27 September 2006
U.S. World Cup Coach Says Sports Can Help At-Risk Youth
State Department sports envoy Glenn Myernick moved by visit to South Africa
Washington -- Lessons and experiences learned from participating in sports can help at-risk youth succeed in life, says Glenn Myernick, the assistant coach for the 2006 U.S. World Cup football team.
Myernick, who made a three-city visit to South Africa September 13-20 as a U.S. State Department sports envoy, sees sports as a metaphor for life in that it teaches discipline and cooperation within a group.
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In a September 26 Washington File interview, Myernick said sports can serve as a vehicle for lifetime opportunities for underprivileged young people who view their future with hopelessness. Sports, a huge industry with a wide variety of jobs, can take at-risk youth off the street and into the work force, Myernick said.
As a former standout football player himself at the college and professional level, Myernick said with a chuckle that he views his job as a coach as nothing more than a "poor excuse for not being able to play soccer anymore." Football is known as soccer in the United States.
In nations such as South Africa, with very high unemployment, problematic youth also need the "diversion" that sports provide, Myernick added. South Africa's unemployment rate averaged 28 percent from 2000 to 2004, according to the World Bank's 2006 World Development Indicators.
Myernick's visit to Pretoria and two other South African cities -- Johannesburg and Cape Town -- is part of a State Department-sponsored "World Cup Sports Initiative" that offers football clinics to young people around the world. Myernick made the trip to South Africa accompanied by former U.S. women's national team star Shannon MacMillan.
In addition to the South Africa program, seven U.S. national team football players and coaches are offering clinics from September 13 to October 13 in Bahrain, Nigeria and Uganda, speaking to an estimated 4,000 youths in the four nations. The players and coaches, selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation, are spreading the 2006 World Cup's theme of "a time to make friends" with an emphasis on building international understanding and respect.
In July, 30 football players, ages 13-18, from Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Bolivia participated in the State Department-sponsored sports program. The youngsters were involved in athletic, educational and community events in Washington and New York. The program included a trip to Germany, led by Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes, to attend a World Cup match. (See related article.)
Myernick said a highlight of his trip to South Africa was visiting a school in Johannesburg called the Ithuteng Trust, which offers at-risk and orphaned children a chance to escape troubled childhoods by providing them with life skills and education.
Celebrities such as television talk show host Oprah Winfrey and professional basketball player and community activist Dikembe Mutombo have also given the school, located in a poor and formerly racially segregated township called Soweto, their time, money and energy to help the facility continue to grow. Some children at the school have been orphaned by political violence, crime and AIDS. Mutombo, a native of the central African nation of Congo, offered a pledge of $100,000 when he visited the school September 4.
Myernick said his group received a "fantastic greeting" from about 160 of the Ithuteng children, staged a program on South African individuals "influential in the social consciousness of the country's history." That history, Myernick said, includes the long struggle to eliminate South Africa's policy of apartheid, in which the country's black population was segregated from whites.
During his visit, Myernick shared with the children the news that South Africa had been awarded the 2010 World Cup, making it the first African nation to be given the honor of hosting football’s pre-eminent event.
Additional information on the State Department's sports diplomacy programs is available on the department Web site. More information on the Ithuteng Trust is available on the U.S. Embassy in South Africa Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)