Monroeville Jaguars Travel Team 2001

 

    


I play soccer for the Jaguars, a U-12 travel team from Monroeville, PA , and my coach for the past 4 years has been Jorge Fontes. One night the coach called and asked my mom if I would like to play in a soccer tournament. Usually we play in a few different tournaments a year and they are always a lot of fun. But the coach said this tournament was a little far away. He said it was a great opportunity, but it was really pretty far away. My mom asked where it was and he said, "Are you sitting, Mrs. Petersen? It's in JAPAN." My mom laughed and said, "No, really where is it?" He wasn't kidding.


An invitation from the Governor of Saitama arrived on Mayor Murphy's desk announcing The 1st Saitama International Junior Football Championships (U-12), March 23-April 1 2002, in commemoration of the hosting of the Korea/Japan 2002 FIFA World Cup. Saitama Prefecture (state) is just north of the city of Tokyo. And the City of Omiya is in the south part of Saitama, just 30 kilometers from the center of Tokyo. Omiya is the sister city to Pittsburgh, PA, hence the invitation for Pittsburgh to participate. A diverse group of 17 eleven and twelve year-old boys from the Pittsburgh area were chosen and traveled to Saitama City, Japan, as the sole representatives for the United States.

   

Pittsburgh All-Stars, Danny Petersen, AJ Fontes and Jules Coulson join JR and Kate Harris, hosts of the The New Star 100.7 FM Radio Morning Show, for an exclusive radio interview March 16th 2002 1meg mp3		  
Turning Japanese. Our team visited Fox Chapel High School to meet with Japanese students who attend school on weekends. We ate lunch with them and they were alot of fun. They were happy we came to visit and I was, too.


Part of the trip included staying with a Japanese host family. "Oh my Gosh, I have to stay with a host family?!" I soon learned that Japan has a lot of different customs including different kinds of food, religion, beds, toilets and bathtubs. The Japanese take family baths. I had a lot of studying to do on the cultural differences, including learning a few words in Japanese. My mom and dad bought a few Japanese dictionaries, and my dad did some research and put together a cool guide of things I had to learn. It even had pictures of the toilets and bathtubs!



With less than 2 months to prepare for our trip, the team had a lot of work to do. We had to try and raise money, order uniforms, hold practices, have team meetings, get passports get plane tickets, learn about Japan, buy gifts and just get myself ready.

This was quite an adventure and I was really excited to be chosen to be a part of it. Trying to get the team together for practice was really hard. We had to schedule practice at 7 a.m. Sunday mornings. The only thing I liked about that was stopping at the gas station for cappacino. We even tried to scrimmage outside, but it was so cold, windy or rainy, that the teams we were scheduled to play all canceled, but we practiced anyway.

The Saitama Group did a lot of good planning. And the Mom's and Dad's did a great job on the fundraising campaign. My Mom and Dad spent hours organizing the team uniforms and warm-ups even having Soccer and Stuff call Adidas for a rush order. We even had to make iron-on numbers for a second jersey just 3 days before we left. We also got a lot of great donations including bags from Dicks Sporting Goods and caps from The Pittsburgh Riverhounds.

  



Practices were held indoors and outside in the chilly Pittsburgh winter. Here is the team running drills early one Sunday morning at Alderdice High School


Here is a handout my dad made for the team. Click on book to read PDF

 

 

Did I miss something? If you have any comments, suggestions, or pictures and you would like to share them, contact me at heydanny388@hotmail.com