20330: (Hermantin) Palm Beach Post- Team Haiti on a 'mission' (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Team Haiti on a 'mission'

By Charles Elmore, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 12, 2004



MIAMI -- So often in sports, "off-the-field problems" is a code phrase. It
refers to messes that spoiled and arrogant athletes make for themselves.
Drugs. Rapes. Shootings. These usually are called "distractions" in the
locker room, as if the players had no particular role in bringing it about.

Meet some athletes with real off-the-field problems. Meet the Haitian soccer
team that plays the United States in World Cup qualifying play at the Orange
Bowl Saturday night.

Team captain Pierre-Richard Bruny has a 3-month-old son, Bradley, whom he
has seen once, for four days. He is luckier than most of the players. They
have not been home in four months.

"In Miami, we have no problem, but we're concerned about Haiti," Bruny said
through a translator Thursday. "What I think about most is my family."

Midfielder Peter Germain got word his house had burned down in coup-related
violence before a match against Turks and Caicos. He played in a 2-0 win. It
took several days to confirm his family was alive.

"When he heard that news, that was very sad," Bruny said. "We were trying to
get in touch with his family. After a few days, he got news his family was
OK, but his home was gone."

There is no money for them from Haiti. They find practice fields in South
Florida wherever they can. They survive on donations from sympathetic
companies and people. Without the sponsorship of one sports-promotion firm,
Caribbean-American Corporate Services, they could not count on a place to
sleep at night.

"I did expect some economic difficulties, no question," said Haiti's coach,
Fernando Clavijo. "I didn't expect the crisis in the country. But we've got
a group of guys that somehow have been able to continue through the stress
and keep playing."

At the moment, the U.S. team must worry about little more than getting along
without some of its players who are committed to professional clubs
overseas.

The Haitians must worry about saying something that could get a relative
killed.

"We talk politics among ourselves, but not in public," Bruny said.

The team cannot be sure if or when it will host a game again.

"We would like our country to become stablized, " Bruny said. "We cannot
receive other teams in qualifying play because it is unstable. "

That is why there is such a current of anticipation about this game in South
Florida, where so many from Haiti have settled. There is a desperate hunger
for something to be for, something to cheer about, instead of the endless
headlines that shout about what there is to mourn.

U.S. coach Bruce Arena senses what that crowd, that atmosphere, could mean
-- even though the Americans are typically favored in such a match against a
nation with so few resources.

"Going into this match, I don't many advantages for the U.S. team," Arena
said. "In fact, I see advantages for the Haitian team."

As Haitian midfielder Johnny Decollines put it, "We are here for a mission."

There was a murmur in the Orange Bowl's media conference room when he said
that. Among the more than 50 journalists present were several from the
Haitian-American media, some conducting interviews with cellphones or home
video cameras.

It turned into open applause when he completed the thought.

"On the team, we must come together to do the job for our nation," he said.

charles_elmore@pbpost.com

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