On the field and off the streets

CHICAGO - Since 25 homeless men started working with Jason Holmes a few months ago, eight have gotten apartments and another is in transitional housing. Three others were conquering personal demons of smoking, alcohol abuse and heroin addiction.

The reasons might be complicated, but the core of their rehabilitation is a simple therapy: soccer.

Holmes has created a soccer team of homeless men. They play in a league in Plainfield, Ill., and they are part of a growing international homeless soccer movement.

It is a curious endeavor for Holmes, 32. He never played organized soccer and is not a social worker by education. He's an almost-famous alternative-rock guitarist with a bachelor's degree in biology and a law degree he earned after signing a lousy music contract.

Holmes took a job at Hesed House, a homeless-services provider in Aurora, Ill., six years ago as a way to study law while working overnights as a floor manager there. He stayed, motivated by serving others less fortunate. But last year, Holmes said, he started burning out. Hesed's homeless shelter was overcrowded. He wasn't seeing much improvement in people's lives.

"I thought, 'There must be something more we can do, something different, to make a real impact on these people's lives,' " Holmes said.

He came home late one night, turned on ESPN, and saw a documentary,

Kicking It,

which follows seven players making their way to the 2006 Homeless World Cup in South Africa.

Holmes had his idea. "When I decided to start this soccer team, I had no idea what I was doing," he said. "I had to go to the library and check out a couple of books. One was

Soccer for Dummies.

"

He doesn't remember the other, but he does recall that interest was pretty strong once he started a pickup game across the street from Hesed House in September. He held early-morning training sessions, getting players to run 31/2 miles outside. Three-fourths of them threw up the first time they ran.

But most of them kept coming back. The team is a mix of whites, blacks and Hispanics. They don't always understand each other, but they're enjoying themselves, Holmes said.

And he uses the appeal of soccer as a carrot. If players want to compete, they must set three-, six- and 12-month goals, Holmes said. That requirement has helped the players get their lives on track, and the physical demands of the game have forced them to avoid life's impurities.

The players aren't altogether sure how soccer works on moving them toward more empowered, productive lives, but they agree that it is happening. It might be the conditioning and discipline required by the sport. It might be the camaraderie and responsibility that is new to them but inherent to being part of a team.

"It builds us and builds us and builds us to the point where you reach up to the sky and grab a star," said Daniel McLaughlin, 20.

He added that the convergence of physical, mental and emotional demands in a team structure "proves to us that we can do it," that players can "achieve perfection in other areas of your life."

"It motivates me in ways that I haven't even figured out yet," said McLaughlin, who just graduated from a community college job-training program.

Holmes has had to learn how to scrounge. Only four players have soccer cleats. Volunteers with vans drive the 16 players to games.

Triple Threat Mentoring, a nonprofit working with disadvantaged youth, donated 10 green jerseys and red socks. The team received its big break in January, when Terry Knafl, owner of Just For Kicks soccer fieldhouse, waived the $1,700 entry fee for a league in which they are the only team of homeless players.

Now they call themselves the Inferno and play once or twice a week. They also are a part of homeless soccer, known as street soccer, which got its start with a tournament in 2001 in Austria and made its way to Charlotte, N.C., in 2004, after homeless people working with former college player Lawrence Cann asked him to organize a team sport.

That led to the Homeless USA Cup, which last year drew 11 teams to Washington for the tournament. This year, at least 16 teams are expected, said Cann, now executive director of Street Soccer USA, the organization running the event. Lineups of four players on a side compete on a hard surface roughly the size of a basketball court. Organizers will choose eight players to represent the United States at the international Homeless World Cup in September in Milan, Italy.

Rehabilitation among those players is even more impressive than what Holmes is seeing. Cann said 28 of the 36 men who have played on the national team have remained off the street.