Springfield, Massachusetts

To accurately tell the story of this latest program, we have to go way back. In 2016, no more than six or seven countries deep in terms of Around The Worlds’ impact and with less than a year of experience, I thought of a new addition to our work. It was an exciting one, but one that at the time would ultimately prove to be incredibly difficult to link together. Aware that our impact at an international level would always be the charity’s number one priority, I knew there was still plenty of need here in our own backyards. More than that, I trusted our curriculum and knew that we had a product, a service, that stood to benefit kids in the United States. That feeling had only been reinforced after a few free sessions at refugee centers and homeless youth shelters in San Antonio and Dallas. Even then, there was more we could do. There always is.

The plan was simple: Offer the same free soccer programs we were providing to kids outside the United States to children from Boys & Girls Clubs all over the country. That was the plan, if you could even call it that. The line between plans and dreams is often a blurry one. That was 2016 and today, well, today is 2022. That’s the thing about dreams…sometimes they take time, but with time, dreams turn into plans, and those plans, along with the right team and resources, often lead to action.

And now, in 2022, we have the best teammates we could ever ask for. It includes the RULLA Sports Empowerment organization, passionately led by two individuals named Vinny and Rashawn Dally. My point of contact had been Rashawn, and I should preface this by saying that right off the bat, he was as professional as they come.

Rashawn would be working with us as part of our Pro Series, but this was a little bit different. He was set to be there on behalf of RULLA Sports Empowerment, his own organization that highlights the transformative power of sport. Like our previous sessions in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica, he was still a special guest, except instead of a famous player, he was representing a greater cause, a bigger brand than just that of an individual. Honestly, this made things even cooler. It was a collaborative effort, a joint initiative between three like-minded groups – Around the Worlds, RULLA Sports Empowerment, and the Boys & Girls Club. All three organizations believed in the transformative nature of sports – and a beautiful collaboration was born out of that shared belief.

With all that said, you could imagine my excitement. Not to mention, this had been a long time coming, so I was thrilled that we finally had the opportunity to bring the collaboration to life. Rashawn called me back in March while I was working with the Rayadas players in Monterrey, and we spoke about combining forces if we were able to set something up with a nearby beneficiary before the end of the school year. A busy schedule getting the best of me, we tabled things until the summer. Right on cue, he followed up about an annual summer camp at the Boys & Girls Club.

“I’d love to have you help out if you’re free and/or interested,” he said, after explaining what they had in mind for the Springfield Club’s “Sports Week”.

In between games in the USL Championship with his pro side and about a week out from the program day, we organized a meet up for a coffee to discuss the final details. As we bounced ideas off each other during the sit down, he diligently took notes in a little booklet resting next to his coffee. A day out from the session, he typed those same notes up and sent me an overview of how we’d carry the program out, describing the different stations we’d have, the coaches who would be running those stations, and how long we would be running them for. 

Finally, the day had arrived. I loaded up the family van full of equipment, almost all of which would be remaining at the club whether with staff members or the kids themselves. Two boxes full of blue indestructible One World Play Project balls, a garbage bag overflowing with size 4 and 5 Sondico balls, and two roller-bags stuffed with mini size 1 and 2 balls. In total, a haul of 65 unique soccer balls, all ready to find new hands and in them, new owners.

The venue was the main Boys & Girls Club in Springfield, about a 30 minute trip by car, just past the Basketball Hall of Fame. Compared to the usual hour-long Uber commutes filled with local traffic, mishaps, near-accidents, actual accidents, and more – this would be a breeze. It was a nice joyride to our neighboring state – my mother in the passenger seat bubbling with excitement, wrapping up the last bracelet or two that our participants would be receiving later that day. These ones were fashioned in three colors, black, blue, and gold, to match the branding of Rashawn’s RULLA Sports Empowerment organization. 

The gold, a first for mom, was just *chef’s kiss* as it perfectly accented the other two colors as they all danced in an alternating helix pattern. I looked down at my GPS, 2 minutes from the destination it read, just then my phone buzzed. It was Rashawn.

The time was about 12:20, though we weren’t set to start until 1 p.m. We all decided to show up early to talk last-minute details and to prepare all our drills for the sessions to come. Rashawn passed along a contact – “Jaquan” it read. The follow-up call was just to let me know to give that contact a buzz when I was nearby. 

“He’ll tell you where to park and where to go from there.”

“Perfect, I’m pulling into the club’s parking lot right now,” I responded with excitement.

