Soccer instructor brings worldly reach to Tri-Cities

Doco Wesseh internalized the principles of the give-and-go as a men’s soccer standout at Judson University, and now shares his own spin as a Tri-Cities Soccer Association coach.

Early in the journey, he learned the strategy was better suited for sports. His off-field ambitions are far more grounded.

Wesseh’s current endeavors hinge on his charitable vision for his native Liberia, but he assures his One Goal Foundation isn’t going anywhere. Fueled by fundraiser camps around the Tri-Cities, the third-year organization is building toward developing a school just outside the Liberian capital of Monrovia while providing education, food, supplies and soccer training to the region’s youth.

Much as in a match destined for extra time, Wesseh, 35, takes a long view of the work that’s been done and what is still to come in western Africa.

“When you talk about reward, I don’t see it as rewarding yet, because to me, I haven’t really achieved anything yet; I’m trying to achieve,” Wesseh said. “I’ll know if I achieve if I can get a kid into the school, learning free, and then having an opportunity to come here to go to school, too, and see what’s here, and then be able to go back to start the same thing I started in another neighborhood so other kids can have that kind of opportunity. If that happens, then that’s the reward I want.”

Volunteer Linda Pinto of West Chicago, who like many embraced the uplifting story of her children’s refugee soccer coach to aid in the effort, estimates the foundation will have raised about $100,000 in the past two years by the time 2014 ends.

One Goal recently gained 501(c)(3) status from the IRS, making it a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization. Apart from independent giving, its biggest donations come via youth soccer camps, including winter sessions at Batavia’s HC Storm Elementary School gymnasium.

Wesseh operates four weekly camps – limited to 10 players a session to optimize athlete attention – on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays through March, in addition to a Saturday conditoning camp. Wesseh aims to keep costs affordable, knowing he “wouldn’t feel right” exploting the pasttime that helped him survive in his war-torn homeland during the tumultuous 1990s and early 2000s.

He spends much of the rest of the time coaching and instructing for St. Charles-based TCSA, where he has worked for four years. Days off are few and far between for Wesseh, a reality he hardly laments. He passes much of his daily commutes from Morris communicating with those on One Goal’s Liberian front or planning his next moves stateside.

“This is quite an undertaking to do something from the United States and trying to help these kids back in Liberia,” said donor and soccer parent Rob Zimmers of St. Charles. “What he lacks in any kind of understanding of the tax code and how to send a container around the world and build a business relationship, he makes up for with his passion and his knowledge in doing the right thing.”

Look no further than the abundance of less-cluttered closets in the Tri-Cities. Now when Brad and Cara Newkirk’s 10-year-old fraternal twins, Lily and Gavin, outgrow a pair of spikes, their immediate response is to set them aside for their coach and One Goal.

“Our biggest thing with Doco is we feel very lucky to have gotten him as a coach in our first time going into travel soccer,” said Cara Newkirk, of Batavia. “His coaching demeanor and philosophy is just wonderful in terms of it’s not just about your soccer skills. He’s really coaching for that well-rounded player. He’s teaching them character, discipline. They have a tremendous amount of respect for him.”

Wesseh shares his story amid reservation and polite but persistent reminders that it’s not about him, but the foundation.

A child of relative privilege in Monrovia – named for U.S. President James Monroe as a nod from the freed American and Caribbean slaves who founded Liberia – Wesseh grew up the son of a physician’s assistant and nurse.

His father, often sporting a new ball, encouraged neighborhood children to play soccer in the family’s yard.

The sport wasn’t particularly mainstream in the country then. Basketball players were considered wealthy since their families had the means to afford shoes.

In December 1989, the outbreak of civil war forced Wesseh to flee his homeland with schoolmates and millions of others. He said he lived in Liberian jungles and forests for the next several years, scurrying for food while desperately avoiding rebel soldiers. He was detached from his family but not from soccer. Dried, rolled up latex from rubber trees formed the ball, but at least Wesseh could play when his surroundings seemed safe.

He eventually connected with soldiers at a refugee camp in neighboring Guinea, one of which observed his skills and promised to put in a word with the country’s top championship team. Weak and malnourished, Wesseh trained and conditioned to join the team in his mid-teens while enjoying the comforts he never imagined taking for granted.

Clean food. Running water. Mattresses.

“When you’re sitting on the side of the street and you see people walking by and they’re well-dressed and stuff like that,” Wesseh said, “sometimes all you want is just for them to recognize you. To say, ‘Hey, how are you?’ It just makes your day for somebody good to say hi to you. But things like that, we didn’t get because it was, ‘Oh, kids like that, they’re thieves. They’re rebels. They’re waiting for their commanders. …’ “

A cease-fire in 1996 paved Wesseh’s road back to Monrovia, where he found his boyhood home inhabited by strangers.

He assumed his parents had been murdered. Four years later, a friend delivering relief supplies told Wesseh he had seen Wesseh’s parents. They reunited days later.

By then, Wesseh had befriended a Christian missionary couple from St. Paul, Minnesota, which helped him get back in school and eventually earn a partial scholarship to Malone University in Canton, Ohio. Wesseh left Malone, but soon joined the semipro Chicago Eagles, whose coach, Steve Burke, also leads the Judson program.

College life overwhelmed Wesseh in a positive way. He sometimes flashes back to the humbling sight of a dining hall bursting with food. Another recollection: the day he broke his shyness during a class to tell others about his background. Their attentiveness helped Wesseh realize he might use his background to benefit others.

“I would sit there in class and never say a word because I felt I didn’t have anything to offer,” Wesseh said. “So things changed a whole lot for the good.”

Years before One Goal grew to its current stage, Wesseh asked Burke for any old Judson jerseys and equipment he could spare. There was no speculation; Burke knew his star forward’s background and intent.

Wesseh played in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, for a top North American U23 amateur league in the mid-2000s before returning to Illinois. He joined TCSA and soon rediscovered a yearning to help children not only in his new home, but his homeland, too.

The foundation recently purchased five acres of land about 10 miles outside Monrovia for the future site of the One Goal Academy. Wesseh returns home when he can, ideally once each during the summer and winter. His recent visit around Liberia’s July 26 independence day came amid the outbreak of the Ebola virus in western Africa.

“I’m very thankful and grateful that I’m here,” Wesseh said. “I’m satisfied with what I’m getting. I mean, I struggle financially here and there, and I know everybody [does], but at least I can have here.”

TCSA president Bob Geiken, whose organization has sponsored One Goal from the start, calls Wesseh “incredibly genuine” and “absolutely a great guy.”

In Liberia, the approximately 1,500 children who benefit from One Goal aid each year likely would agree.

“I think that’s the most touching part, is to realize how much difference comes in the small things we do here,” Pinto said.

The gifts keep coming. As long as Wesseh is around, the goodwill is unlikely to leave.