ROME – Watching them pass with either foot, watching them move into space, watching them dribble, they look like any adult men’s soccer team on any field in Atlanta on any weekend.
There’s a mix of ages. There’s a mix of body styles. There’s a mix of skill.
But this isn’t just any team. This is the U.S. men’s Paralympic team that will be trying to medal in Brazil when their event begins Sept. 8.
That it’s difficult to tell that each player has, or has suffered from, a stroke, Cerebral Palsy, or a traumatic brain injury — the experiences that are required to be qualified to play soccer in the Paralympics — is kind of the point of why they are practicing in the stifling heat, just like any other team could be doing.
As Adam Ballou, the team’s statesmen having been on it since 2007 and who has Cerebral Palsy, said, they can do anything anybody else can do, they just may do it differently.
“We are full force ahead and playing well,” Ballou, a midfielder, said. “We have our sight set on the podium.”
The first clues that the practice is different than most comes when the ball rolls out of play. Throw-ins can be rolled in so that players who don’t have the full use of both hands can execute the re-start. There are more. Teams play seven-a-side. Because there are fewer players the fields are smaller: 75 meters long by 55 meters wide. The goals are also smaller, 5 meters wide by 2 meters tall. There is no offsides. The game is played in two 30-minute halves.
The players on the U.S. team come from different backgrounds and are on the team for different reasons.
Some have experienced brain trauma while serving in the military. Some have suffered strokes. Some, like Ballou, were born with Cerebral Palsy. Some, like Steven Bohlemann, who recently completed a master’s of Science and Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, are on the team because of fate.
Bohlemann was jogging downhill on a bridge in Charleston, S.C. on July 9, 2013 when a cyclist slammed into him from behind. Bohlemann suffered a fracture to the temporal part of his skull, a subdural hematoma, and spinal fracture.
He lost his memory for two weeks and spent a month in a hospital. He was able to kick a soccer ball during rehab, but doesn’t remember doing so.
He was angry, afraid and depressed. Friends would come to visit, but their sympathy or pity weren’t helpful.
An ICU nurse gave Bohlemann a great piece of advice: you can’t be fearful of life. Don’t give up on your passions. Adapt.
Bohlemann began to watch his friends play soccer. He began juggling a ball to improve his balance and coordination. He played for the Embry-Riddle University soccer team before his accident. When he returned he began coaching the team.
He volunteers with The Brain Injury Peer Visitor Association, a group of people who have suffered brain injuries who visit those who have suffered similar injuries. One day, that group’s Facebook page cross-linked with that of the U.S. Paralympic National Team. Bohlemann didn’t know there was such a thing.
He emailed coach Stuart Sharp and joined the team in March.
Now, Bohlemann will likely compete in the Olympics.
“My worst life experience leading to my best life experience, it’s really weird how life can work out sometimes,” he said. “The pride and joy of representing your country to me is the highest goal an athlete can have. Now in some roundabout way I’m getting to have that honor and privilege to represent my country.”
Fifty-three nations play seven-a-side soccer. There is a four-year process to qualify for the Paralympics. The U.S. didn’t medal at the Paralympics in London in 2012.
“Any team that goes to competition must step on the plane with a medal as their goal,” Sharp said. “We believe if we play to our potential, get a little bit of luck but apply what we’ve learned, we can leave with a medal around our necks.”
The U.S. will play in a group that was supposed to include Russia, considered the world’s best team but who has since been banned amid the doping scandal, but now includes Iran, one of six national teams whose players are full-time athletes, Argentina and the Netherlands, which will be the critical opening game for the U.S. The team has a rough history with Argentina. They have played each other three times in the past two years. There have been red cards in those games.
Sharp is a native of Scotland, who coached the Scottish Paralympic team for eight years, during which they qualified to play in Beijing and London. However, Scotland didn’t participate in those games.
Sharp moved to the U.S. in 2012 began doing contract work with the United Nations and the U.S. State Department in Sierra Leone, Haiti and Jordan. During that time, the U.S. parted ways with its manager. Sharp took over the team in Jan. 2014.
He enjoys coaching the Paralympic athletes because they always look for answers.
“It’s humbling when you hear the obstacles they have overcome but not used it as a crutch or excuse,” he said. “They have used it as motivation to achieve more.”
Coaching the Paralympic athletes isn’t much different than coaching Olympic athletes, according to Sharp. He must take into account their impairments, because as the game continues the effects of the impairments may increase. He must get to know the athletes as individuals, particularly how they learn and retain information, so that he may better impart what he’s trying to teach.
Ballou, for example, started playing soccer when he was 3 years old while growing up in Virginia Beach. He said his parents raised him to not use his Cerebral Palsy, which affects his left side, as an excuse.
The U.S. Paralympic team began to recruit him when he was in middle school at Norfolk Christian. He joined the team when he was 14 years old.
After graduating from James Madison in Dec. 2015 2 with majors in International Affairs and Spanish, Ballou moved to Atlanta where most of the players were training full time for Brazil. In addition to training in Rome in August, many on the squad have lived and trained at Oglethorpe University since February.
Sharp is convinced that there are opportunities being missed to improve the team simply because people don’t know that they are eligible.
“The misconception is they are Paralympic, they on crutches,” he said. “These guys are playing in adult leagues, in youth leagues. Someone with a very minor traumatic brain injury, or mild cerebral palsy, or a mild stroke, can qualify for this team. I hope in the next cycle we can have more Georgians, and people from Atlanta on the team.”
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