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An Opening Built for Two…

4 min readAug 1, 2022
A Small Section of the mighty mural created with Kevin Bongang, Art In the Paint, MARTA, and CHOA

In life and work, it is very easy to become focused on a task so as to divorce yourself from the actual meaning. We are all so busy and so distracted that the inner workings of what we do can quickly become lost or obscured. Often this is neither an intentional effort nor is it perceived as a positive outcome, but it happens.

Today, my twelve compatriots and I hosted a crowd of children, parents, caregivers, supporters, neighbors, vendors, and (our excellent) partners to open a new station soccer project, the Kensington MARTA station. Our small-sided station pitches (or fields) are built in tandem and significantly smaller than what you’ll find at the average high school. Each is lined by netting and fences to keep the ball in play. Today there were a solid 100 kids running circles around these fields: balls bouncing off fences, laughing, shouting, and general merriment. It was an absolutely beautiful mess at moments.

While in the middle of one of my long periods of constant movement, I notice a man and his son. The kid was no older than five with a very wide-eyed confused look, just taking in all the excitement. His father held his hand tightly and walked nervously. I wouldn’t claim to know their specific nationality, but my guess is that they were of Asian descent. The father’s facial expression wasn’t altogether different than his son’s, but it was clearly tempered with the weariness of fatherhood and toil.

I ran into the same pair again a little later; this time, I was unwittingly filling in for one of my coworkers handing out jerseys -right place, wrong time. My performance started slowly. Initially, finding the shirts’ sizes was challenging. Eventually, I got the hang of it and began selecting sizes based on the kid’s proportions. And when this particular father and son approached, I smiled warmly at the little guy, immediately pulling out our smallest size. I did my best to present the shirt with a sense of welcome. The father nodded and perhaps said thank you -his back straightened, however slightly.

Speeches were given, ribbons were cut, games were played, and swag bags were distributed. The snowball truck procured for the event became a hot commodity. The tarmac was littered with trails of sticky sweet fun. My boss strolled up with a snowball covered in red and green syrup, announcing that he would have at least one more and then go home happy. I had not considered enjoying one myself, but the idea of regulating my own body temperature went out with the single-digit hours on the clock; what did I have to lose? Once I had retrieved my “blue island” flavored ice, I sat alone under a tree in the middle of the crowd. People traipsed by, some marveling or laughing sheepishly at the site of this big man, laid low by the heat, scarfing a MARTA blue colored ice-treat.

I paid very little attention to any condemnation and simply enjoyed my ice. The hum of the crowd blended into the background, and I lost track of myself as being a part of it, almost as if I was floating above. The father walked by at one point carrying a banana and then again with a snowball cup. His shoulders were now fully relaxed; he seemed to look other guests right in the eye as he passed. Dare I say he felt comfortable? In that moment, I nearly cried. I felt my body getting heavy, and I leaned over slightly. Our team had succeeded with a heavy lift, working on getting to this day and carrying out the community event we wanted to present to this new StationSoccer neighborhood.

In my head, this opening had a specific subset of guests: kids in our program, our partners, friends of friends, news media, and an ever so slight dusting of local well-wishers. This man, whom I had now become slightly obsessed with, didn’t quite fit into the demographics I was expecting. Not because we didn’t want him or wouldn’t receive him, but it felt as though we had yet to make an appeal that he would have seen, or perhaps we hadn’t wholly convinced him to attend. In my head, this effort would be a different and harder task we would tackle later. But here they were and completely integrated into the milieu of our event. This man and his little son were everything. We could have closed the entire day at 9 am and just waited for them.

If we did anything right today, it wasn’t the pomp and circumstance. It wasn’t the score of any game. It was welcoming someone new into the circle and finding a way to make them comfortable enough to enjoy their day with us.

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Soccer in the Streets
Soccer in the Streets

Written by Soccer in the Streets

WE OFFER FREE ACCESS TO SOCCER, BREAK DOWN TRANSPORTATION BARRIERS, BUILD SAFE PLACES TO PLAY, AND PROVIDE PATHWAYS FOR GROWTH OFF THE FIELD OF PLAY

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