Follow the Leader

By Jenni Carlson

Published: May 6, 2007

The boys fell to their knees one after another, some burying their faces in the spring sod, others sitting back on their haunches in stunned sadness.

Over near the goal was one of their captains. Saul Balderas is a reformed gang banger who worked for two years to regain eligibility lost to poor grades. He now works to keep his family together, looking after his absentee father and visiting his incarcerated brother.

A throw-in away, their other captain. Martin Maese is a soft-spoken tough guy who sold his red Mustang convertible so he could play. He would've needed to work more hours to keep up his payments, so he gave up his car instead of his sport.

Once followers, they were the leaders of the soccer team at Santa Fe South High School.

A squad of players just like them.

They are sons of the Mexican migration, children of hotel room cleaners and Sheetrock haulers, students at a south-side charter school that targets Hispanics, products of a neighborhood so infested with gangs that the federal government is stepping in.

"Every single one of our kids has a story," says Chris Brewster, the principal and coach who left the suburbs to start a school and build a program. "And they can meet their needs because of soccer. They come and release all that anxiety and tension.

"They just play with abandon."

What happens now?

Their season is over, ended Friday by a devastating 4-3 overtime loss in the state quarterfinals. No state title. No gold trophy. And yet, success was never about hardware. Never about what happened during the season.

It's about what happens now that the season is over.

In a school where 77 percent of the students are Hispanic, that ratio climbs to 96 percent on the soccer team. They count off their pre-game stretches in Spanish. They wear T-shirts printed with "Santa Fe South Futbol."

Five springs ago, Santa Fe South played soccer for the first time. The school had opened only a few months before. As a charter school, it receives public funds but operates much like a private school, hiring teachers, managing funds and developing curriculum with the goal of helping students learn more.

When Santa Fe South opened its doors, it had only freshmen that first year. The soccer team struggled. Managed to win just once, in fact.

Then two springs ago, the playoffs.

Then last spring, the title game.

"It felt great to be at the state championship," said Balderas. "I actually never thought a team like us would make it."

But what happens when the season is over and the soccer is done?

Crossing over

Saul Balderas knows how treacherous the escape can be.

Breaking free, you see, isn't as simple as crossing the border.

Diego and Maria Balderas came to the United States more than two decades ago, leaving their central Mexican home in Guanajuato for Oklahoma City. Childless when they arrived, they found jobs, started a family and set about making good on their dreams.

They settled in the south-side neighborhood of Oak Grove.

"That's the ghetto," said Saul, whose name is pronounced Sah-ool. "That's what we all know it as."

When U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales visited Oklahoma City earlier this week to announce a multi-million dollar grant for anti-gang programs, he went to Oak Grove for the proclamation. It wasn't a coincidence. The area has long been marred by violence and crime.

Both Saul and his older brother, Diego, fell into the gangs.

Eventually, Diego left the gangs and the south side. Moving in with guardians, the 5-foot-4 mighty mite became the starting running back at Moore High School as a junior.

But then before his senior season, he was charged with three counts of first-degree rape.

Diego Balderas began a three-year sentence in January.

"It hurts," Saul said, his eyes tearing. "But I'm here doing something good for my family. I'm going to actually be the first to graduate in the whole family."

Soccer has been motivation to keep going.

Athletics is not one of Santa Fe South's hallmarks. The football team has won just once in six seasons. The girls basketball team lost a game 101-2 against Woodward a couple years ago. But with an attacking style that never relents, the soccer team has excelled.

"Soccer," Frank Vangilder said, shaking his head. "Whew."

Vangilder is a football man himself. The history teacher at Santa Fe South goes to the soccer games but still doesn't quite understand what all is going on. Then again, he suspects he might be the least likely person to be teaching at the school. He is 60 years old. White. Conservative.

And the man known by his students as Mr. V believes strongly that something must be done about illegal immigration.

"Boy, politically, I understand what we need to do on our borders and for the security of our country," he said.

He blinked.

"But I've sure met some great kids."

Last year, Mr. V had the transmission in his car go out. He ranted and raved about it, and a few days later when a couple kids said they wanted to hang in his room during the lunch hour, he was still in a snit.

He found his room filled with kids. They had balloons and cake and containers filled with nickels and dimes.

Money for his car.

"I can't take this," he told coach Brewster.

"You have to," he said.

Mr. V has bought enough pizza and pop to repay the $46.75, and yet he feels he'll never be able to give back enough.

"I've seen both sides ... now," he said. "If I'd never been here, I don't know. I know I would not have seen this other side of the issue."

Finding refuge

Saul Balderas was a kid without a school.

Only a few weeks into his freshman year at Capitol Hill, he was booted for fighting. He spent a few months out of school entirely. Needing another chance, he looked at Santa Fe South.

ORO Development, a nonprofit agency that provides assistance to farm workers and other economically disadvantaged families, opened the school with an eye toward Hispanic dropouts on the south side. The school's charter established a limit of 100 students per incoming class, but the numbers have forced the school to change locations three times, from a church to a YMCA to an old elementary school on SE 38th Street.

Santa Fe South has had a waiting list since Day 1.

