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GIRLS Get Involved
Never content to sit on the sidelines,
teen athletes were quick to offer help after the earthquake in Haiti. At Monroe High School outside Madison, Wis., the girls’ basketball team sold “Hoops for Haiti” T-shirts at their Feb. 20 Senior Night game. Fellow student groups held raffles, and the student senate hosted a fundraising dance. Total donation: $6,397.29, to the Red Cross of South Central Wisconsin. Not able to host a fundraiser? Share messages of support for the team by posting on ESPNHIGHSCHOOL.com.
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Wright Thompson
04/29/10
Haiti soccer: Against all odds
The Haiti U17 girls' soccer team lost homes, family, security, almost everything -- what remains is the game that unites them.
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| Madeline Delice, the starting goalkeeper for the Haiti U17 girls' soccer team, found her home in Leogane almost completely destroyed. | |
E:60 Video
Alexandra Coby cries all the time. She sits in her tiny home -- an 8x8 dwelling with dirt floors and no windows -- and thinks about how she ruined her teammates’ lives. She didn’t, of course. But it’s only been a few weeks since the Haiti Under-17 girls’ soccer team was eliminated from the CONCACAF U17 tournament. They took three straight losses in which Alexandra, the goalkeeper, was unable to defend the 12 goals that sent them home. The pain of loss is intense.
For Alexandra and her teammates, those games weren’t just about soccer. Pursuing a junior World Cup berth meant not yet having to face the destruction waiting for them in Haiti. Losing means that now the girls have returned to their island home, and they must live every day with the results of January’s devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake.
Alexandra’s neighborhood feels apocalyptic. It was one of the poorest slums on the planet before the earthquake. Violent gangs roam the streets. There is no running water, almost no electricity. Raw sewage flows by in steaming rivers of filth and stink.
She feels there is no future here and thinks it’s her fault. She’s the goalkeeper. The team was counting on her. Never mind that her teammates didn’t score a single goal. The memory of those games runs through her head, over and over. “I’m always thinking about it,” she says. “I cry when I think about my future that was wasted.”
And without the tournament to focus on, she also begins to replay the awful day of the quake in her mind. On Jan. 12, the earth began shaking during practice. The national stadium cracked, and the girls hit the ground and prayed. Protected by the open space of their soccer fields, they had no idea that just outside the stadium walls, Port-au-Prince was crumbling in a cloud of brown dust.
Starting goalkeeper Madeline Delice lost both of her parents and her sister that day. Most of the other girls lost their homes. When the shaking stopped and that brown cloud settled, they found they’d lost just about everything -- except one another.
As the country fell apart, the team stayed together. The soccer federations of the Dominican Republic and Panama opened their doors and their hearts to the girls, offering shelter, support and training facilities. Living and practicing in those other nations these past three months, the team stared slack jawed at shiny shopping malls, so different from what they knew in Haiti.
They’d meet as a team every day, trying to put words to the emotions they all felt. “I cried a lot because I didn’t understand,” team captain Hayana Jean-François says. “I didn’t know what to do. I saw so many things. I thought it was the end of the world.”
The tournament took on outsize stakes. If they could get a win, maybe even a tie, the team would advance to the Under-17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago and remain in the safe embrace of fancy hotels and endless buffet lines. If this were a Hollywood movie, they’d win.
But this is real life.
Madeline got hurt in training, so Alexandra had to tend goal. And the girls lost their first game to the U.S., 9-0.
When that game ended, she collapsed in front of the net, crushed. The American team, girls who play soccer on luxurious sheets of bright grass, wrapped Alexandra in their arms. She wept. The American girls did, too.
“I saw the keeper sitting on the ground crying,” U.S. midfielder Cari Roccaro says. “I was wondering why she was crying. And then I realized it’s because of what she doesn’t have -- a home. It just broke my heart. I just broke down in tears. I couldn’t even imagine what she’s going through right now and how much courage it takes to step on that field and play.”
Haiti lost its next game vs. Costa Rica, 2-0, and was eliminated from the tournament. The team lost its consolation game, too, and that was it. No more soccer. No more warm showers and hot meals. No Hollywood ending. The girls never even scored a goal. After flying back to the Dominican Republic from Costa Rica, the team rode a bus home across the border to Haiti.
