A year ago this summer, Mike launched the first season of “Compton United” – an official, US Soccer sanctioned soccer club for kids in Compton. Up until that point, no such thing had been available. Soccer is everywhere in our community, and the talent level is stunning, but our youth play in independent Hispanic leagues that are not involved with the traditional competitive soccer system. While our kids may have some of the best talent in the country (literally), they have no opportunities to use that talent to open any other doors for their future. In our area, college and team scouts do their recruiting through clubs. To play in a club, you have to have the funds to do so (they are incredibly expensive), a local club available to try out for, and/or the transportation to travel to a not-so-local club. (Even during Ramiro’s senior year when his high school team went all the way to state semi-finals, there were no scouts at their games.) As Mike watched Ramiro and Jose play soccer growing up, saw the incredible talent, and began to understand the inequity of the system, he determined to do something about it. His vision wasn’t just to create a club where the boys could play soccer, but to build an entire program where education, tutoring, leadership development, community service, and character would all be emphasized and the Gospel would be lived out. Last fall after 2 years of dreaming and planning and networking – and seeing God do continual miracles to put him in contact with the right people – the Compton United Soccer Club was born.
We started with one boys’ U17 team (17 and under), one sponsor to buy the uniforms (my brother’s company, MessageFirst), some borrowed equipment, and a whole pallet of Powerade that someone donated for us to sell. Our family spent every weekend last fall with the team, driving all over to games and tournaments and cheering them on. By the time the season ended, the boys had won every game but one and taken the league title. The Cal South soccer quarterly magazine had featured Mike, Ramiro and Jose on the cover, telling the story of Compton United. Fox Sports Soccer channel had created a 5-min blip on CU that was running in between shows. Most importantly we had fallen in love with 14 new teenagers and ministry again -- It was the most fun we’d had since Mike took over the directorship and we stopped having as much time to just be in the community.
Number 10 on the team was Victor Lopez, a defender with great hustle and skill who led by his solid example of determination and consistency. Victor was one you could always count on in a game – when he was needed, he was there. He was a quiet kid who was well-liked, always teachable, and humble. In one of the most memorable moments of the season, our team was playing in the exclusive Rancho Palos Verdes against a team of extremely wealthy kids. Unhappy that his team was getting beat by a bunch of poor Latinos from Compton, one player turned, spit on Victor, and remarked angrily, “Just remember, your parents work for my parents”. In an amazing show of character, Victor did not retaliate, but rallied his teammates to play even harder. When we finished the game 3-2, it was our sweetest victory of the season.
In July when Mike and I were in Colorado at CCC’s staff conference with our kids, Ramiro, and Jose, we received word that Victor had been tragically shot and killed. He was riding home from an indoor soccer game with his brother driving and his 2 younger brothers in the backseat. During an attempted carjacking, Victor took a bullet through his upper body while trying to protect his older brother. He died on the way to the hospital. As you can imagine, this news was devastating to both us and the boys. Jose and Ramiro had played soccer with Victor for years, Jose since they were children. Immediately we cancelled our plans to vacation a few extra days and headed straight home to LA.
What followed was a week mixed with tears and sorrow and a great sense of pride. We witnessed the mind-numbing pain of parents who’ve had their entire family devastated by someone else’s lust for a car. We saw the lost look in a teen’s eyes as he stood over the open casket of a lifelong friend, his hand reaching out to touch Victor’s face. And I understood a newdefinition of hell, as the guttural wailings of a mother who’d lost her teenage son echoed off the vaulted marble walls of a basement mausoleum.
We also witnessed amazing strength in the kids of our community. The week before the service they spent every day going door to door, washing cars, selling tee-shirts/ and anything else they could think of to raise money so that Victor’s family could afford his funeral. One morning they headed to the high school at 7 am -- summer school was in session, so the boys went classroom to classroom, passing the hat to all the teachers and students present. They raised almost $200 that day. They spent every evening at his parent’s house attending the Catholic prayer vigils. They brought his family pictures and made tee-shirts and signed and framed his soccer jersey – anything to stand with each other and surround the family with the support they needed. For the most part, they did it without parents or adults supervising them or organizing their efforts. And, quite honestly, most of them did it without Christ, as these are youth that mostly know faith as an ideal more than as a daily, living reality. Their creativity and initiative was profound.
Though many images are seared into my heart from that week, one stands out above the rest. Before I share, here’s a little context. Throughout the years of playing on high school and league teams, the players have ended every win with a special ritual. They circle up with arms around each other’s shoulders, locking them together, then jump together around and around as they call out a Spanish cheer that ends by shouting the team’s name. It is always a beautiful, inspiring display of solidarity and friendship, victory and celebration -- a symbol of all the good things in sports.
At the end of the burial service in the basement of the mausoleum, Victor’s older brother requested that all his friends step forward. Thirty to forty high school and college-aged guys crowded in, circled arms, and to the wails of Victor’s grieving mother and father, they did that cheer. It was absolutely electric in the corridor, as though everyone’s pain met collectively in the midst of that circle. When they finished, the boys clung to one another desperately, pouring out all their grief, weeping and laying out their broken hearts. The grief of the rest of us in the room surrounded them. This lasted for several moments. The pain and beauty there were almost too powerful to behold – it was one of the most moving experiences of my life.
As the circle eventually broke up and the boys began to file past, stopping to hug each one of us on their way, Mike said to them, “I wish everyone could see and understand that you are the youth of Compton. You all have done such an amazing job holding up each other and Victor’s family -- Compton has never been more proud.”
It’s true – they are the youth of Compton. Many from outside our community would look at their baggy clothes, brown skin, and tattoos, and make assumptions that they are hard-hearted, uncaring, dangerous, menacing kids. Those assumptions would be wrong. They are not gang-bangers or drug dealers; they are not the nameless faces of thieves or murderers. They are Emilio and Juan and Roque and Bene’. Yes many of them have drank their share of alcohol and smoked some weed along the way, as many teenagers in the suburbs have. Yes they use language that I often wish they wouldn’t and most don’t understand the sanctity of sex or God’s plan for marriage. But by in large, they are caring and respectful kids who love their families, support their friends, and are a delight to those around them. They are kids that Jesus sees, that He died for, that He sent us here to love. We are continually humbled that God has chosen us for this task as it is an honor and a privilege to know them.
To see the magazine article and watch the Fox Soccer Channel video on the Club, visit www.comptonunited.org.
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