Sharing Common Ground
Alfonso Johnson, 7, came speeding up on his bicycle, churning up a cloud of dust. A mild panic crept into his voice as he noticed that some youngsters were already showing off their soccer skills--passing, dribbling, penalty kicks.
“I’m supposed to be here!” he panted. “They came to my school.”
Alfonso’s hand darted into his jacket pocket and he pulled out a flyer announcing the event. Moments later, he was directed to a booth to pick up an entry form--then he dashed away on his bike, rushing to get his mother’s signature.
The World Cup came to Watts on Sunday, and Alfonso had no intention of missing it. More than 200 residents turned out at the athletic field in the Nickerson Gardens public housing project, where the Cup’s Legacy Tour 94 sponsored a daylong series of competitions in soccer skills.
The idea is to generate interest in the sport and in the World Cup, which is coming to Los Angeles this summer. But Sunday’s gathering may have done even more.
While African Americans and Latinos live next door to each other in the housing project, they are often divided by language, culture and custom. For several hours on Sunday, however, they found common ground on a soccer field.
To promote Sunday’s event, organizers teamed African American and Latino youngsters to go door to door through Nickerson Gardens, passing out flyers and encouraging parents to send their children to the free competition.
“A lot of the black kids think this is a Hispanic sport,” said Tonie Grooms, a Los Angeles Housing Authority police officer and deputy commissioner of the Watts Friendship sports league. To counter that notion, Grooms brought teams made up of immigrants from several African countries to Watts on Sunday.
“The events today will get a lot of children playing soccer,” she said. “If you give these kids anything , they’ll come out.”
The Legacy Tour also attracted eight volunteer coaches for the 1,200 youngsters who play on 40 teams in Grooms’ Watts league.
Her players routinely call her “Coach Mom,” but she laughingly says they only do so “when they want me to take them to McDonald’s.”
Grooms is something of a rarity--an African American woman who is a soccer fanatic. She plays in a women’s league in the San Fernando Valley and is an ambassador and a tireless promoter of the sport. She has 12 children ranging from 9 months to 30 years old (five are her husband’s from a previous marriage) and all but the youngest and oldest play soccer, she said.
“In our family, soccer is a way of life,” she said. “It’s not just a sport.”
Sunday’s events kicked off with a parade winding its way from Will Rogers Park at 103rd Street and Central Avenue to the housing project. Dozens of neighborhood youngsters followed the procession to the playground, caught up in the rhythmic drumbeat of the Unfadeable High Steppers, a flamboyant, all-male precision drill team.
Los Angeles City Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. rode in the city’s official parade car--a 1955 white Chrysler Imperial convertible that once belonged to President Dwight Eisenhower--with “Striker,” the dog-suited man who serves as World Cup mascot.
Jose Aparicio, a 16-year-old born in Mexico, marched with one of several soccer teams in the parade through the heart of Watts, where about half the population is Spanish speaking.
“I was born with a soccer ball in my hand,” he joked.
On the playing field at the Nickerson Gardens recreation center, San Diego-based Sportfloor U.S.A. Inc. has installed a 4,200-square-foot soccer skills court with an all-weather synthetic surface.
Inner-city playgrounds are legendary for all-day basketball games, where three-man teams wait hours for a chance to showcase their moves. But on Sunday, the action moved to the skills court, where four-man soccer teams impatiently waited to get into the action.
On another part of the playground, Alfredo Banuelos, 10, was trying penalty kicks. He carefully lined up a shot and nailed it into the upper left corner of the goal.
“I don’t really play soccer,” he said, “just a little bit in the park with my dad, who is from Mexico.”
In front of another goal, Julieta Solis, 9, was encouraging a shy girlfriend to try. “I just aim with my hand, and kick where it is pointed,” she explained.
Many Latino girls are not encouraged to play sports, Grooms said, adding: “We’re trying to change that.”
She may also be changing how some African American youngsters see the game. Minutes after he rode off on his bike, Alfonso Johnson was rushing back--the completed entry form in his hand.
