If you were to take an impromptu poll of adolescents walking the streets of Barclay, an inner-city neighborhood in Baltimore, chances are that few of them would recognize names like David Beckham, Mia Hamm, or Freddy Adu.
In fact, most of them probably wouldn't be able to tell you what sport these three athletes play, nevermind what teams they compete for.
Heading down Greenmount Ave., past 24th St., the kids you meet are likely to be able to name one only one soccer team: the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays.
In this stretch of Barclay, you can find a group of inner-city youths who can dribble, pass, and even describe what circumstances warrant a corner kick.
These skills are thanks to the Johns Hopkins men's soccer team, who began a series of after-school soccer clinics at the Greenmount Recreation Center earlier this month, a weekly program that they will continue until graduation.
"We thought it would be a great opportunity for the members of the team to experience the culture that is Baltimore," Adam Hack, one of the team's assistant coaches, said, "and to learn their way around the place where they'll be living for the next four years."
Hack graduated from Hopkins last year with a degree in economics.
While at Homewood, he was a midfielder on the soccer team, and was named to the Mid-Atlantic Region First Team his senior season.
Currently, he works for ApplicationsOnline, a Baltimore-based company that developed the software for The Common Application, the program that allows high school seniors to submit a uniform application to any of the 255 schools that use it.
Working with Dr. Josh Reiter, the president of ApplicationsOnline and also an adjunct Entrepreneurship and Management professor at Hopkins, Hack approached men's soccer coach Matt Smith about finding a way the team could give back to Baltimore, in which the community could learn about Hopkins while Hopkins learned about its community.
"These kids have never been to Johns Hopkins. They probably don't even know what Johns Hopkins is," said Reiter. "You would think that in a city like Baltimore, everyone would know what Hopkins is, but that's not true."
Despite the fact that the program is for kids aged seven to 13, an age at which many children have been playing sports for several years, most of the participants at the clinics have never played soccer before.
For some of these kids, soccer is forgotten among more popular sports like basketball and football.
Accordingly, the Hopkins team started the kids off with basic drills, such as dribbling the ball through cones and passing, and have found that the participants are enthusiastic about learning a new sport.
"The kids show up eager to impress and are always very happy to see us," Coach Smith said.
The small recreation center, which Smith described as being barely big enough to hold a full scrimmage, is certainly a long cry from the well-maintained turf at Homewood field, where the team hopes to hold the last clinic.
"You have to ring a bell just to get in," said Reiter. "The whole thing is built like a prison. You really get the feeling that these are children who don't necessarily see people come in to help them."
The team hopes to resume the clinics again next year after their season ends, providing more young Baltimoreans with an environment where they can learn about the game while in the presence of positive role models - an opportunity to both set goals and to score them.
"A lot of the kids have some serious potential," said junior captain Chris Brown. "If they put a few years into it, they could be really good."
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