"I would never in a million years think I'd have friends from Albania, from Poland," said Woewiyu, who left his native (and war-torn) Liberia when he was 8 years old, first moving to Ghana, eventually to New Jersey. He now lives in Yeadon with his father.
The Starfinder Foundation, housed in the converted facility, has dedicated itself to creating a soccer culture different than typically found in this country. There are 115 registered high school players in the program, and foundation officials estimate 80 regularly attend, a good portion immigrants and first-generation teenagers from Mexico, Columbia, and Brazil, some from Haiti, many from West African countries, even one from Afghanistan.
"We're providing an opportunity that is more organic," said Starfinder Foundation executive director Steve Baumann, former head soccer coach at the University of Pennsylvania. "If we didn't have coaches here, they'd all still show up. It's not like suburban soccer where if the coach isn't there to call practice, nobody plays soccer. These guys, it's in their blood and it's in their culture and it's in their being. They want to be here.
"It's sort of the most pure form of what we can get in soccer right now, given how organized it is. There's some purity to it, some passion to it."
That's the mission, to create that kind of scene. The foundation went out and recruited participants, going into the schools all over the city and the close suburbs. Baumann said many of the young men and women are "underserved" by their schools and often overlooked in the college-recruiting process.
