Haitian Amputee Soccer spreads hope at CCHS
Photo: Stephen Green
Students from CCHS played a special-rules scrimmage against the Haitian National Amputee Soccer team during a stop on their tour to spread a message of hope.
Dec 15, 2017
Operation Go Quickly, an organization serving with disabilities worldwide, is spreading a message of hope to Caney Creek High School students.
Robert Ferguson, a U.S. combat veteran, alongside with Dr. Fred Sorrells, president of Operation Go Quickly, came to the soccer practice fields with the Haitian National Amputee Soccer team to talk to the boys and girls soccer team. Operation Go Quickly is trying to raise awareness about amputee soccer and express their stories along the way.
“When I first heard about amputee soccer, my first reaction was why didn’t I know about this sport before?” Ferguson said. “Having had played my entire life I would have been the first to raise my hand to play.”
When Ferguson turned 30, he lost his leg during a training mission at North Fort Hood. He gave up hope to ever playing again.
Eight years later, he found out about amputee soccer from the US goalie for the men’s national amputee soccer team. From there, he trained intensely for six months before trying out and making the U.S. National team.
“I wake up every morning and am grateful to just be only missing a leg,” Ferguson said. “When I was in the Military Hospital at Brooke Army Medical Center I saw men and women that had injuries that were so much worse than myself.”
Sorrells is on a tour with the Haitian soccer team after winning the Cup of the Americas in Los Angeles. He says the purpose of this tour is to demonstrate how something as simple as a soccer ball and crutches can be life changing.
“It is a goodwill tour with the purpose of raising awareness for amputee soccer here in the United States, as well as the Haitians saying thank you to the USA for all they have done to help their country,” Sorrells said.
They have been in many schools not only demonstrating soccer, but in art classes and French classes as well. Haiti is a French-speaking nation.
The Haitian team has played several exhibition matches against high school and collegiate level able-bodied soccer teams.
“Haiti is considered the poorest country in the western hemisphere,” Sorrells said. “They have an unemployment rate of 80 percent, poor infrastructure, poor economy, and a government that is lacking in more ways than one.”
Operation Go Quickly began to bring hope to the disabled in Haiti by providing prosthetics, crutches, work opportunities, hearing aides and even soccer balls.
“We never know where we go if there is someone that will take our stories and be inspired to persevere through whatever may be plaguing them,” Ferguson said.
Sophomore Christian Parra said the message he took away was to keep trying and to look up to the team.
Bryan Martinez said the experience was “sensational.”
“Appreciate what you have because not everyone has what you’ve got,” Martinez said.