Before splitting up to return to their individual hometowns, the girls reunited with friends at the soccer federation’s headquarters (known as the Ranch) outside Port-au-Prince. There was talk of gathering again someday soon, of perhaps attending school and continuing to train together at the Ranch so that they can enter another soccer tournament. They said their farewells with hugs, unsure of what the future really holds.
They have seen and experienced so much these past three months, enough to know that nothing is for certain.
Inspired by this story? Want to get involved in the conversation and get connected to the Haiti soccer players? Log in and comment on this story, and we'll make sure that all messages and comments are delivered to the team.
Alexandra Coby cries all the time. She sits in her tiny home -- an 8x8 dwelling with dirt floors and no windows -- and thinks about how she ruined her teammates’ lives. She didn’t, of course. But it’s only been a few weeks since the Haiti Under-17 girls’ soccer team was eliminated from the CONCACAF U17 tournament. They took three straight losses in which Alexandra, the goalkeeper, was unable to defend the 12 goals that sent them home. The pain of loss is intense.
 |
Alexandra Coby collapsed in tears after Haiti's tournament-opening loss to the U.S. on March 10. |
For Alexandra and her teammates, those games weren’t just about soccer. Pursuing a junior World Cup berth meant not yet having to face the destruction waiting for them in Haiti. Losing means that now the girls have returned to their island home, and they must live every day with the results of January’s devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake.
Alexandra’s neighborhood feels apocalyptic. It was one of the poorest slums on the planet before the earthquake. Violent gangs roam the streets. There is no running water, almost no electricity. Raw sewage flows by in steaming rivers of filth and stink.
 |
Madeline is consoled by a neighbor. Both parents and her sister died in the quake. |
And without the tournament to focus on, she also begins to replay the awful day of the quake in her mind. On Jan. 12, the earth began shaking during practice. The national stadium cracked, and the girls hit the ground and prayed. Protected by the open space of their soccer fields, they had no idea that just outside the stadium walls, Port-au-Prince was crumbling in a cloud of brown dust.
Starting goalkeeper Madeline Delice lost both of her parents and her sister that day. Most of the other girls lost their homes. When the shaking stopped and that brown cloud settled, they found they’d lost just about everything -- except one another.
As the country fell apart, the team stayed together. The soccer federations of the Dominican Republic and Panama opened their doors and their hearts to the girls, offering shelter, support and training facilities. Living and practicing in those other nations these past three months, the team stared slack jawed at shiny shopping malls, so different from what they knew in Haiti.
They’d meet as a team every day, trying to put words to the emotions they all felt. “I cried a lot because I didn’t understand,” team captain Hayana Jean-François says. “I didn’t know what to do. I saw so many things. I thought it was the end of the world.”
 |
Alexandra drags her suitcase through her neighborhood streets in Cite Soleil. |
But this is real life.
Madeline got hurt in training, so Alexandra had to tend goal. And the girls lost their first game to the U.S., 9-0.
When that game ended, she collapsed in front of the net, crushed. The American team, girls who play soccer on luxurious sheets of bright grass, wrapped Alexandra in their arms. She wept. The American girls did, too.
“I saw the keeper sitting on the ground crying,” U.S. midfielder Cari Roccaro says. “I was wondering why she was crying. And then I realized it’s because of what she doesn’t have -- a home. It just broke my heart. I just broke down in tears. I couldn’t even imagine what she’s going through right now and how much courage it takes to step on that field and play.”
Haiti lost its next game vs. Costa Rica, 2-0, and was eliminated from the tournament. The team lost its consolation game, too, and that was it. No more soccer. No more warm showers and hot meals. No Hollywood ending. The girls never even scored a goal. After flying back to the Dominican Republic from Costa Rica, the team rode a bus home across the border to Haiti.
Before splitting up to return to their individual hometowns, the girls reunited with friends at the soccer federation’s headquarters (known as the Ranch) outside Port-au-Prince. There was talk of gathering again someday soon, of perhaps attending school and continuing to train together at the Ranch so that they can enter another soccer tournament. They said their farewells with hugs, unsure of what the future really holds.
They have seen and experienced so much these past three months, enough to know that nothing is for certain.
Inspired by this story? Want to get involved in the conversation and get connected to the Haiti soccer players? Log in and comment on this story, and we'll make sure that all messages and comments are delivered to the team.
 |
The team returns to Haiti by bus from the Dominican Republic. |