Rashawn just got out of training so he would be showing up right around 1 o’clock, but he promised that RSE would be well-represented with two of his coaching partners – Vinny and Fabian.

Vinny’s resume was a strong one, especially in the field of sports: athletic director, soccer coach, and PE teacher. I mean you name it and there’s a good chance he had done it. During the school year, he would run physical education classes for kids as young as kindergarten to middle school – so this was the guy for the job, there’s no doubt about that.

Fabian, his coaching counterpart on the day, brought an equally strong CV to the table. He played two years of junior college soccer followed by an accomplished career playing for a Division 1 Institution. The guy was a baller, that’s for sure, and I was stoked to see him pass a little bit of that talent onto our beneficiaries at the club.

As instructed, I gave Jaquan a call once on campus – “Hey! Good to hear from you, Stephen. Just pull up to the security gate and drive around to the back. I’ll come down with one of my colleagues to help you with your equipment.”

As soon as we pulled into a nice shaded spot on the backside of the building, Jaquan was already there! The club’s music teacher was with him– both waiting with open arms to help carry any (or all) of the five bags and boxes we had in tow. As we walked up a few flights of steps to the back entrance of the club, Jaquan posed an important question – “So tell me, do you guys want to use the indoor gym or the full field with soccer goals that we have out back?”

Realizing I was the first of the crew to show, I didn’t want to call any of the shots just yet. “You know what Jaquan, let me think about it for a bit and talk it over with the boys once they arrive – is that cool?” I asked.

Catching myself and aware that the experience was kids first, coaches second, I added another thought, “Do you think the kids have a preference?”

“Funny you should ask,” he started. “Those kids complain at the least bit of sun and heat, and there is absolutely zero shade on that field,” he said with a laugh. It all was coming from a place of love, but love does often come with honesty – and I appreciated his candor in a matter as critical as this.

“I’ll run it by the boys, but I reckon we’ll probably stick with the gym then,” I told him, already buzzing at the thought of running our two-hour long dual session in the comfort of a beautiful, air-conditioned gym. A perfect remedy for the heat wave that had left New England melting for the better part of the last week and change.

Propping our equipment up against the nearest gym wall, I began the usual clinic-prep. A long line of cones with a ball atop each cone, a long line of cones in the middle, then a third line with balls perched atop those to wrap up the grid.

As I was taking care of that, two of our other coaches entered the fold, introducing themselves as Coach Vinny and Coach Fabian, introductions that I quickly passed along to my mother standing nearby. “She’ll be photographing our sessions today,” I said, just to provide some context.

In reality, and Rashawn debriefed this earlier on, it would be more around 30 kids in each group, but I showed up with 65 soccer balls just to play it safe. The most important thing was that every kid would be leaving the day with something to remember the class by. Equipped with 65 soccer balls I still had a lingering fear it might not be enough, but we’d have to cross that bridge once we got there.

More aware of what the numbers would be, we collectively decided to run just two stations and rotate through those. We spent about 15 minutes per station, followed by a scrimmage, then all the other hoopla following that.

Vin and Fabian would be on the near half of the gym, running kids through passing, dribbling, shooting, and more. Rashawn and I were on the back nine, running through our own curriculum mainstays – a listening drill followed by Mano o Cabeza. Today, however, it was to be known as “Head it, Catch it”.

After all, we did have a ball to give each kid, but those balls were mixed by color, size, style, and more. The prizewinners from “Head It, Catch It” would determine who got their pick of the litter. The rest of the lineup would be determined at random with the kids grabbing some of our Voya positive affirmation cards that each had a number written inside the envelopes to determine the order.

The program was ready to begin and you could hear excitement echoing from down the hallway just outside the gym. Through the front doors barreled a group of youngsters, eyes wide at the sea of soccer balls and cones lining the floor in front of them. Eventually, they made their way to a portable set of bleachers in the front corner of the gym. The first hour would be the younger camp kids, groups two and three. The second hour was with groups one and four. I’m unsure of the exact age breakdown, but I know that across the day it was mainly kids between age 8 and 13. As we waited on our second group to make their way to the gym, Vinny got right to work – the PE Coach jumping out of him. 

He explained to the kids what would be going down that day, which only increased their eagerness to start. Before the second group could come through the doors, Rashawn entered the gym, completing our four-man coaching team. After exchanging greetings between all of us, I explained the last minute changes regarding stations, numbers, etc. and we waited anxiously for the group to round itself out.

Just then, our second group came marching through the doors.

“HEY! I remember you from last year!,” yelled a young boy, greeting Coach Vin with a high five.

