MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In the World Cup, Team USA lost Thursday night to Turkey in the final minutes. Despite the setback, the U.S. won its group and will move on to the knockout stage. Throughout the U.S., soccer fans are counting on the World Cup to grow love for the game. And that includes on campuses of historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. Aiding in that quest might be the fact that 13 Black players are on the U.S. men's team roster this year, the most ever for an American team. And they're having an impact, including Brooklyn-born striker Folarin Balogun, who became the first U.S. player to score two goals in a World Cup game last week. From member station WUNC, Leoneda Inge brings us the story of a new HBCU club hoping to build on that new visibility.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NUEVAYOL")
BAD BUNNY: (Rapping in Spanish).
LEONEDA INGE, BYLINE: A DJ blasts music as teams of six players each hit the field at a stadium in Durham, North Carolina. It's the inaugural HBCU Football Club Classic, a few weeks before the World Cup.
(SOUNDBITE OF SOCCER KICK)
UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETES: Oh.
INGE: Athletes cheer each other on. They sport jerseys with team names like Equality FC, The Yard FC and Unity FC.
UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE #1: Let's go, Abdul.
UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE #2: Oh, yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETES: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE #1: Ooh. There you go.
UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE #3: I'm sick of that s**t every time.
UNIDENTIFIED ATHLETE #1: Good try. I know that hurt.
INGE: The tournament organizer, HBCU FC, says the goal is to amplify Black college culture through the global game of soccer. Raymond Brooks is the group's social media hype man. He says, It's been hard work trying to get the word out.
RAYMOND BROOKS: We were going door-to-door to students' classrooms - HBCUs. Hey, come to this soccer tournament. Hey, join our organization at HBCU FC. Soccer? At a HBCU? I've never heard of that.
INGE: Brooks, who is Black, played soccer at Mars Hill University in western North Carolina, a predominantly white school. He says he didn't have a strong HBCU option for soccer.
BROOKS: If you look at a lot of person-of-color athletes now today playing soccer at these big NCAA schools, they kind of - I wouldn't say regret their decisions. But they sometimes wonder and reflect what would happen, maybe, at a different school.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHISTLE BLOWING)
INGE: It may be hard to find a strong HBCU men's soccer team, but there was one in the early 1970s when Howard University won a national championship in men's soccer. Today most of the soccer players at HBCUs are women. Emma Brown just finished up her freshman year at Virginia State University.
EMMA BROWN: Definitely for Virginia State women's soccer, we're not just a soccer team. But we definitely are a family, and we're sisters.
INGE: Her teammate Tatiana Ward says their sisterhood is strong because it's needed on the field, where most of their opponents don't look like them. There have been jeers and stares, she says.
TATIANA WARD: I know there's been several teams who have called us names and say that we are aggressive. We're loud. We're ghetto. But we just play our game and just let that speak for itself.
INGE: But at this soccer classic, there are a lot of high fives and support.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: And that is game, with Equality FC winning the HBCU FC Classic.
INGE: The young players say they hope the excitement around the World Cup will help create a soccer fan base at HBCUs as well.
For NPR News, I'm Leoneda Inge in Durham, North Carolina.
(SOUNDBITE OF POLYPHIA'S "PLAYING GOD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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