Preview

outcast united Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
524 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
outcast united Essay Example
Outcasts United English essay

Outcasts United a nonfiction book written by Warren St. John , takes place in Atlanta and Clarkston Georgia. A soccer team made up of refugee kids overcame many challenges: lack of funds, zoning laws, and academic struggles; in result winning something bigger than a championship. To start off, lack of funds in the beginning had a huge impact on the team. Without the proper funds the team could not get the equipment they needed to start. No money means no uniforms, no cones , but most importantly no soccer balls. Their coach, Coach Luma attempted to take matters into her own hands. (She owned a café called Ashton’s but closed it down by choice. She said “You’re worrying if you’re going to have enough people coming in to buy three-dollar lattes when just down the road there are people who can’t afford to eat” (St. John 61.)) By reaching out to the town where their boys are from. Clarkston was the name of the town, a small town made up of refugees from all over: Burundi, Congo, Sudan , Liberia , Bosnia , Afghanistan , and Iraq. She asks the town people if they could help her raise the money needed for the teams necessities. But the town was uncertain at first. Because when moved to the town most of everyone had nothing more but the clothes on there back. In addition, zoning laws almost left the team with no field, no where to practice, no where to call there own. The only empty space for them to build was protected by law, because some owned the property and would not give their rights up. But their confident coach, Luma fought for the teams rights every step of the way. She is the daughter of a wealthy businessman. So with that she had many connection but no contact with her father. Eventually they were able to get the land and build their soccer field. Lasts but not least , the refugees needed more then just a soccer coach. They needed a teacher. The

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    On September, 22nd, 1995 a legend was born. Her name was Alexis Elizabeth Taparrotta, and she was one of those lucky people who is born kicking but doesn’t stop. Alexis started playing soccer at the age of three. Her parents signed her up at such a young age so she would always have a lead on other potential legends. Alexis had a weird obsession with soccer. Every single thing she owned either had something to do with soccer or had a soccer ball on it. She had a soccer bed set, books, balls that went on the ceiling that would glow in the dark when the lights were off, posters, clothes, every possible jersey worn by a soccer player. She also had every single world cup soccer ball in the…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    There is a huge change from the beginning to the end of the story. First of all this story starts with this kid who thinks that becoming a soccer player it is impossible.He starts to play with their friend in “la plaza”-The park-in which he did not play much because he was skinny guy with no balance.Then he found an abandoned soccer field hidden in the rainforest and starts playing with this “ghost” called keeper who helps him to get better.Then, Omar Ortiz turns 15 years old and start working with his dad. He could not practice anymore but after every session of work he used to play a soccer game with his partners.One day some directors of soccer camp went to see…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The parents decision to move from Houston to Tangerine made Paul Fisher more of an outsider. They moved there because his father had just accepted a position as county engineer and where his older brother, Erik, a talented placekicker, can pursue options for scholarships in a state fanatic about football, Paul does not easily fit in.This decision was mostly one sided as they overlooked Paul’s future as a soccer player and focused on his brother's football “Dream”. When Paul was in Houston he was the starting goalkeeper and the star on his school soccer team and had enough potential to become a very good soccer player but…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Bret Harte's story of "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" Is a study in moral contrast, faced with calamity. The characters react indifferent and unpredictable. Theirs John Oakhurst who is a gambling man, uncle Billy who is a slues robber, the duchess tow sisters who sell their body's, and last but not least theirs Mother Shipton a proper English woman.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Without soccer the Clarkston refugees’ lives would have played out much differently. In Warren St. John’s novel Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make A Difference, families are introduced and explained frequently; however in the chapters “Beatrice and Her Boys,” “Paula,” and “‘Coach Says It’s Not Good,’” these three families stories are connected, as St. John walks us through each of their similarities to each…

    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Outcasts United 1

    • 373 Words
    • 1 Page

    As refugees arrived and changed the little town of Clarkston. Clarkston was once an all- white county with all white schools now has students from over 50 countries. As refugees arrived in Clarkston, they changed the dynamic, anger built up among long- time residents. In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, agencies that relocated refugees selected in Clarkston as a home for new arrivals from around the world. Clarkston’s motto is “Small town… Big heart.” The town had a surplus of inexpensive apartments, access to public transportation, and was close enough to the dynamic economic engine of Atlanta to offer the prospect of jobs for newcomers. By 2003, there was hostility to refugee resettlement in Clarkston began to organize, and residents had enough. At the same time, a stranger to Clarkston decided to start a soccer team, for refugee boys, her name was Luma. Luma grew up in Amman. Her parents were wealthy and strict. She decided to stay in the States after college, which drove a wedge between Luma and her parents. Luma’s father cut her off completely because he did not like the decisions that she made. Luma moved to Decatur, Georgia, it is a small neighborhood on the eastern side of Atlanta. She met some refugee boys outside of a grocery store and started to bond with them. That is when she…

