Longtime Fan Found Soccer Thanks To Africans

Former College Keeper Credits,
Misses His African Coaches

By MIKE DICK
One Great Season

So here we are. The kickoff to World Cup 2010.  South Africa making history, as the continent hosts the world's greatest sporting event for the first time. But as football fans the world over look forward with anticipation, I can't help but take a look back at how Africa and Africans have influenced my experience with the beautiful game.

When I was in my early teens and just getting acquainted with the sport, many of our first coaches happened to be African graduate students at the local university. They were from several nations, but all possessed similar qualities in that they were very demonstrative and joyous in their love for the game, and in trying to transfer that love to us.

---

MORE: Complete FIFA World Cup Coverage From One Great Season

---

From the sidelines they would bellow phrases we had never heard before, but remember to this day. For trapping: "Cool the ball." When dribbling: "Let the ball do the running!" And when someone needed to mark an opponent more closely: "Marry him! Marry him!" which sounded more like "Moddy him! Moddy him!" Needless to say, coming from a place once described to me by a TV news consultant as "demographically, the whitest place we've ever surveyed," it was pretty exotic stuff.

My African education continued in college. As a freshman from a place where soccer was barely played, I had no street cred with the team and apparently there were doubts that I had any game. Although it would change, I didn't receive the warmest of welcomes from very many of the guys on the team at first. So initially I was befriended by the Africans and roomed with them on road trips. They helped me settle in and become part of the team, and for that I will always be grateful.

The Africans I was coached by and played with displayed the athleticism, power, grace, unpredictability and effusive personality that we see reflected in the players from the continent today. So here's to my former coaches Berhanu Amensisa of Ethiopia, Babatunde Davies and Kola Davies of Nigeria and Joe Fomunung from Cameroon; and to my former teammates Greg Okasia and Greg Salako from Nigeria, Victor Pesah from Ghana and Emmanuel N'Ko from Cameroon.

I don't know where my African friends are now, but I wish I did. I do know that my education in the game and immense love for it are owed a lot to Africa and Africans. And that surely is worth a few blasts on the vuvuzela.

Click here for Mike's bio and an archive of his previous stories.