More Than Futbol Belize: Day 7, Luke to Hospital and Last Day of Camp!

Kevin is always the first one up… a VERY early riser. We are talking “watch the sunrise” early. This morning, while the rest of us were still sleeping, Kevin woke up, made some coffee and then eventually when Luke woke up, Kevin was up for a big surprise. Luke said, “I need to go to the clinic.” Still feeling very sick, Luke knew that something was wrong, very wrong. By the time I woke up, Kevin had just arrived back to the condo and said that Luke was still feeling sick and he took him to the clinic. Now, the clinic had him on fluids and were treating him for being severely dehydrated as a result of his food poisoning. The plan was to get Luke hydrated while we ate breakfast, got ready for camp, and then when we headed into camp we would drop Luke a golf cart so that after he got patched up at the clinic he could stop into camp to at least say by to the kids. 

Luckily, we have an app called WhatsApp that allows us all to communicate with each other wherever we have wifi and makes it easy to stay in touch with family and friends from home. Hooked up to the wifi at our condo, my phone dinged with a message. You can imagine my absolute shock when I got a text from my father back in the US saying, “Luke is being flown to the mainland. You guys need to get to the clinic and figure out wants going on.” This is at the same time that we planned to leave for camp. So, my other brother, Scott, went with Dr. Carol and Kevin to the clinic while the rest of us went to get camp started. It being our last day, we were expecting our largest showing of kids and thats exactly what we got- thirty 5 and 6 year olds and 70 older kids. 

On our way into town Phil and I talked about the situation with Luke for a little and then I tried to make some light conversation. This may have been one of the most difficult experiences ever for me. I was tearing up under my sunglasses so worried about my brother, not being at the clinic or in Belize City with him was eating me alive. Instead, I was going to run the last day of camp and depending on Scott to get all of the information we needed and make the right decisions for Luke. I don’t know if I have ever felt that scared- my baby brother gets flown to the mainland hospital? *Deep Breath*

Once Phil and I pulled up to the school, I asked him to get the little ones started in their small groups with the other coaches while I ran into the school to call the clinic. They put Scott on the phone who did not have any new information. I ran back out to the field, put my coaching face on, and got ready to have the most fantastic last day possible for these kids.

We played a few different types of tag to encourage "working together." We played chain tag and under the bridge (freeze tag although you crawl under the frozen person's legs to unfreeze them. Finally, we broke the kids up and played a fun scrimmage at the end. As we were wrapping up the younger kids, Scott, Kevin, and Dr. Carol pulled up to the field and we all headed over to the main field immediately while the other coaches formed the coaching chain. This gave Scott and I a few minutes to mobilize and form a plan. We called my father back in the states and planned that while I finished out the last day of camp, Scott and Kevin would leave early and get the last ferry out to the main land. 

When the kids arrived there was a buzz in the air. They knew they were getting trophies and everyone was talking about it. Trophies and Soccer balls and what they might get to take home. We brought the kids together, divided them up into groups, and then sent them out to the field. Today each group got to play 2 stations. The small-sided scrimmage station and World Cup. These are the two most popular stations from camp this year and we wanted the kids to get plenty of chance to play their favorite games on the last day! The kids had such a blast, they were cheering, laughing, working hard, and working together! It was so great to see everyone having so much fun on the last day. After the stations, we brought the kids in to make teams for the scrimmage and Kevin and Scott said goodbye. The kids were so sad because everyone wants to be on coach Scott's team for the scrimmage and everyone loves playing with coach Kevin- there's always a good chance he will hoist someone up on his shoulders! Lots of hugs and goodbyes and one big group photo and off went Coach Scott and Kevin. 

Jose (We call him Ronaldo)- MVP

We split the kids up into 3 teams and started the scrimmage- first to score a goal wins. We played for a about 30 minutes and the kids had a fantastic time. At the end of the scrimmage, we brought the group in for trophies and they were so excited. We gave an MVP out for the boys and girls and a most improved player award. Arzenia worked hard all week long and was especially intent on learning and understanding new moves from the Coach Mel and Nikki. Jose was the best in camp last year but due to his attitude we could not give him the award last year. This year he was a great camper. He focused, always paid attention, even helped the coaches get the rest of the group settled at times. Not only did he deserve this award, but we were especially excited to give it to him after the huge improvement he made from the year before. Finally, Joseph won the most improved player award. 3 years ago he was one of the worst behaved kids in camp. He was throwing rocks at other kids, starting fights, using profanity, even hanging out with a drug dealer that was looming around camp that year. I really feared for his future. We were so proud to see such a positive change in him in the past 3 years. He listened well, worked hard, and had a bright smile on his face all week! 

We all said our goodbyes and I was very sad that Hosan did not come to the field today. He had been bothering me all week long to have some of my peanuts and, of course, I did not give him any. You can't just treat one camper without treating them all. So we had bought him some surprise peanuts but then he never came :-( I know that he wanted to be there so whatever kept him must have been important. I just hope that everything was ok! 

