D.C. United breaks ground on Audi Field; DC SCORES performs

Written By Dahlia Chaudhury
Communications Intern

Our hometown team  and DC SCORES partner D.C. United has officially broken ground on their brand-new soccer stadium, Audi Field.

While the list of speakers at Monday's groundbreaking included some DCU stars, it also featured our very own Amidon-Bowen poet-athletes as the afternoon's opening act. The three students, Laura, Daniel, and Martin, performed their poem, "All This and All That I Hear About Soccer," for the large crowd. The poem featured lines such as "Because we use our skills to score goals," "I have fun by supporting my team," and "DC SCORES united as one!" The performance garnered laughs and a thunderous applause from the fans at the event.

DC SCORES Executive Director Bethany Rubin Henderson also spoke to the crowd about the partnership between D.C. United and DC SCORES. Following Bethany, emcee and the voice of D.C. United Dave Johnson took the stage to introduce a plethora of other special guests.

The first speaker was Jason Levien, a Managing Partner of D.C. United. Levien is a long-time DCU fan and spoke to the crowd about how our community has been anxiously awaiting this stadium. Then, talking about how our city can unite around soccer, Levien said, "We're building a house of worship for soccer in this city."

The next speaker was District Mayor Muriel Bowser. She told the attendees about her excitement for the partnership between D.C. United and the community, and how the new stadium would pave the way for jobs and economic opportunity in the area. "World class cities have world class sports teams and facilities," Bowser said. "I wanted to make sure that this team was here to stay with us and that they were going to continue to invest in Washington D.C. and the best fans anywhere in the world."

The list of speakers afterwords was star-studded: Don Garber, the MLS Commissioner; Scott Keogh, Audi of America President; and of course D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen, who talked about what the new field meant to him as a former DCU player.

The audience was excited to hear from D.C. native and D.C. United goalkeeper Bill Hamid, who touched on his experiences as a child going to games in RFK stadium. "I hope Audi Field can give generations of young boys and girls the motivation RFK gave me to go after my dreams," he said.

D.C. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen also spoke. Allen talked, like the mayor, about how the new field will benefit the community, but gave a specific shoutout to two of our DCS schools, Amidon-Bowen and Jefferson Middle School! 

After all the speakers, it was finally time to officially break ground. The star-studded cast all grabbed their hard hats emblazoned with the D.C. United logo and shovels that read "Audi Field" in red and white. Johnson directed them all to stick their shovels in a trough of dirt that sat in front of them, and then the picture-taking began. 

Going to the ceremony was such a cool experience, and we're all very excited for the 2018 opening of Audi Field. Vamos United!

First-time Capital Cup victors Capital City and Raymond relish the journey

(View the full Capital Cup album on Flickr)

Written by Jake Lloyd
Communications Manager

In recent weeks, even as the weather has gotten chillier, more and more students at Capital City Public Charter School have arrived earlier in the morning before school.

Braving the cold, members of the schools' soccer teams have taken to the new mini pitch built by the U.S. Soccer Foundation to practice — on their own, in addition to their usual after-school practices with DC SCORES.

About 2 miles south of CCPCS at Raymond Education Campus, members of the boys soccer team waited anxiously on practice days to hit the field together. Their leader David Petersen even said something you don't often hear from coaches.

"They practice so hard against each other," Petersen said. "I have to tell them to scale it back a little bit."

At both CCPCS and Raymond, soccer is an embedded strength of the school community. On Tuesday evening, both schools brought out large throngs of fans to watch the CCPCS girls and Raymond boys win their first Capital Cup middle school championships in thrilling fashion.

The CCPCS girls relied on the communication of their star forwards Precious and Tatiana to hold on for an exciting 2-1 victory over Lincoln Middle School. The Raymond boys outlasted Lincoln on penalty kicks to conclude a tremendous fall middle school season.

And across the city, Paul Public Charter School beat Kelly Miller Middle School in an equally competitive co-ed championship game.

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Precious and Tatiana, seventh-graders, have been playing together for several years. So it's no wonder that the pair of forwards communicates well on the field. What impresses one of their coaches, Claudia Rojas, the most is how they verbally also ensure their teammates are in the right positions on the field to be successful.

"They talk, they organize the rest of the team," said Rojas, now in her fourth season coaching. "They've been playing together, they've been working together since way before I met them."

Precious laced a beautiful shot from deep on the right right side into the upper left corner of the net for a 1-0 lead against Lincoln. After the Knights answered to tie up the score, that communication paid off when Precious found Tatiana on a deep ball down the right side for the game-winning goal.

After the final whistle blew, you couldn't remove the smiles from the faces of the CCPCS poet-athletes.

"They're just so proud of being a soccer player, being a school team," Rojas said. "Soccer is a big deal in Capital City."

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The boys game was, simply, great soccer. Petersen marveled at how well Lincoln — winners of three of the last four Capital Cup boys titles — passed the ball and spread the field, a testament to their longtime coach Popsie Lewis. 

