Lancers Grace Community With DiversityWINONA LAKE – Breno Oliveira is determined to teach his teammates how to dance.
Oliveira, of Campinas, Brazil, is one of 14 international players on the Grace College men’s soccer team. He and his teammates have injected excitement into the Lancers’ locker room and excellence onto the soccer pitch.
They also have bonded over sharing their cultures with each other.
For Oliveira and his Brazilian counterparts, that means a pregame soundtrack of Samba music accompanied by their own suave dance moves.
“We all dance and try to teach the Americans, but they cannot dance at all,” Oliveira joked. “So it’s just a fun environment that gets us hyped up for the game.”
There are 11 countries besides the United States represented on Grace’s 33-man roster: four players are from Brazil, and one player each from Colombia, England, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Serbia, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zambia.
The diversity is a progression from just a few years ago, when Serbian assistant coach Nikola Blazic played for the Lancers.
The team had just two international players when Blazic was a freshman. Though that number increased to five by his senior year in 2014, the emphasis was still largely on American culture.
That began to change when two players, Nikola Djordjevic, of Belgrade, Serbia, and Santiago Maya of Cali, Colombia, were recruited to play for Grace in 2015.
Grace head coach Matt Hotchkin said the main reason international players were brought in was so the Lancers could compete with the diverse teams in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
“We knew that in order for us to be the quality of the team that we wanted to be, we needed to go after some international guys,” Hotchkin said. “I also like it because it adds some diversity, and it adds something special to our team, especially in a community like Winona Lake and Warsaw where we don’t have as much diversity.”
Three Brazilian players were added in 2016, and Hotchkin saw how well the international players gelled with not only the rest of the team, but the entire college.
“We just saw that they were adapting well to the culture,” he said. “They brought some life to our campus, which was really special.”
The athletes’ pep inspired Grace to add seven more international players to the team in 2017. Many of the players were interested in coming to Grace because of the opportunity it provided.
“We wouldn’t necessarily play soccer at universities in our countries,” said Josh Coupar, of Worthington, England. “It’s not as big of a deal. Sports in America, in the universities, is just huge.”
Oliveira said that Grace provides exceptional academic opportunities.
“Grace College might be a small school in the United States, but if you come back to Brazil with a degree from the United States and (you’re) speaking English, you’ll definitely get a job anywhere you want to go,” he said.
Shemar Degannes, of Trinidad and Tobago, was drawn to Grace’s warm atmosphere.
“Being in a different country, the coaches made me feel like I was coming to something that would have been joyous and that could have been like a family,” Degannes said.
Still, players were initially worried about how they would mesh with so many new faces in the mix.
Grace was aware of the players’ need for comfort and acclimation, so the college set them up together in off-campus housing.
The athletes dubbed the house “La Masia” after a youth soccer academy in Barcelona, Spain.
They used their time at La Masia to not only get to know each other, but their American teammates as well.
They spent time comparing music, overcoming language barriers, and bickering over the right way to eat Ramen noodles.
Somewhere in all of that bonding, they became more than teammates.
“(We’re) not necessarily like friends,” Coupar said. “More like family now. We do get annoyed with each other, but it’s just such a close-knit bond that it transitions onto the field pretty well.”
Oh yes, the Lancers have had success. They went 13-6-4 last year, up from 10-9-3 in 2016. They also won the Crossroads League Tournament for the first time in 35 years, which Hotchkin attributes to their diverse styles of play.
Grace’s South American athletes play with finesse, while the European players are bruisers.
“We’ve got some soldiers and we’ve got some artists, and all of it comes together into something that is really special,” Hotchkin said.
The players continue to absorb American culture off the field. Grace is a Christian college with an on-campus undergraduate enrollment of about 1,300. The school encourages the athletes to either become or grow as Christians, but does not require them to adopt the faith.
Maya grew up in a Catholic community and appreciates the opportunity to learn about evangelical Christianity.
“Coming here just really taught me a lot about different beliefs, and (gathering) them and getting the best out of it,” Maya said. “It gets you more mature as the time passes, and this is my fourth year now and I have learned a lot.”
In turn, the international players have welcomed the opportunity to educate Americans about their cultures.
“We haven’t suffered any kind of racism at all, but maybe misconceptions of our culture that just come out of ignorance,” said Marcelo Thomas, of Monterrey, Mexico. “We basically try to be as open as we can, and try to answer any kind of question.”
Their American teammates have soaked up the experience.
Josiah Osborn, of nearby Argos, spends much of his free time driving his Brazilian friends to and from the grocery store and helping them with their bank accounts.
However, he views what he’s gained from them as much more valuable.
“I actually might have learned more from them than they’ve learned from me, just being immersed in La Masia,” Osborn said.
Grace is 1-1-1 on the season, and Hotchkin is confident the Lancers will excel.
What he’s less certain of is how a little college in Winona Lake, Ind., ended up with a group of outstanding soccer players from all over the world.
“It’s cool for me to think that out of seven billion people on the planet, God brings this group of 33 guys together in 2018 to be a part of a soccer team, and you just can’t even explain it,” he said. “How did these guys end up here? And why are they here? What’s their purpose?
