Site Staff Anna shares the joys and triumphs of a summer focusing on youth leadership development through soccer.
Three years or so ago Kathleen and I were dreaming about the kids in our community. Wouldn’t it be so cool if they could lead something? If they could be the ones in charge and show everyone that they could make a positive impact in our community? Yes, we thought, that would be cool, but we were a long way from that being possible, and no one had really done it before. Other Servant Partners sites and similar ministries focused on adult leadership development. What would leadership development with kids look like? Was it even possible?
It is hard to put into words the utter joy, complete elation, and overwhelming rightness of witnessing eleven boys, ages 11-16, design and lead a week of football camp (they were very specific that football is a better term than soccer).
This vision began last year when we invited Athletes in Action to run a soccer camp week in our community. We have known for years that soccer is the universal language of Appleby, and after that camp if you asked any of the kids who attended what their favourite activity we had done with them was, 90% of the time they said soccer camp. And some of the boys in our community are good. Obsessive and athletic, they can and will tell you all about their favourite players and teams, and argue who the GOAT (greatest of all time) is.
This isn’t to say that soccer is a panacea for all that is wrong in the community: bullying, racism, and sexism are prevalent when the kids gather to play. When we were getting kids to sign up, the first to be excited to join were some Afghan girls but their brothers were quick to say they weren’t allowed (for no other reason than that they were girls). There is an age divide, where the older kids exclude anyone younger who they decide isn’t good enough to play with them. And even during our Athletes in Action soccer week this year, the racism that exists between different ethnic communities boiled over into fist fights, slurs, and swearing multiple times. But soccer is fun. It is accessible for the kids in our community in ways other sports aren’t, and we followed the hope for more of God’s unifying shalom.
Two of Servant Partners’ core values are transformation and discipleship, which are often expressed through local leadership development. We decided early on that we would do everything we could to support the boys in creating and facilitating their football camp, but that if they chose not to show up, not to invest, not to stick it out through the hard things, we wouldn’t rescue them. We gave them enough responsibility that they could fail. We asked more of them than possibly anyone had before believing they could rise to the challenge.
There is a common girl-power quote: “She believed she could, and so she did”. I would change this quote to: “We believed they could, and so they did.” Not because we are especially important, but because somebody–anybody–is. How often we forget the important role that our communities and those older than us play in teaching us what we are capable of. Because we believe language matters we intentionally called them ‘coaches’. We were simply the ‘adults’ who helped them carry out their vision.
And they rose to the challenge. Coach S. (13) not only showed up to each of the planning sessions and camp days on time, but often was the one who reminded, coordinated, and ensured that the other coaches also made it. Multiple times he encouraged the other coaches when they felt they didn’t have the skills, confidence, or English proficiency to lead. Another coach–K. (13)–made us all smile when he ran up and down the sidelines with a whiteboard cheering on and coaching his teammates. He was also the first one to comfort and encourage any of the other coaches when they lost a game or even when they got so frustrated they quit and said they weren’t coming back. Coach O. (12) visibly grew in his patience and understanding of the younger players on his team–spending intentional time teaching the girls on his team a specific drill to increase their passing skills. Coach D (11) chose to show up and play with a positive attitude, encouraging the rest of his team, even when they lost by 10 and another of the coaches on his team walked off the field. We witnessed anger, swearing, and tears as these coaches, over and over again, chose to come back, to try again, and to keep leading.
And their hard work paid off. We watched the younger kids, grow in skill and confidence throughout the week of coaching, and play as useful members of their team during the tournament. One girl who is often excluded because she’s small said on the day before the tournaments that she was coming tomorrow morning to play as hard as she possibly could. She told me this while sitting on the bench with tear tracks on her face because she had used her foot to block a shot from a 16-year-old (he didn’t score).
We weren’t the only ones who noticed how hard they were working. All the volunteers that joined us were impressed. Two of the younger kids showed up in the evening at Kathleen’s (site staff) house wanting to bake banana bread for the coaches. They recognized the work the older boys put in and wanted them to know how much fun they were having.
Yes, there was chaos and a tie-dye fiasco (my fault), but we were all surprised at how smoothly the camp ran. We may have had to repeat ourselves a few more times than we wished, and reminded the kids to be quiet, gather, and listen in what felt like an almost endless loop, but they did. They quieted, they gathered, they listened, they learned, and they grew. The ethnic groups that were at odds with each other a few weeks before managed to play on the same teams together, learning the strengths and skills of the people they would’ve called their enemies.
Growth comes from challenge, and there were many challenges for growth. Though we had to send Coach O. home at the end of a really hard day for being unsportsmanlike, he came back the next day with a willingness to be patient and try again, eventually leading his team to win the entire tournament! Coach K. walked off the field in the middle of a game leaving his team because he was frustrated about losing. Yet he came back to lead his team to an upset victory over the first seed team. And after Coach D. sat crying at a goal post after losing because he felt nobody else was trying, his team recognized his effort and chose to work with him to encourage their team together. Through the encouragement of all of the other coaches, these boys overcame things I’m not sure I would’ve been able to overcome at 11 or 13, and they recognize that in themselves. At the end of the tournament, whether they had won or lost, they were proud of themselves. Proud of what they did, and how they chose to keep playing and being there for their teammates.
They weren’t the only ones who were proud. We’ve known some of these kids since they were five or six or seven. Some of them shocked us in their maturity and perseverance. The joy I felt— and it wasn’t a tithe to the joy I saw in the faces of the kids around me— was overwhelming. It felt like God was shouting: “This! This is what we are meant to be doing!”
Football camp is over, but its legacy is not. Before I had even taken a breath at the end of football camp, one of the coaches asked me when we were doing the next one. All of the coaches chimed in with their ideas on how they would do it differently next time. One coach even told me that we had three weeks until school started, so we had lots of time to fit another week of football camp in. A few weeks later, we threw a carnival BBQ to celebrate all the successes of the summer, and one of the kids who had joined late and had some struggles integrating into his team told me that he thinks he has what it takes to coach next year.
Don’t misunderstand me, it wasn’t perfect. We still had to send some kids home for racist remarks (they came back the next day though). There was still some swearing, name calling, and blaming others for losing. Some of the coaches arrived late even at the end of the week because they didn’t set alarms. But like Randy Woodley says, “Shalom is not a utopian destination; it is a constant journey.” We are moving forward, witnessing more glimpses of life as God created it to be. The boys are more willing to let some of the girls play with them (baby steps). The older kids are more patient and accepting of the younger ones who were on their teams. The ethnicities that had clashed earlier in the summer were a little more willing to offer the other the benefit of the doubt.
Writing this blog post makes me think of Hebrews 11. I would love to give you a 'Heroes of the Faith' recitation of the strengths and stories of our football camp coaches. And just like Hebrews 11 it would end with ‘ And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about…’ there is something immeasurably beautiful about knowing that I was able to stand witness to more stories of shalom and triumph than can be written in one or 10 or maybe even 100 blog posts.
We found that yes, leadership development is possible with kids. That they have the maturity, drive, and perseverance to lead and not just attend community programs. But leadership development is never done. Our prayer for these coaches is that, as they go back to school this fall, their teachers choose to see them as leaders, with gifts and skills that contribute to the shalom of their classes. We pray that the coaches so deeply believe they are leaders, that they prove anyone who thinks otherwise wrong.
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