Manchester's Melting Pot

Dec. 23, 2024

 

In the summer of 1974, my Mom uprooted my five siblings and me from our home in northeastern New Jersey, a stone’s throw from the George Washington Bridge, and relocated the clan to Manchester’s North End. For Mom, it was a homecoming. She was raised by my Grandmere and Grandpere Pare on Lafayette Street, on the city’s predominantly French-Canadian West Side.

 

Mom’s brothers – my Uncle Arthur and Uncle Bill – were a pair of studs, playing football and baseball for the Giant Killers of St. Joseph High School for Boys (now the co-ed Trinity High School). William “Bill” Pare later played football at Fordham, and was inducted into the Trinity’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. But it was my Uncle Art, who would go on to become a Jesuit priest, who would change the trajectory of my athletic life.

 

While a novitiate in Beirut, Lebanon, the future Father Pare was introduced to global “football,” the sport we call soccer. He was absolutely smitten. When Mom suggested that we were interested in football, Art quickly interjected: “Jane, you really need to have the boys play soccer.” It was a serendipitous moment in my sporting “career.”

 

In the early 1970s, New Jersey was a true social melting pot, an early hotbed for American soccer. My brothers and I were incredibly fortunate to meet a remarkable coach, Joseph Camilleri, a native of Malta who founded the Leonia Soccer Association a few years earlier. We had the O’Connors – the sons of Irish and French-Canadien parents – plus Italians, Greeks, Germans, eastern Europeans, Central Americans, and South Americans. The teams reflected the extensive ethnic diversity of Leonia, which I loved.

 

When we moved to New Hampshire, following my sophomore year in high school, I had no idea what to expect. Though we regularly visited Grandmere and Grandpere during my childhood, I didn’t know many other kids. I couldn’t wait for Central High’s soccer practices to start, so I could meet a few fellow students before classes began. Given my somewhat limited experiences with local teens, I expected a fairly lily-white turnout. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

 

School athletic teams, as anyone who has played knows, are microcosms, small groups within larger groups. We represent the schools we play for, but aren’t always representative. Manchester of 1974 wasn’t nearly as ethnically diverse as it is today, but our soccer team certainly was. It was like the United Nations. We had names from various and sundry backgrounds, including French-Canadian (Gelinas, Cusson, Chaput, Benard), Greek (Kaliora, Lekkas, Venagas), and Equadorian (Carachuelo). We had a Luce, Larea, Demenchuk, Zito, Witcher, Johnson, Hamilton, and Connelly. Our goalkeeper was a studious senior with All-American good looks named Doug Zesiger. But the unquestioned stars were a pair of Colombian imports – Jimmy Sierra and Henry Saldariaga – and a wonderfully talented and comical Haitian, Danny Lascase.

 

“My first experience with real soccer came the summer following my freshman year at Central,” says Steve Long, a fellow junior on that 1974 team. “I played a game on a team that was shorthanded, and mostly manned by folks from the Greek community. I credit those guys with my introduction to the sport, since they encouraged me to keep playing.”

 

While Central soccer teams had rarely been anything special, Coach Robert Veilleux and the rest of us quickly realized this squad could be dominant. Except for one early season hiccup against powerhouse Alvirne squad, we ran the table, capturing the city championship with a 12-1 mark. Meanwhile, I developed the useful talent of cursing in five different languages.

 

“Hey, No. 1,” a ref once snapped at me during a game. “Repeat what you just said to me. In English.”

 

“I can’t,” I honestly replied, smiling and running away. “I have no idea what it means.”

 

What we all knew, almost intrinsically, was that soccer was game that rewarded teamwork. When all 11 players were on the same page, working as a unit, we were all but unstoppable. And we enjoyed every moment.

 

“I agree it was a special group,” says Long. “As a young soccer player, I really admired the seniors on the team, and loved joking around with my peers.

 

“I also learned a lot about being a good team member,” he says. “The 1974 team was my first brush with ethnic diversity. That helped prepare me for joining the Peace Corps and meeting my wife-to-be from Mumbai in graduate school. As a provincial kid from a New Hampshire mill town, I wouldn’t have gotten very far without my exposure to the ethnic diversity that came from playing on that 1974 team.” 

 

Today, I can’t help but think what we could all learn from my 1974 team. A half-century after that magical fall, I still look back fondly on that collection of boys who took to the rocky pitch alongside Hillside Junior High to play “the beautiful game,” and played together beautifully.

 

FINIS

 

A version of this essay first appeared in the September 2024 issue of New Hampshire Magazine.