DIE

The resolution from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox to kill Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs leaves a stain on the amazing achievements of Dreamers I coached.

First Things First» I've given a lot of thought to what I'm about to say and need to be careful how I say this. But, I feel like I need to; it’s what my late mom who was like a second mom to many of these kids and what my ex-wife as team mom would have wanted.

Diversity.

» Because I'm white, I receive a ton of privilege wherever I go. When I'm pulled over by a police officer for a bad taillight there aren't legions of squad cars lining up behind me—even though I drive a car with tinted windows that could easily be mistaken for one that players I’ve coached might have. 

When I walk onto the soccer pitch, I'm not targeted by opposing fans for the color of my skin. I'm not called a "w*tback," or the N-word. I don't come off the field in tears while a team captain is shaking his fists at referees who let this racism continue—in Sandy, in West Jordan, in Saratoga Springs, all season long. 

I'm not the mother of a child who got clotheslined by a defender on his way to another goal at the Weber County Fairgrounds, watching in vain as his own mother is led away in handcuffs simply for sticking up for her child when she wandered onto the field, demanding the referees do something—anything—about this madness in broken English. 

I'm not the kid who comes from a rough background—mom’s in rehab so he lives with his grandma—so when he jokes about having a gun in his shorts to an opposing player the fact that he's a straight-A student goes completely out the window when the referee hears about it and tells our white director of coaching. 

I'm not a group of kids who don’t understand why they could no longer play for this club they loved when their parents’ credit cards didn’t go through or when they got injured after this club that previously paid their way, stopped doing so.

I’m not the kid who is soldiering through a torn MCL all season because he doesn't have medical insurance and his parents don't understand how child welfare works in the US. I'm not the kid who enters Real Salt Lake’s academy but can't continue after a month there due to the fact that it is pay-to-play. I’m not the kid who has to steal from a grocery store to eat during the season because his parents don’t make enough to pay for a meal plan and he’s too proud to admit that he’s hungry to any of his college coaches.

I’m not any of these kids, but I coached all these Dreamers [and parents] who have made their fair share of mistakes, knowingly and unknowingly.

Equity. 

» The dream of anyone entering the United States for the first time is to first survive in this new world. That much is true. To hold dreams in a new land that is more free than the war-ravaged, totalitarian countries from whence they came. 

I've coached kids from all of Central America, and every South American country from Chile to Brazil. I've eyeballed well-worn birth certificates from war-torn parts of Africa that only display the 1st day of the month in which the boy or girl is born. I've had a new arrival from South Sudan show up to practice wearing an old sports coat over his soccer jersey because it's a bit chilly out and this was the only coat given to the kid by his family's refugee representative.

I've consoled mothers from Bosnia-Herzegovina who just wanted a safe and place in America for their kids to play, a sanctuary while they're working three jobs to make ends meet. And the last thing they want in their 2-bedroom apartment filled with two immigrant families and piping hot tiny, ornate cups of espresso on a table is to hand their kids over to mean city streets below where two saloons, a motel and a gentlemen’s club sit and blare welcome signs in neon.

I'm nobody special in the grand scheme of things, but you can learn a lot from people who are lacking in certain things. You can learn a lot by seeing how these kids interact with each other between drills. You can learn a lot — former Real Salt Lake head coach Jason Kreis did, as a player — by watching these kids play made-up games before practice.

Photo by Adrià Crehuet Cano on Unsplash

You can learn a lot from someone by entering their cramped 1-bedroom apartment teeming with roaches scurrying across its walls while a mother swathed in flowing robes and a burqa sings a soothing hymn from her native land to a crying infant swaddled in her arms. You can shake hands with a father from Oaxaca, Mexico whose arms are covered in grease up to both elbows and assure him that his son is OK.

I tell them all that I understand their concerns and will make sure their children are driven home before dark though it usually got dark by the time I got them all home. As a human being, you feel a certain sense of compassion when you are forced to do something outside of your general purview. It goes way beyond actual coaching when you witness this and drop each kid off at their own personal situations in their own versions of Hell.