Walking onto the field before a FIFA World Cup match is one of the most emotional moments in soccer. Players emerge from the tunnel, national anthems play and tens of thousands of fans rise to their feet.
Most fans never experience that moment from the field.
For a select group of Puget Sound kids, however, it became a memory they will carry for the rest of their lives.
Bow Lake Elementary teacher and soccer coach Ginalyn Pearson, who brought student mascots to the June 24 match between Qatar and Bosnia & Herzegovina, said it was an emotional experience.
“I was getting goosebumps,” said Pearson, describing watching her players on TV. “All of our [program] members were like, ‘oh my gosh, there’s so and so,’ and they were so excited.”
Through the Quaker Player Escort Program, children from three local organizations – Washington Youth Soccer Foundation, RAVE Foundation and Seattle SCORES – walked onto the field alongside World Cup players during matches in Seattle.
Quaker sponsors the program and partnered with Common Goal to select soccer-based community organizations across the tournament’s 11 U.S. host cities. More than 1,400 children participated nationwide after completing a nutrition curriculum, assembled by Quaker, designed around culturally inclusive food choices.
Mascots in Seattle were selected from students who completed the curriculum by a combination of random draw, nomination and application, according to Washington Youth Soccer Foundation director Kathy Shireman-King.
“Their entry they submitted, they had to be at all the practices and had to answer all the health questions for every practice, then we had to look at their behavior in class and at school, and then we drew names,” said Pearson. Her program selected 26 participants from 62 students.
For the children, the day began long before kickoff.
They arrived at the Seattle Sounders training complex in Renton around 5 a.m., before boarding a bus to Seattle Stadium for a noon game. Before leaving, students received a Quaker-branded uniform, including a jersey, shorts, and socks to keep.
During a morning stadium rehearsal, Pearson noticed her students taking in the scale of the venue.
The nearly 70,000-seat stadium and fresh grass pitch stood in contrast to the small, hole-filled field with well-loved goal posts where they run their afterschool soccer program with support from WYSF.
“We have a lot [of kids] who really love soccer because we don’t have a lot of opportunities in our area,” Pearson said. “They’re always arguing about who’s better, Messi or Ronaldo. … They watch soccer, they have jerseys of their favorite players, so soccer, of all the sports, is the one that’s most well known.”
For Jonice Collins and Jaylah Scott, who attended the June 24 match between Qatar and Bosnia & Herzegovina, the experience was about more than soccer: It was about the snacks, video games, activities, and foosball games they got to play in the green room beforehand.
“It was really fun because I got to go against my friends,” said Collins, a third-grade student who started playing soccer in March through the SCORE program at Des Moines Elementary.
Seattle SCORES runs afterschool programs combining soccer, poetry and service-learning at Title I elementary schools in South Seattle.
The children also briefly met players before the match. Scott, 10, said she was excited about the opportunity, even though she was too shy to say much and wasn’t allowed to ask for autographs.
But Scott said she got more out of the program than just an autograph: she learned what it was like to be part of a team.
“You have to show up and be kind to your teammates, even though they don’t really know how to play,” Scott said.
Scott walked onto the field with Qatar goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada. Collins was with Bosnia and Herzegovina defender Arjan Malić. At the time, neither child knew the players’ names, only their team and number.
“It was a really cool experience and I got to make like three or four new friends,” Collins said.
For Jeremiah Pirir Flores, a fourth-grader at Bow Lake Elementary, the significance came from the occasion itself.
“Because it’s the World Cup, it only happens once every four years,” he said.
After the national anthems, the students watched the match from seats directly above the player tunnel – tickets that would’ve cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. For many of the kids, this was their first-ever professional soccer game.
When Qatar captain Hassan Al-Haydos scored late in the first half, Jeremiah’s younger sister Camila lit up with excitement.
“That’s my player!” she shouted.
Back at the training complex after the game, the second grader was too overheated and shy to say much about the experience. But Pearson said soccer has helped bring students like Camila out of their shells.
“The teamwork is the most important thing, and the quiet kids, they shine through and they participate more,” Pearson said. “All five of my kids [who attended on June 24] are the quiet ones. It was nice. They were like, ‘oh my gosh, did you see that?’”