Saying goodbye is so hard. We have such a positive impact on the kids during the week and I know that if we had soccer every day after school all year long, they would be there. They get attached to us and we get attached to them and then we have to leave them to whatever situations they are facing. It's heart-breaking. Leaving the field on that last day was heart-breaking. 

As soon as we pulled away there was this terrible feeling of having to leave the kids then coupled with worrying about my brother. Luckily, we had heard back from the hospital that all of his bloodwork came back OKAY! Even though they wanted to keep him overnight for observation, it looked like he was going to be okay. 

Next on the agenda, my meeting with Mr. Coba. We found Mr. Coba back at the school and we talked at length about a league for the kids on the island, what that would look like, how it would run. There is always the temptation to start big because you know there is enough interest but it's so important to start small and have a very WELL RUN league and build from there. So we decided to start with 1 girls bracket and 2 boys brackets, each with 4 teams for a total of 12 teams. We will start the league just for Holy Cross students and the 12 teams will field about 100 players. If the first year goes well, we will look to add another school in and double the size. If the second year goes well, we will add the third school on the island. From there we can add high school division, adult division, even a little kickers division some time in the future. How exciting! So we are aiming for 500 kids in the league in 5 years and to have a full blown soccer program for all ages with different program options within 10 years. If all goes well, the sky is the limit and I am so excited to be on this journey! 

Phil has been around LTRC soccer for years and it was very helpful to have him in the meeting with Mr. Coba. Phil was able to offer information about how the leagues run at home and support me in my proposal to Mr. Coba- that the league I presented and the starting size, was appropriate for the beginning of this. 

At one point I turned to Mr. Coba and said, "We would like the name of the league to me 'More Than Futbol.'" If you ever have the opportunity to meet Mr. Coba, you will learn that he has the best poker face I've ever seen. So when I said this to him it was impossible to gauge his reaction. He just sat quietly for a moment and then said, "I'm starting to feel it!.... we can make a banner that says More Than Futbol and put two soccer balls on it with kids playing soccer and we can hang it up for the start of the league." I was over the moon when Mr. Coba showed this enthusiasm! We wrote a schedule for the league... one that would last 8 weeks and include quarter-finals, semi-finals, and a Championship/Third place game. Mr. Coba said that with our trophy donations we had enough for second and third place but we should get first place trophies. Phil stepped in and said that he would donate the trophies! Wow, thanks Phil! 

This is the start of something big. I can feel it! 

By the time we started heading back, it was almost 7:30. We pulled up to find Scott and Kevin still at the condo. Turns out they weren't able to make the last ferry and instead had been on the phone for hours with American Airlines trying to switch Luke's flights so he could leave tomorrow. We showered up and after 4 hours on the phone with the Airlines, Luke was set to go with the latest time out and earliest arrival- only 7 hours of total travel time. They planned to head out on the first ferry in the morning to get Luke from the hospital to the airport and on his flight home. Luke was doing much better at this point, still very sick, still not feeling well but thanks to the good care he got at the Belize City hospital, Luke was improving. 

Everyone was tuckered out by a long, mentally exhausting day. The group was still in great spirits, but with the amount of drama we had experienced this day, it may as well been 3 days in one. We decided to keep it low key and went to Lone Star, our neighborhood restaurant. Great food and great people. Marc, the owner, has been very supportive of the program and has kept in touch via Facebook through the year. At dinner, we even convinced Heimy, the restaurant manager, to coach one of the teams in our league! That's 1 coach down and 11 more volunteers to go! Dinner was fantastic and such a great opportunity to reminisce about the week... there were so many stories to tell and we loved hearing everyone's stories. We even figured out the "Air Drop" on iPhones and spent a lot of time sharing pictures of each other that we had all taken. 

Painted on with many other 
murals at Holy Cross School

We had a really phenomenal coaching staff this week. We really were a "TEAM" and the team spirit in the coaching staff was present all week long. Every person was such a great Ambassador for More Than Futbol. Often times, I overheard someone from the coaching staff talking to the locals about what we were doing there. It was great to see the enthusiasm and all of the coaches promoting the program! Thank you for being awesome Coaches! ... Zach, Katie, Phil, Dave, Mel, Nikki, Kevin, Luke, and Scott! Thank you also to Krista who traveled down with Dr. Carol to focus on medical work but did come many times to soccer camp and help us work with the kids! Thank you also to Dr. Carol for the great work that you do when you come down to Belize! 

Tomorrow, we have the day off to recuperate. Kevin and Scott will be taking care of Luke and then we will all fly out on Sunday. One more blog to come on our last couple of days and then I'm going to write a BLOOPERS blog! I can't wait... we are even going to have a "Nikki Moments" section.... dun dun dun. 

Thanks for following the blog! 

Good night from Belize!