District kicks off homeless soccer trials

Shortly after noon on a broiling Friday, Lawrence Cann stood in the middle of a new soccer pitch inside a new tennis stadium located in the middle of downtown and boomed into a microphone, “Welcome to the 2008 Homeless USA Cup!”

From the bleachers, where the 12 teams (representing 11 cities plus an “alumni” team to fill out the field) assembled after parading inside, a voice boomed back, “Thanks for having me!”

Sometimes, it’s good just to have a place to go and feel welcomed, especially when a friendly destination is not always a given in life.

It’s a given here, where about 95 players and coaches are fed, clothed and housed, and playing a lot of street soccer. The trials will produce the eight-man U.S. team, plus alternates, that will play in the Homeless World Cup in Melbourne, Australia, in December.

They even went to the movies Friday night to see the premiere of “Kicking It,” produced by Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis. The documentary tells the story of several homeless soccer players from different parts of their world who try to overcome desperate conditions en route to the 2006 Homeless World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.

A year before that, a makeshift team from Charlotte, N.C., under Cann’s direction, flew to the Cup competition in Scotland. They lost every game but took home a trophy for showing the most spirit.

“We weren’t there just to try to win,” said Ray Isaac, a veteran of that team. “We came to serve the cause. The reason we got that trophy, we inspirated. Not just our team, but everybody.”

Winning the tournament is an obvious goal. So is a trip to Melbourne. The players will be picked according to how well they play, their personality and how they interact. But most seem happy simply to play soccer, serve the cause and, yes, “inspirate.”

Mr. Isaac, who is nearing 50, is a voluble spokesman. He said he lived in a graveyard and slept in a tomb after his house, on a farm where he worked, burned down.

“The tomb was safer than laying out on the grass,” he said. “I didn’t have a drinking problem, I didn’t have a drug problem. I didn’t have anything.”

He chuckled at the double-meaning. But even before he became homeless, Mr. Isaac described himself as “no angel.” He went to college and served in the Air Force, but he also was arrested several times for a variety of offenses.

“Ol’ Ray went through all kinds of stuff,” he said.

Today Mr. Isaac works at the Urban Ministry Center in Charlotte, a nonprofit homeless outreach agency run by Mr. Cann, the U.S. team manager, and his brother, Rob, the coach.

Mr. Isaac has a job, he and his wife have a 6-month-old daughter, with another child on the way. This will be his 11th child in all. The oldest, he said, is 33. He reached into his right shin guard and produced a packet wrapped in duct tape that included keys and a passport. Inside was a picture of his wife and baby. In his left shin guard, he keeps his cigarettes.

“When you can take nothing and have something, you have achieved,” he said.

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