The game is a neighborhood rivalry, with the schools less than a mile apart. Most of the kids know each other and play pick-up games outside of DC SCORES. A few weeks before the game, Raymond scored two late goals to forge a tie with Lincoln that helped them get into the playoffs.

And again, this one came down to the wire — a first-half Raymond goal equaled by Lincoln in the second half. Ultimately, penalty kicks decided a game that both teams deserved to win.

"We're really excited," Petersen said afterward. "The kids came a long way. We lost a lot of eighth-graders last year, so it was cool to see their progress all year. They got a lot better."

After the final kick, Raymond parents, teachers and others from the community rushed the field to celebrate with the kids — one last reminder of just how much soccer and DC SCORES mean to these communities. 

"We have great fans," Petersen said. "They come for the away games during the regular season, they bring signs, make posters. It's a fun atmosphere, big soccer atmosphere."

Thanks to all the middle school coaches, parents and communities for another great fall soccer season. We'll see you at the Poetry Slam! Dec. 2-3. 

Creating change at Truesdell EC, part IV: Let the competition begin!

During the DC SCORES spring season, each of our 44 teams go through a four-step service-learning process that involves A) Identifying problems that need addressing in their community; B) Researching one issue; C) Implementing a project to make a difference in the community; and D) Reflecting on the impact they made.

This spring, DC SCORES intern Kristen Miano is following the Truesdell Education Campus (elementary school) Trojans as they go through the service-learning process. Read below and watch each week’s video to learn how DC SCORES empowers youth to create change around them. You can also view photos from Truesdell HERE and follow Kristen's Tweets HERE.

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Written by Kristen Miano
Digital Media Intern

The Truesdell Trojans are getting down to business with their service-learning project to pick up the trash around their school. They’ve decided to involve their entire school by turning the project into a competition — whichever hallway of students picks up the most trash and keeps their area the cleanest will win a prize.

But there’s a lot more planning to do before the competition can get off the ground. To make the remaining tasks more manageable, the team has created committees to tackle the project head-on.

“We have the committees to complete tasks, like if we need to have speakers go to classes for our project,” said Godwell T., age 8. “I want to be on the advertising or contest committee.”

Cristella B., age 8, also would like to work on either the advertising or contest committee because she is most interested in making posters or helping to craft the rules for the competition.

“We have committees for persuasion, speaking, advertising and (the) contest,” Cristella said. “I want to see how much trash everyone picks up and pick out the prizes.”

The Trojans also learned the value of slogans for campaigns like theirs. After completing a challenge to match familiar slogans to the company of origin, the kids were asked to come up with their own slogan for their project.

“We figure students know what advertisements are based on what they’ve seen,” Emily Adams, one of the Truesdell writing coaches, said. “We want them to create their own slogan to put on posters and talk to other students about, sort of a catchphrase other students can latch onto to help make the project a success.”

The Trojans are on their way to a great project. The team is excited to get to work on creating a cleaner and brighter school for not only themselves, but all the students at Truesdell.

Creating change at Truesdell EC, Part III: Developing an action plan

During the DC SCORES spring season, each of our 44 teams go through a four-step service-learning process that involves A) Identifying problems that need addressing in their community; B) Researching one issue; C) Implementing a project to make a difference in the community; and D) Reflecting on the impact they made.

This spring, DC SCORES intern Kristen Miano is following the Truesdell Education Campus (elementary school) Trojans as they go through the service-learning process. Read below and watch each week’s video to learn how DC SCORES empowers youth to create change around them. You can also view photos from Truesdell HERE and follow Kristen's Tweets HERE.

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Written by Kristen Miano
Digital Media Intern

With their project chosen and their research done, the Truesdell Trojans moved onto the next phase of their spring SCORES service-learning endeavor—developing an action plan.

“We defined what a task is and then the students brainstormed what tasks we would need in order to reach our goal,” said writing coach Cailin Eisle.

The kids broke off into discussion groups to lay out what they think they would need to do before they could get down to the business of cleaning the trash around their school. They received some hints and tips from looking over action plans developed for other service-learning projects that had seen successful.

“We’re discussing what tasks we need to do and what job each person needs to do,” explained Blessing T., age 10. “We’re just trying to sort out stuff.”

Ideas for the team’s plan of action included asking the school for permission to begin a trash pickup campaign, going to classrooms to talk to other students about the importance of cleaning up after themselves, and to begin fundraising to purchase the supplies needed achieve their goal.

By the end of their brainstorming session, the Trojans had created a long list of tasks they would need to do before their project was over. The students expressed concern over getting everything accomplished by their deadline, especially considering they had done so much work on the project already and still had so much to do.

“Sometimes, time passes fast and we may not get to finish our project,” said Nelson F., age 8.

Overwhelmingly, the students agreed that not finishing the project was not an option and they would need to work hard to make sure they kept to the schedule.

“I would feel angry because we started something and didn’t finish it,” said Antonio M, age 10.

To avoid missing the project’s deadline, the team reiterated the importance of staying focused and on task for the duration of the spring season.

With each student’s tasks in hand and a renewed commitment to their goals, the Truesdell Trojans are ready and set to get to work and clean up their school.