L.E. Eisenmenger -- BOSTON, MA (Jan 29, 2010) US Soccer Players -- Chris Tierney, a wide left midfielder for the New England Revolution, spent a month of his off season not vacationing with friends and family, but volunteering for HIV/AIDS outreach with Grassroots Soccer in South Africa.
Tierney is 24 and heading into his third season with the Revolution. The Massachusetts native graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in psychology and was spotted by the Revolution in the 2008 invitation-only tryout and drafted in the Supplemental Draft the following day.
He traveled to South Africa alone and joined a group of ten interns who had volunteered a year of their time, unpaid, to Grassroots Soccer. Grassroots has offices throughout Africa and Tierney was the only MLS player involved over the winter break.
Tierney spoke with me about how he helped educate African children and test them for Aids through soccer, crime in South Africa, and the challenges Africa faces with this disease.
Grassroots Soccer is an organization that uses soccer to help the fight against HIV and Aids in Africa. What they do is educate community leaders and help run programs that couple both soccer and HIV/Aids information and health education for the less fortunate communities in and around South Africa.
I was looking for something productive to do with my time this off season. I thought it might be a good match and it was, it turned out great.
What was your role?
I was there to lend a hand in anything that they needed me for. I was working in townships around South Africa with the kids running soccer clinics, but also helping run HIV testing clinics and helping out in the day-to-day running of the organization.
How did you combine soccer and HIV education?
What they would do is organize tournaments or clinics in these townships and the kids and people in the community would be attracted by the mere fact that they’re attracted to soccer. They used soccer to bring attention to the bigger issue, which is AIDS and HIV.
They’d say, ‘In order for you guys to play, you can get an HIV test or we can offer you counseling on prevention,’ and there’s activities and drills that they would run that incorporate some of the issues into playing soccer.
Was it a quid pro quo?
They didn’t require you to, but they definitely encouraged it as an option. It was a fun way to get them involved and thinking about some of the factors that cause HIV and how it can be prevented. The kids take to it a lot more openly when it’s coupled with something that they really care about like soccer.
Walk me through an activity where Aids was incorporated.
They’d have you dribble around cones that were each labeled with risk factors for HIV, such as substance abuse or cultural factors like the way the communities are run and the kids are less supervised. They’d have the kids dribble through the cones and if they hit one of the cones they’d make their entire team do push-ups just to show that these risk factors can not only affect you but can affect your family. It’s showing how HIV and AIDS is very powerful in the way it not only affects people’s lives individually, but entire communities and entire countries, like it has in South Africa.
When they got tested how soon would they find out if it was positive or negative?
They would be told within 10-15 minutes. They would do the tests and then they’d bring the kids individually into rooms where doctors would analyze the blood samples and tell them right there. If it was a positive test they’d say, ‘You’ve been tested positive for HIV and here are the things that we can do, here are the services that we can offer,‘ and they’d provide support necessary for people to address their issues as best they can.
How old were these kids?
The kids ranged from six years old to 21, 22 years old.
Did you see their reactions when they were told they were positive? How did they respond?
I did. It’s sort of looked upon differently there. It’s hard to imagine, but there’s much less education about the disease, so I don’t think it really set in the way that it would if someone in our society would test positive because they simply don’t have the same understanding of what the disease means and how deadly it really is.
How many players got tested in a day?
They’d test 70-100 kids.
How many might test positive?
It’s so variable. There was one or two tests where there was zero positive tests, and that was mostly because we tested such a young age group. In other tests in other parts of South Africa and Cape Town, up to a quarter of the kids that tested, tested positive.
With so many people afflicted with Aids in South Africa, what is the difficulty in increasing awareness?
The biggest issue in South Africa is just education about the disease and intervention. When you go there and speak to these people in these townships you realize how much of a different world it really is. There are really simple questions that simply can’t be answered for them because there are myths and rumors that exist there and have for a while. There’s no one in place to dispel those rumors and clarify how the disease can be spread, how it can not be spread, and what you can do to make sure you don’t get it.
Did your degree in psychology help you?
I wasn’t really practicing any of the tools that I learned, but I think subconsciously I always think about that kind of stuff, whatever I do.
What was your impression of the country?
In South Africa there are parts that are some of the poorest, most rough neighborhoods I’ve ever been to, townships unbelievably poverty stricken. But there are also parts of South Africa that are absolutely gorgeous and beautiful vacation spots right outside of Cape Town, so whenever I could I’d try to get down to the beach and do a little surfing. The beaches are beautiful.
You wrote on twitter that you surfed there for the first time. How did you do?
It was great, but I can’t say I did great. By the end I could get up on a wave, which was my goal, but it’s not easy.
There’s been a lot of talk about dangerous crime in South Africa. What’s your take on this?
A couple of my roommates I was living with in Cape Town were mugged at knife point right outside of our apartment. They had their wallets and cell phones taken. There’s a decent amount of crime there that they’re working hard to rid the city of, but those problems definitely still do exist.
Cape Town is a beautiful city, but there’s definitely safety in friends if you travel there. You always want to make sure you walk around in a group and try to do most of your walking during the day.
What is the African soccer game like and what is their perception of American soccer?
That’s a good question. Soccerwise, just playing around the townships with the kids, they’re amazing individual players, super athletic, very talented. But I watched games in South Africa, in the professional league there as well and it’s so individual, they’re so focused on dribbling and flicks and tricks that the team aspect is definitely a part of the South African game that's lacking.
They definitely have a respect for MLS. Everyone knows what MLS is, even the kids in the townships. I think a lot of that is Mr. Beckham coming over, but either way I think the League is respected. A couple employees of Grassroots mentioned that a bunch of the playoff games were actually shown on TV.
Overall, what did you get out of your time there?
I built a lot of really good relationships that will continue for a while with some of the interns and people at Grassroots Soccer. But I came to an understanding of some of the problems that really do exist and need to be addressed such as Aids in South Africa and in Africa in general. It’s a massive problem and something that soccer can have a huge impact on. One thing I realized for sure is how important soccer can be in social change and how effective a tool it really is.
Would you consider doing something like this again?
Definitely. My time there was amazing. You don’t get a chance to do much with the schedule we have in MLS, so I definitely hope to continue taking advantage of my time off and doing something productive with that time, as opposed to using that time for myself or sitting around Boston.
You can follow Chris Tierney on twitter at ChrisTierney8. For more information on the work Grassroots Soccer is doing, visit their official site.
L.E. Eisenmenger writes for a variety of outlets including covering Boston soccer for The Examiner. Contact her at eisenmenger@soccerlens.com.
