#1609 Social Laboratory on a Field

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

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        GALSMITH1@aol.com
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Social Laboratory on a Field

By DAVID GONZALEZ
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- In sports and in life, Robert Duval has always 
fancied the left wing. As a soccer player, he thrived at the position, 
helping to lead Loyola University in Montreal to a college championship. 
But 
when he returned to his native Haiti after graduating in 1976, his 
opposition 
to the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier earned him a brutal 17-month 
prison term in solitary confinement. 

In 1996, after 20 years of political activism during which he encountered 
dictators, military governments and coups, Duval wondered what he had 
accomplished. Despite presidential elections and talk of democracy, he 
was 
beginning to see his nation slip into a political stalemate that would 
cripple it for the next few years. While his nation was undergoing this 
political crisis, he too was experiencing a crisis, a more personal, 
midlife 
kind. 

"Every person in this country has to find a way to express himself and 
make 
sense of his life," Duval said. "Many quit and say there is no hope. That 
is 
the response of the middle class and the upper class. That is not my way. 
Where do we go from here?" 

Back to the soccer field. 

On a 15-acre lot where the only things that glistened were thousands of 
shards of broken glass, Duval, who is 46, founded Athletics of Haiti, a 
sports organization that takes youngsters from the slums of Citi Soleil 
and 
gives them training, food and tutoring. 

Relying on a Candide-like optimism and contacts among the elite with whom 
he 
grew up, Duval has turned a patch of dirt on the outskirts of an 
industrial 
area into a rare sight here in Haiti's capital: a wide-open green space 
with 
lockers, showers and equipment usually unavailable even to the nation's 
biggest athletic clubs. 

Just as rare is that Duval is running a social laboratory, fielding teams 
composed of rough-and-tumble ghetto children, who grew up kicking around 
plastic bottles, and middle-class youths, whose parents see soccer as the 
ticket to a college scholarship. 

Duval sees soccer as more than a diversion. In a nation where class and 
color 
have long separated people, he wants to use sport as a way to bring 
people 
together and move them forward. Traditional politics, however earnest or 
well 
meaning, had its limits, he decided. But soccer, a Haitian passion if not 
a 
world-class pursuit, gives him a chance to see results among the 215 
youngsters who come to the center each day. 

"It's not really about sports," he said. "There are some kids you find 
here 
with a lot of talent, whether it be intellectual, poetry, music or 
sports. 
Sports will expose them to a higher level of life. I wanted to prove that 
you 
can do something positive with Haitian kids. I am sick and tired of 
hearing 
people dump on Haiti and say it has no hope." 

As a former member of the Violette team, one of Haiti's most popular 
soccer 
teams, Duval had already learned a life lesson or two from his playing 
days. 
During the most turbulent periods of political unrest in Haiti in the 
mid- to 
late 1980's, acquaintances who remembered him from the sport would 
sometimes 
warn him about impending attacks by supporters of the dictatorship. 

"If I had not had that kind of past, I would be dead because of my 
politics," 
Duval said. "Sometimes I was protected by gunmen who were supposed to 
shoot 
me. He would know me from the team and say, 'Don't go there because I'm 
supposed to kill you there.' That showed me how much soccer means to the 
Haitian people." 

Duval, the son of an auto-parts industrialist, spent years at the 
forefront 
of a political struggle as an outspoken advocate for human rights. But he 
grew introspective in the mid-1990's, slowly pulling away from politics 
and 
beginning to look for ways to spend more time with his teenage son, Guy 
Robert. 

"I wanted my son to have a different experience," said Duval, who is 
divorced. "I didn't want him to be raised behind walls, not like the 
bourgeoisie." 

One day, while searching for a place where his son could play soccer, 
Duval 
stumbled across a dirty field filled with dozens of children from the 
nearby 
slums of Citi Soleil. The land had been unused since angry mobs sacked 
the 
few houses that stood there in the vengeful months after the Duvalier 
regime 
collapsed in 1986. 

"This was what I was looking for," he said. "I came here and took a group 
of 
kids and told them I wanted to do a team with them. I had tryouts and a 
thousand kids came out. I had to choose 100. Can you imagine? I didn't 
know 
what I was getting into. I was just trying to do something for my son." 

Soon, Duval was doting on a huge extended family, imparting lessons about 
the 
importance of school and sports. He reached an agreement with the owners 
of 
the land, who allowed him to use it for free. He began to call up old 
friends 
-- some of the very elites he had scorned in previous years -- asking 
them 
for donations to help provide food, equipment and money for books and 
school 
tuition. 

Today, the three soccer fields are clean, thanks to a grounds crew that 
spent 
weeks hunched over the dirt plucking out shards of glass. A wall 
protecting 
the children from running onto an adjacent road encloses part of the 
field. A 
clubhouse with lockers and showers has gone up. 

A running track made from packed sand has begun to emerge in one corner, 
which Duval plans to cover with rubber scraps from his father's tire 
retreading factory. Several basketball courts have been built, using 
backboards made from pallets and castoff steel. 

"It's like a recycling operation down here," he said. 

But given the social lines that have long divided Haiti, the task is 
sometimes frustrating. People in the ghetto sometimes suspect that Duval, 
with his privileged background, has an ulterior motive, using sport to 
help 
build his own political base. 

He often has to remind the parents from Citi Soleil that they must 
encourage 
their children to study, using school and discipline as the passport to 
sports. He is not there simply to provide free shoes and meals and let 
the 
children run free. 

"He is not a man who treats people differently because of their color," 
said 
Jeanel Dolvilas, who is 21 and has been playing at the field for several 
years. "He really wants to help people." 

Duval has encountered resistance from the middle class, which sometimes 
cringes when he suggests that they send their children to play with 
youngsters from Citi Soleil. 

"I tell them they should come and give it a try," he said. "If you're 
serious 
about your kid playing soccer in the future and getting a scholarship, 
this 
is the place to do it. This is where the talent is." 

Not to mention where the controversy is. Duval said he had encountered 
resistance from the managers of other teams, who he said resent his 
efforts. 
In some tournaments, he said, his teams have been disqualified on 
technicalities, while other teams go unpunished for more serious 
violations. 
For the second year in a row, one of his teams was eliminated, unfairly, 
he 
said, from moving up into a division that is better equipped and 
organized. 

"We take the money and do things with it," he said. "A lot of guys who 
run 
teams take the money and live off it. I'm opposed to that sector." 

Duval knows he may sound naove. He takes no money for running the club, 
even 
though he works at it full time. He also knows he could lose it all 
tomorrow 
if the landowners demand their property or if he fails to come up with 
enough 
financing and donations. He knows, too, that some people are willing to 
look 
out for him. Mario Elie, the San Antonio Spurs player who is of Haitian 
descent, visited a few months ago to lend support. 

Others also have, but in more streetwise ways. One evening, a 
gold-toothed 
man from the slums came by to warn Duval about rumors that someone was 
going 
to disrupt a meeting with parents. 

"If there are any problems, this is what I have to help you," the man 
said, 
lifting his shirt to reveal a revolver tucked into his waistband. 

Duval shrugged it off. Nothing unusual happened at the meeting, where he 
spoke to 200 parents and children about the work he was doing at the 
center. 

"There are people who say Haiti has nothing," he said. "I believe we have 
some serious Haitians who can do their own development themselves. We can 
help ourselves." 

The parents stayed long after it had grown dark. Duval lingered for a 
while, 
chatting with them. 

"What keeps me going?" he said. "Every day I come here and see the wall 
is 
still here, the house is not broken into and the guys are still working. 
Every day that goes by is a victory for me."