids ride in and the rooms where they will sleep. He arranges to stop at a university along the way to tour sports facilities and campus. Once at the beach house, all electronics are shut down. The high schoolers gather around fire pits, participate in sing-a-longs and perform in an all-in-good-fun talent show.
“One thing Dowdy has done such a great job with is team-building,” says assistant coach Manny Scere. Scere — from Ivory Coast — was a PH player under Dowdy who became one of the three students Dowdy has sent to the UVA soccer program. Scere came back to Roanoke last fall to help coach as he contemplates a professional soccer career. “Dowdy’s the glue,” he says.
Even with this bonding, PH’s soccer team cannot overcome all the cultural walls the world erects. Off the field, these players live very different lives from one another. Their classes, their hobbies, their parents don’t often intersect.
But tonight is a good night. Patrick Henry scores early in its game against Hidden Valley. The djembe comes out from under the bench; the players pound it in celebration.
In the first half, players burst across the field. They boot powerful kicks and dribble so masterfully their feet are a blur. They are with the ball, in front of the ball. They are the ball.
Team co-captain Luke Suess, says the Patriots’ diversity is their super power.
“The playing style between different countries varies,” he explains. “As a result, we have a team most other teams aren’t used to playing against. There’s just, like, a freshness about it.”
There’s also a deep love of the game. As the players move the ball up the field, they are positively grinning.
“We never cancel practice,” Dowdy says. “Soccer is what they really, really want to do.”
The second half minutes tick down, and the goals keep coming. The boys on the bench are on their feet. The team is feeling a little loose, a little rowdy. With a lead like this, nearly everyone sees playing time.
In the end, the score is 8 to 1.
In the end, six players make those eight goals: Kalefa Boyar, Ndayizeye Bonere, Pacific Ibanzi, Sedrick Kilosho, Leon Masudi, Ahmad Ramadhan.
In the end, this team of many cultures and many countries comes together for the win.
About the Writer:
Christina Nifong is a writer with a decades-long career profiling interesting people, places and ideas. She’s also a committed locavore and mother to three kids, four chickens and one very sweet kitty. Find more of her work at christinanifong.com.
