By Anne Duggan
This year, Ethan Stroud came up with a new goal, literally.
Recently, the Broadview Public School student was able to watch his favourite soccer team – the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer – practice and compete before a game in Montreal. It was at that time that Ethan committed to becoming the best soccer player he could be.
With less than a year of soccer under his belt, the seven-year-old has reached a skill level far beyond his years, says his coach.
“He is really good,” says Sanjeev Parmar of the Futuro Soccer Academy. “He is with the U9 group as an underage player. Most of his team has been training for a couple of years.”
Rough roots, bright future
There is a reason behind Ethan’s passion for the Chicago Fire. The Windy City is also the place Ethan was born – the difficulty of this event making his goal that much more impressive. His adoptive mother, Allison Darke, was there for his birth and describes it as “devastating.”
Lack of prenatal care and cocaine use by Ethan’s birth mother left him with long-term consequences. Blue at birth with torn nerves along his arm, Ethan will always have little use of his right arm, and both his arm and shoulder will be proportionately small.
When he reaches the age of 15, Ethan’s arm will be the size of a 12-year-old’s.
“Oh Lord, what did I wish for,” was Darke’s first thought as medical personnel rushed into the delivery room. Ethan’s recovery from cocaine withdrawal and his birth-related injuries meant an eight-day stay in a Chicago hospital.
“It was a long battle,” Darke recalls. “Ethan really struggled hour-by-hour.”
Of course, none of this matters to Ethan: his eyes are focused on the soccer ball. In addition to the four training sessions per week he attends at his academy, Saturday mornings are dedicated to a special kind of soccer league.
A chance encounter with a Hull-based team for black players, ages 14 to 24, immediately led to an invitation for Ethan to join them – an important development, says Darke, as this weekly opportunity for more soccer experience comes with a dose of Ethan’s heritage.
Ethan is the only black member of an eclectic and blended family. Each of the five children, ranging in ages from 3 to 24, have their own culture – Italian, Aboriginal, Afro-American, Asian, and Westboro white.
When Darke married her husband Earl, they decided to add more children to her first two through adoption. Darke describes her family as a three-ring circus with a twist.
“It is so alive,” she says. “Everyone is so different. When you look at a photo of us, nothing is the same but all you see is family.”
It was, in fact, the size of Ethan’s adopted family that led him directly to soccer. Unable to pay for hockey, Darke was pleased to see Ethan had developed an obsession with a soccer ball from Walmart.
“He was kicking the heck out of every other kid in the neighbourhood,” Darke recounts.
So, she called up the local soccer leagues to find out there was only one spot left: on a U9 Ottawa Royals team. Lack of experience and a bum arm were mere details to Ethan, who quickly earned his spot on the squad.
“Ethan shows us that we can overcome adversity,” Darke says. “And soccer seems to be what God gave him.”