“You too!” yelled another, pointing in Rashawn’s direction.

This program was cool because Rashawn and Vinny ran a free class back in the winter of 2021, so a decent chunk of some of these groups were filled with familiar faces – as illustrated by that interaction right from the jump. Back then, RULLA Sports Empowerment had provided each participant with a camp tee-shirt, so I was stoked to collaborate on an effort to give each of them a new ball this time around. Between the ball, the bracelet, and the shirt – they were building up a pretty nice camp care package right there, I mean that ain’t a bad haul!

Following some opening words from Rashawn, we quickly broke into our stations – 14 with us, and 13 with Vin and Fabian to kick things off. At this point, I was thankful for the air conditioned gym but forgot how much louder I need to yell out commands with the echoing of noise in such an open space like that. I prayed I wouldn’t lose or strain my voice like programs past, and got started with explaining our listening drill.

“Head, shoulders, toes!” I yelled. “Armpits!” I yelled next, met with a symphony of laughs and admittedly, a couple “ews” too. “Nose!” I yelled. “Your partner’s nose!”

“I don’t want to touch his nose!” One boy yelled. Now it was my turn to laugh!

“BALL!” I said, as loud as I could.

A couple groups fell on top of each other trying to grab the ball first. Others had clear winners, others not nearly as much. But it was all good fun, so much so that we played several more rounds later. Rashawn took over, carrying out the rest of the listening drill, running a few more rounds as I gave my voice a rest. We broke into the second half of the listening exercise, as I instructed the kids to make their way to the middle line of cones, the ones without soccer balls on top of them.

“Okay, so for this one it’ll be almost the same thing – but when I say…” I paused and looked at the left line, on top of it, blue OWPP balls. I stopped and looked to the right line, on top of the green cones, mini soccer balls, in guess what color? Blue.

I got here thirty minutes early and still managed to bottle this, I laughed to Rashawn, realizing I couldn’t yell out blue as a command for the kids to run to either the right or left line to retrieve said ball.

“Why not just say ‘big’ or ‘small’?” he asked, providing a simple, yet incredibly effective solution. We were back on track and got right into it. 

“Oh wait, the person who loses in this drill will have to do….Five push ups,” I yelled.

We started, each kid just as motivated as the next to arrive to the corresponding ball faster than their partner. With the first round of that out the way, we ran it again – this time, an ode to our partners the Can Bou Play Foundation in Trinidad & Tobago. 

“The losing partner in this one has to do FIVE star jumps,” I yelled, demoing it for them quick with a jump high in the air, my arms and legs outstretched like a star, while simultaneously yelling “I am a star!”

Finally, we wrapped things up with “Head It, Catch It” – a tough one at first, but by the end the kids were making me and Rashawn’s job in the center extremely difficult as they just did not seem to mess up the commands. Just as we had crowned our fourth and fifth rounds with prizewinners, there was a loud blow of the whistle. 

“Switch groups!” followed it.

That first station had run near 25 minutes, so we would just be doing another 25 minute one before closing out the session, which was fine. We’re all flexible and know things hardly ever go according to plan, especially when kids are involved.. We ran through the same greatest hits, and the response was equally as positive, the kids just as engaged as the first. By the time we reached 1:50 and reconvened at the bleachers to congratulate our winners and thank the kids for their attention and time, there were plenty of tired faces in the crowd. But, exhaustion quickly turned to elation upon news that each kid would be leaving with a brand new ball. It was fun to watch them sift through the pile of colors and styles, before choosing their favorite of the bunch. 

Then, to complete the experience, an autograph directly from Rashawn – taking that elation to even greater heights. With hardly a minute to chill in between groups two and three and one and four, I took a long draw of water and checked in with Coach Vin and Fabian. 

“Y’all good over there?” I asked. “All good!” they responded in unison, “How about over there?” “We’re good, we’re good – my voice is about to be shot though!” I said with a laugh. 

Coach Vinny’s office is the gym so this guy was used to yelling out commands in a space like this. I envied that vocal control, especially on a day like today.

As the next age group filed through the doors and onto the bleachers, I looked up from re- organizing my side of the gym to see Rashawn putting on a show. The kids were all clapping, looking on with awe as he balanced the ball on his neck and began to slide his shirt up, careful not to knock the ball off his back while doing so. Then, fueled by the crowd’s excitement, he asked them how many times they thought he could juggle the ball using his head only.

“I bet you can’t do 25!” yelled someone from the back row.