    • 373 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bend It Like Beckham

    • 1502 Words
    • 7 Pages

    As the immigrant of the second generation, Jess, a girl with talent to be a football player, shows her great admiration to Beckham,hoping, one day, she can play for England with Beckham shoulder by shoulder, while her mother believes that Jess has two great duties in life: to learn to prepare a complete Indian meal, and to marry a nice Indian boy. However, Jess never wants to be a housewife who can only cook. Jess’ love of soccer crosses over into a love of life. She runs onto the field as if simply at play, in her eyes’, football is not one part of aboard culture,but a natural thing in her living environment,however,…

    • 1502 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why Sugar Is Bad

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Although sugar is seen as the bad guy in today’s food, we as humans need sugar as much as any other food or in some cases drugs to live happy and healthy lives. From two different viewpoints Robin Konie and Sarah Richards, express their viewpoints on the controversial subject of sugar.…

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Leo Tolstoy once said, “Happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In essence, all unhappy families have their own unique reasons for feeling so. The extent to which they are unhappy varies as well. By analyzing individual conflict and struggles, the novel Ordinary People by Judith Guest, examines human nature and unique forms of “unhappiness.”…

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Outgroup Bias Essay

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In my very first lecture in C&E, I learned about the ingroup/outgroup bias that all humans experience. It was explained to me that all humans have a pre-conscious bias to classify other people into either an in-group, where they are accepted, or an out-group, where they aren’t. One of the most prevalent issues we humans classify other humans into either an in-group or out-group is based on race, simply because it is the most immediately recognizable trait of a person. One can’t look at a person and immediately deduce their sexual orientation, political ideology, or religion with the same accuracy that one can deduce their race. Traditionally, immigrants do not share the same race as most of the people of the country they are immigrating to,…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bend It Like Beckham

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The storyline is about an Indian girl who loves soccer and dreams to play soccer, but we can see that there are oppositions interrupting her dream as a famous soccer player. We know that she is interrupted when her mother pops up in her daydream of commentators asking her mother how she feels about Jess becoming a professional soccer player by speaking in Indian and English she is complaining about Jesminder “running around showing her bare legs in front of 70 thousand people” from this, we can see that her mother objects her from playing soccer and will be a barrier for her in the future.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1. The title is a quote taken from Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. In the context of the play, in which Macbeth says “Out, Out brief candle” (which he says after being informed of his wife’s death) both suggests and conveys the brevity of life. This is to say, Frost writes about the uncertainty and transitory state of life in this poem. He compares life to a candle, which can be blown out rather simply. The darkness left after a candle after being blown out can be interpreted as the void left in people’s lives when their loved one dies. The dash leaves the poem open. Frost explores the theme of death and fragility of human life in this poem. In the last two lines, “No more to build on there. And they, since they | Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”, suggests that people must continue after the death of a loved one. There is a similarity between the reactions of Macbeth to Lady Macbeth’s death, and the way “they” react to the boy’s death.…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An Essay On Outcasts

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages

    When Alberto and Ernesto started their journey, they didn’t return the same way they left. The many people they met had major influences on their lives and how they viewed society. While on their trip, the two men, who were both born into upper class families, realized how separated the wealthy and the poor are in society. I believe that people who had the biggest impact on their lives were the people who were outcasts from society. These outcasts made the men realize the division between the wealthy and the poor in South America.…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Alienation - Essay

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Alienation is defined as; isolation from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved, but the definition can change depending on a person’s experience. Alienation can come across in many different feeling’s such as powerlessness – helpless and ineffectual, meaninglessness – having no significance, normlessness – lack of social norms, cultural estrangement and social isolation. In the three chosen texts; “Enter Without So Much As Knocking” by Bruce Dawe, “Capitalism and Alienation” by Danielle Pioli and “ Be My Brother” by Geneueve Clay, alienation is forced upon the characters by external forces.…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    After a series of successful tournament campaigns with the Olympic Development Program representing the southwest region of the United States. I was given the opportunity to move away from my hometown and family to solely focus on pursuing a career as a professional soccer player at the age of fifteen. Soon afterward, with the blessings of my parents I was allowed to move three-hundred…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays