With the help of their namesake hairdo, members of the Sacramento Mohawks managed to stand out among their competition at the 2010 Street Soccer USA Cup on Sunday. Their collective rows of trimmed hair atop bald scalps helped form a sense of team commonality against the strong individualists on display during the tournament here. One player from the six-member Mohawks made herself even more distinguishable by virtue of her gender and her level of play.
Lisa Wrightsman, the only woman on the team, is the second career scoring leader for Sacramento State University. She also played several years of semipro soccer in California until personal problems overwhelmed her life.
Ms. Wrightsman, who said she had been clean and sober for nine months after drugs and alcohol had consumed her, found herself in a place she could not have imagined a year ago. On the final day of the three-day tournament, she shared some of her personal plights with a few hundred fellow homeless people at the Washington Kastles' team tennis stadium.
This was not the style of free-form street soccer played in many places around the world. Instead, it was an Americanised version, a fast-paced four-on-four game with referees ensuring adherence to rules and walls confining play on a 52-by-72-foot field, the goals being 12 feet wide and four feet high.
The games were played in an arena bouncing with lively music and a party atmosphere on a comfortably warm summer day. It was an environment well suited for street soccer players like Ms. Wrightsman, people who struggle in less-restricted personal environments.
“This is so much more than a game, than a competition,” Ms. Wrightsman said. “It's not natural for me to handle things maturely and responsibly. Here, you're trying to solve the problem with something you love. I needed to change. I was going to end up in jail or I was going to die.”
Ms. Wrightsman said a week in jail for drug possession and trespassing persuaded her to seek recovery at the Mather Community Campus of Sacramento, which provides transitional housing for the homeless. Her case manager and the coach of the Mohawks, Chris Mann, talked Ms. Wrightsman into joining the Mather soccer team.
“I was kind of freaked because I came here to get a job and focus and it's like, oh, soccer,” Ms. Wrightsman said. “But it ended up being truly amazing.”
The pressures that accompanied her lifelong pursuit of perfection in soccer helped fuel her need to abuse drugs and alcohol, she said. Now, she has joined street soccer players who use the sport to help improve their lives.
About 200 players came from teen shelters, refugee resource centres and recovery houses from across the country, as well as one team from St. Petersburg, Russia. The Russian team won the title, beating a team from San Francisco in the final, 6-1.
One of the Russian players, Arkady Tyurin (48), joked about the team's collective age as he accepted the championship trophy. “We are quite old, 220 years as a team and 44 years in sobriety,” he said. Minutes later, surrounded by most of the players who exchanged random hugs and high-fives,
Mr. Tyurin talked about his two and a half years of living on the streets of Russia and his life struggling with alcohol addiction. He clearly relished the pleasure of competing in the USA Cup.
“From one hand, football is a competition; you play to the end,” he said. “But the idea to connect is better than that. Soccer destroys borders.”
Earlier, during the end-of-tournament celebration, a moment of pride engulfed T.K. Ajiboye of Far Rockaway, New York Ajiboye served 18 months on a drug charge, he said. After his release, he worked at various jobs and eventually joined the Street Soccer New York team and moved into the HELP Supportive Employment Center of Wards Island.
Mr. Ajiboye, now working as a waiter, was named to the 12-man player pool from which the eight-player U.S. team that competes in the 2010 Homeless World Cup in Brazil in September will be selected.
“Being part of this scene means a whole lot,” he said. “No one person has it worse. If you meet the next person and you hear his problems, you're ‘Oh my God.' It makes my foundation even stronger.”
For the first time, a women's Homeless World Cup will be held. Ms. Wrightsman was named to the ten-member pool from which the eight-player United States team will be selected. Later in the day, she added the USA Cup's most valuable player honours.
“I'm honoured, shocked,” she said of making the national team. “I've worked harder to do this than anything in my life.”
Each team played 15-minute games in a round-robin format on Friday and Saturday and through the elimination rounds Sunday. Ms. Wrightsman's and Mr. Ajiboye's teams lost in the first round of the consolation bracket Sunday.
Mr. Mann talked about Ms. Wrightsman's influence on her Sacramento teammates. All but Ms. Wrightsman took up soccer in the last year.
“We play in an open men's league, and at the beginning, our guys were a little intimidated,” he said. “We now feel we can compete in every game.” — New York Times News Service
