WASHINGTON — The Eastern High School girls’ soccer team has only been around for two seasons. And while they’ve been successful, making the playoffs both years, the furthest they’ve ever traveled for a game is Bowie, Maryland, about 20 minutes down the road from Eastern, which sits 17 blocks east of the Capitol Building, near RFK. So the fact that three seniors boarded a plane from Dulles International Airport for Barcelona Thursday night is no small thing.
Keyanna Kelley, Daijhanna Murphy and Paris Whealton were joined by 17 other D.C. student athletes from seven other schools that comprise the delegation headed to Spain for a week to train with coaches from storied club FC Barcelona and compete against a pair of Spanish girls’ academy teams. For the second part of the program, FC Barcelona coaches will come to U.S. to run a six-week soccer program this summer called Futbol Net.
Traveling for youth and prep sports is nothing new to some, but it’s no exaggeration to say this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many of the student-athletes attending. And while this was an experience designed to try to open up such an opportunity to those who would never otherwise have such a chance, coveted spots on the team were earned, not given.
A pool of 82 girls attended the initial tryout, with that group whittled to 30, then 20 with five alternates. With such a fledgling program, it’s understandable that the Eastern trio didn’t really expect to be taken seriously, skeptical that perhaps even the initial invitation to try out was more of a courtesy than a genuine show of interest.
“So, honestly, I wasn’t even going to go, because I thought I wasn’t good enough to do it,” said Whealton, who grew up a basketball player and only picked up soccer last year. “But then my coach encouraged me to do it. He was like, ‘You never know.’”
That coach, physical education teacher Alex Clark, helps with several of the Ramblers’ sports and, despite having a lacrosse background, was the one to really help get the soccer team off the ground. The success of that program helped build confidence for the girls who tried out and ultimately made the team.
“I think that’s the thing that we have to encourage our children to do a lot of times,” said longtime Eastern athletic director Patricia Briscoe. “Because they believe that they are not going to be given a fair opportunity to try out because other schools’ reputations and teams’ reputations. So it meant so much to them and to us for them not only to go and try, but to be selected.”
The trip is being paid for by both FC Barca and DCIAA, as part of the partnership they established last summer. The soccer giant has made other inroads in the states recently, opening up five stateside soccer schools, including one in Leesburg, Virginia. For DCIAA’s part, they hope to plan an international boys basketball trip next year, then switch annually between gender and sport for future years.
While the soccer itself will play a big role in the trip, the cultural experience is just as important.
“I want to see the architecture,” Kelley said. “The buildings, the people, the streets the most. I’m ready to walk the streets.”
As a senior, she hopes to bring back lessons she can share with her younger teammates, both in terms of Xs and Os as well as the overall culture.
“Culture is something I take seriously, and I like having different pieces of culture embedded with me,” she said. “Being able to see how they play soccer, being able to see how they work is just going to be a life-changing event to me.”
For some, there is a wow factor in the FC Barca name alone.
“They’re the best team in the world,” said Murphy, who said more than anything she hopes to meet FC Barca’s star, Lionel Messi.
But others aren’t intimidated, just looking forward to the challenge.
“I just have this confidence in my team,” Whealton said. “I feel like growing up in D.C., you already have a kind of tough thing about you. I’m not really nervous or scared when I play, I just play.”
The girls have already learned one lesson before ever boarding the plane. They’ve been practicing at least twice a week since November, often indoors, due to the weather. That’s meant learning to play together with old rivals from other parts of the city.
“People who I played against who I did not like on the field, I am now playing with them, and it’s amazing,” Kelley said. “This one girl I used to hate on the field, and now we’re just buddies. We text every day.”
That might be the most important take-away for Briscoe. She’s encouraged by the fact that the girls have seen past the rivalry aspect of sports and how they can function as bridges between communities that may normally never otherwise interact.
“It brings people together from different backgrounds and different parts of the city,” Briscoe said. “People they thought they would never like, now they’re just best friends with. That’s the opportunity that sports has created for people in this city.”