Rising to the occasion, Rashawn did his best seal impression and reached an impressive 31 head juggles before retreating back to the line of coaches. His efforts were rewarded with an even louder round of applause than before. Stepping up to kick off this second group of older kids, I quickly explained the soccer class to the crowd of around 22, telling them that we would need all their attention and energy, and if we had that, we would have prizes for each of them.

“OOH! Is it a new ball?” asked one of the boys. “Because if it’s a ball, you certainly do have my attention and interest,” he added.

As I struggled to set up the listening drill that currently looked like a tornado had torn through it after the first session of the day, I pulled Rashawn aside and told him we’d be doing this session in reverse – starting with “Head It, Catch It”, so I could reorganize the grid. 

“You mind running a round or two for me, or explaining it to the kids while I set this up?” I asked.

“No worries, I got you,” he said, gathering a group of four older girls to run through the simple and often over-complicated rules of the game.

Finally done with my business, I made my way back to his circle, to see the girls still practicing things before the competition started. Hoping to simplify things even more I told them “It’s like Simon says meets Opposite Day, so whatever we tell you – just do the opposite of that.”

With our circle fully rounded out at this point, Rashawn decided to run a demo round with me as the main subject. Whew, the pressure was real. I ain’t even good at this game man! Head it! Catch it! Catch it! 3/3. I dipped out fast before my undefeated record could be blemished.

We knocked out a few rounds of that until we had a pool of seven winners between the two groups. Then, the listening drill went smooth as always – fully enjoyed by participants and coaches alike. Off to the side, I saw coach Vinny chasing a couple kids who were dribbling soccer balls with four soccer balls under his arm like some sort of soccer monster. I just shrugged and said, “He’s doing his thing, that ain’t my business.”

Having learned from the first session of the day, we budgeted our time a little better with this second group and managed to squeeze in a little 15 minute scrimmage. Though Jaquan, affectionately known as “Coach J” around these parts, had graciously set up two hockey goals on each end of the gym, he was always eager for the kids to spend some time outside and offered the option of scrimmaging on the big field with the outdoor goals.

The kids were down so everyone made their way out there, with lots of the younger kids chilling in the shade watching a spirited scrimmage between the older bunch. Jaquan had said it was okay if we went a little longer, until round 3:15 or so since the kids would be there until 5 p.m., which took a weight off our shoulders as the time frame seemed daunting from the get-go.

We let coach Fabian run the scrimmage, sometimes as a player, sometimes as a ref, I couldn’t tell but he was enjoying himself out there so who am I to judge. In the meantime, I went inside to clean up our playing space, stack cones, and pile the prized soccer balls in front of the bleachers. While there, one of the teens, either a volunteer or a teen club member, approached me and asked a question.

“Excuse me coach? This season I’m trying out for Hillside. Can you give me some advice?” she said. I won’t lie I was a little shocked, definitely tongue tied at first but then I snapped back into it. “Come on Stephen, you’ve been there – you know what to say.”

She said that Hillside was her new school, and she’d be trying out for the soccer team.

“Well the obvious answer is to work hard and to try your best, right?” I said. She nodded her head affirmatively. “But besides that just go out and do your thing,” I said. “Just play your game, don’t try to do anything crazy – just do the things you do and try to do them well.” Having been on both sides of a tryout before I just tried to speak from experience. I wished her the best of luck, and assured her she would be just fine as she left the gym with a smile.

At this point, Jaquan had come back into the gym to take a break from the scrimmage. “HeyStephen, is it cool if we do the soccer balls and autographs and all that outside? There’s some tables in the shade, if you’re okay with that.”

“Of course!” I said, eager to get back outside as well myself.

I packed everything up and made my way to the shade. With a loud blow of my whistle I signaled the end of the game.

“Who won?” I yelled out.

“We did! 2-1!” Yelled an older boy.

“No, it was 2-2!” Yelled a girl from the opposing team

Even Fabian couldn’t remember what the score was so we settled it with a draw and called it a day. As we reconvened over by the shade, I asked the kids to take a seat so I could close out the program. Turning to Jaquan I joked that it’d been so long since doing this whole post-session speech in English that I was stumbling over my words. 

“I’m so used to doing it in Spanish in Latin America that this is all a little new to me,” I admitted, which was plagiarized directly from our close out from the first session.

I told the kids with bracelets from “Head It, Catch It” to stand up and called for a loud round of applause from everyone else. They lined up in front of our pile of balls, and one by one chose their favorite from the bunch. The last boy, a young chap in neon green shorts had his right hand in his pocket.

“You won “Head It, Catch It”?” I asked, not recognizing him from either group in the drill. He nodded his head.