Balderas quickly realized something different about the school. The teachers actually seemed interested. When he missed school, someone called. When he had a problem in a class or a question on an assignment, someone helped.

Someone cared.

"That's a very big deal for some of us Mexicans," Balderas said.

Slowly, he began turning his life around. Still a gang member when he started at Santa Fe South, he began to focus energy elsewhere. He started working at Buy For Less and Family Dollar. He started dating a nice girl in his class, Imelda Torres.

But he didn't play soccer. Not as a freshman. Not as a sophomore. His grades weren't good enough.

Brewster, after all, requires more than passing. He demands a B average from his players.

The coach pushes them to do more than they thought possible. During the preseason, Brewster runs his players to a hill north of Mount St. Mary. It is two-plus miles there, through Rottweiler-infested neighborhoods on pothole-laden streets.

That is only the beginning.

Then, the team sprints up and down the hill. Sideways. Backwards. Carrying a teammate on their back.

"Crazy sprints," Brewster said. "Until their legs are just shaking."

Then, they run home. Not jog. Run.

If that weren't enough, they do pushups and sit-ups at every stop along the way.

"It's more than conditioning," Brewster said. "It's that mental toughness."

Brewster wrestled and played volleyball as a kid, only picking up soccer in intramurals at Oklahoma Baptist University. He knows little strategy. But he understands what it takes to make a team.

One player screws up, and everyone suffers. Sometimes, the offender will be forced to sit as his teammates run sprints around him.

This year's team had responded to his methods like no other.

Martin Maese had the skill to control play and the muscle to command respect. During a scrimmage last season, he hit Brewster so hard that the coach thought he might pass out.

"My coach has said I'm ready for the next level," Maese said. "I believe I am."

He carries a letter in his backpack from Southern Nazarene. He unfolds it carefully and shows it proudly.

Soccer became his outlet, the place where everything made sense. Maese spoke little English as a freshman. His family moved to the States from Juarez when he was 11, and several years later, he was still adjusting. To the language. To the lifestyle.

This season, he wore bright orange soccer cleats and spiked his hair in a mohawk for games.

And last summer, he bought that Mustang. A red convertible. A dream car. He'd saved for months, putting away money earned from his job at Olive Garden.

But he soon realized that to keep the car, make the payments and buy the insurance, he would have to work 30 or 40 hours a week. That meant sacrificing practice, and he refused to do that. He sold the car to his aunt.

He shrugs off the decision.

"My life's always been soccer," Maese said.

Holding on

Saul Balderas tries so hard to keep it all together.

Less than an hour before Santa Fe South's first-round playoff game Tuesday night, Balderas was on the phone with his sister. His father had promised to come to the game, having never been to one of his son's soccer games. He'd promised one other time but didn't show.

Then Tuesday afternoon, Balderas's sister called to say he might not make it again.

Maybe he was working. Maybe he was without a ride. Maybe he was drinking.

Balderas didn't know.

Never does with his father. There are times when the son has to take days off school to tend to the father. Sometimes, Balderas doesn't even know where he is.

Still, Balderas wanted him at his game, even if just once.

Because really, the here and now is all that's promised any of the boys at Santa Fe South.

Not even the most talented among them have a for-sure future.

"Some of our kids won't make it to college because of their documentation," Brewster said of those players who aren't American citizens. "It's a great tragedy. There'll be a whole segment of kids who are amazing talents who cannot afford the tuition. Soccer would've been their means, but because they have no student visas, being recruited could leave the college and the kid in hot water with the feds.

"I don't know the answer to that in the short term," Brewster said, "but in the meantime, they get to have a great time. Sometimes, that's what you get. You build those memories, and you build their character, and you give them skills that will carry over."

Last Tuesday, Saul Balderas got a memory. When he came out late in Santa Fe South's blowout of Guymon, he scanned the crowd for his family. Was anyone there? He hadn't been able to tell when he was out on the field.

He saw his mother first.

Then, his girlfriend and her mother.

Finally, standing near the far set of bleachers, his father.

Life remains a struggle. Balderas lives with his girlfriend's family sharing a room with her little brother, works 30-plus hours a week, worries about his father and his mother and his younger brothers, and waits for those times when his older brother calls from prison.

He wonders whether he'll be able to go to college, starting at Oklahoma City Community College, then moving to Central Oklahoma where he wants to get a criminal justice degree.

Balderas wants to be a cop.

But when he was on the soccer field, life was on hold.

"Out of all the struggles I have, when I'm playing soccer, it just erases my mind from everything," he said.

So, when it ended Friday night, when Heritage Hall overcame a 3-1 deficit and scored midway through the sudden-death overtime, when Santa Fe South realized that was it, the reality was crushing. Their sorrow spilled over.

Their pain will linger.

What happens now?

There's no way to know, of course. But this is where their coach has a dream of his own. Brewster hopes that someday these boys will remember how they carried their teammates on their back, how they sacrificed things like gangster lifestyles and red convertibles along the way, how they accomplished so much that no loss can steal from them.

Then just maybe they will remember what Brewster has so often told them.

"I train you so when you train my kids some day, they will learn how to play soccer but more importantly will know how to behave."

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