Submitted by John Thomas
Article by Dan Geringer | Philadelphia Daily News

 

Their home field, a battered oasis in the shadow of South Philly's Wilson Park housing project, is more mud than grass. Their coach arrives an hour before each game and each practice to trash-pick the stuff he doesn't want his young girls to see. Unsupported by the city they so gracefully represent, they are financed on a shoestring - mostly out of Walter "Coach Walt" Stewart's pocket.

 

They rely on the kindness of strangers for donated uniforms, shoes, shin guards, even their goals. They are inner-city walk-ons who had never before played soccer, yet they regularly beat elite suburban travel teams that have trained for years in the finest facilities money can buy. They are Philadelphia's only African-American girls' travel soccer team. They are the Miracle on 24th Street. They are the Anderson Monarchs. And they rock.

 

Tisha Williams, whose house looks out on the Monarchs' home field, saw the girls practicing one evening and walked up to Coach Walt to ask if her daughter Jlon, then 7, could join them. "Come on out," Coach Walt told her.

 

"Here was a chance to get her away from traditional inner-city sports like basketball and let her try something that wasn't available to me as a child," said Williams, a math teacher at Pepper Middle School, in Southwest Philadelphia. Williams had played basketball and run track at Central High and at Barry University.

 

Here was a chance for her to be with girls her own age on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. I don't let her out of the house much. We live on a nice block, but some of the blocks around here have had their troubles. I don't trust the street.

 

"From the bottom of my heart, I believe the Monarch's are a godsend," Williams said. "I don't want to have to always take Jlon out of her neighborhood to experience strong, positive things.""

 

"I still have memories of growing up here, and running up and down the block. I want her to be able to say, 'When I was a child, I played soccer on the field right across the street from my house.' "

 

Janelle Moore, a college security guard whose daughters Janiah, 12, and Jameah, 10, have been Monarch's for five years said: "The fantastic thing about Coach Walt is that he will not turn anyone away."" When Jameah started at 5, she stood in one spot the whole game, she did not move.

 

These days, on the under-11 team, Jameah, a half-pint with a 10-gallon heart, defends the Monarchs' goal against travel players twice her size.

 

"A lot of those bigger girls think, 'We're going to kick this ball over her head,' " Moore said. "But Jameah attacks the ball. She takes everybody by surprise.

 

"She took a ball in the face," Moore said. "The girl kicking the ball was huge. When you come out like Jameah does and take that angle away from them, they don't have a clean shot. The girl tried to kick it over Jameah's head, but instead Jameah took that ball square in the face. I kept thinking, she's going to cry but she didn't.

 

Jameah's sister, Janiah, who plays on the under-13 Monarchs, "eats, sleeps and breathes soccer," Moore said. "But with Coach Walt, it's not just soccer. Janiah had a learning disability and was struggling in school. Coach Walt helped me apply for a scholarship, and Janiah's been in private school for two years now."

 

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