“Can I see your bracelet?” I asked. His hand still firmly deep in his pocket.

His plan foiled, he slowly walked backwards right to his seat. I’ve been burned this way by kids in Mexico; little man, fool me twice shame on me! From there, we passed out cards to create a line of the rest of the kids to have their choice of new soccer balls. A girl approached me, pointing to the Spanish translation on her affirmation card. 

“Coach, what does this say?”

“Suéñalo, deséalo, hacerlo” I told her, in my now often-branded Venezuelan accent. I turned the card around for her to the English side, “Dream it. Wish it. Do it” I said with a smile.

“See, now you got a little Spanish lesson,” I said, as I couldn’t help but think of all the interactions I’d had in Spanish speaking countries that went just like that one except in reverse. After every kid had a ball, we took some group pics and did a few autographs.

“Wait.. are you guys famous?” asked one of the older girls.

“I mean I’m not, but he is,” I said, pointing to Rashawn. “He’s a professional soccer player, heplayed in the MLS.”

“Oh my god! I met a famous person!” She exclaimed

The kids were all saying they too were famous now because they had met Rashawn. It was fame by extension. That’s hilarious to me! Meanwhile, we signed everything – phone cases, soccer balls, elbows, hands, arms, and more.

Pro-tip: when signing a child’s arm with permanent marker, always write as illegibly as possible so their parents cannot read your name and get angry at you lol the ~more you know. When all was said and done, our core group of coaches and BGC staff members made our way back into the gym to wind down from a successful, though tiring two sessions. It was around 3:30 now so we had only gone over by about 15-20 minutes, as promised.

As we stacked equipment up and exchanged contact information, we had some time to chat and reflect on the day’s event. Shortly after, we even got to meet Jacquan’s boss – the assistant director of the Springfield club!

He grew up a club kid himself so he was basically their poster child now having worked his way from member to volunteer to staff member to management. It was really a cool full-circle type thing. I thanked him for giving us the opportunity to work our way into the kids’ sports week and expressed how much fun we all had, hoping the kids had had the same if not more.

“Trust me they did, and thank you again,” he said.

We continued talking in small little groups as the kids slowly filtered out of the gym. 15 minutes became 30. And 30 quickly became 60, as we chatted about anything and everything. Surprisingly, there were plenty of small little connections between all of us. Obviously, Rashawn and Fabian both grew up largely in Bloomfield. From there, enter their connection to Coach Jaquan, a Bloomfield resident himself – born and raised.

“Wait, you went to UConn?” asked Jaquan. “Me too!” he said, catching me by surprise, so there

was a little connection there too.

He spoke about Colombia too, affectionately remembering his visits there after I told him that was likely the next destination for Around the Worlds programs. Like I said, it was a warm and lively conversation, and there’s no wonder seconds turned to minutes, which quickly turned to hours. We gradually made our way towards the parking lot, where slowly and much like the kids, our group began to disperse.

Coach Fabian had already dipped out right after the second session to catch a work shift at 4:00, but surely we’d be linking up again to carry out something similar in the future. Coach Vinny departed towards the front of the club, on the other side of the big security gate. Rashawn moved towards the field, where he had parked right next to – originally thinking that was where we’d be holding the session(s).

Mom and I held back for a minute to speak with our new friends, well I did… mom ran over to the van to grab some freshly harvested vegetables to give to the aforementioned friends. With plenty of thank you’s out of the way (from both sides), we finally hit the road with smiles on both of our faces – the same exact smiles we had seen painted on the kids’ faces earlier that afternoon. The time? 5:30.

Later in the day, I linked up with Coach J, to send over some photos from the program and to express my gratitude one last time.

“Hey Jaquan, just wanted to thank you again for linking everything up for myself, Rashawn, and the boys. It was an awesome time and we were more than happy to make it happen for the kids. Couldn’t have done it without you though bro I appreciate you!”

*ding* my phone buzzed, quickly.

“Thank you for everything! It was the highlight of our week. Thank you for making the day so special for our kids!” he answered.

People closest to me know that I always dreamt of one day teaming up with the Boys and Girls Club to bring our free sessions to their beneficiaries. Our paths had crossed abroad with a session at a satellite location outside Toronto, Canada and there were some early stage talks for another at a club in South Africa – but anything stateside had always seemed ever-evasive, and eventually I shifted focus to completely concentrate on international programs.

That is, until today. A dream six years in the making. Two fantastic groups of kids. An equally amazing set of staff members. An all-star cast of coaches. A dream came true.