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DaMarcus Beasley - A Kid From the Fort: Our dreams are never really just OUR dreams. This is especially true for black athletes. Talk to any Black American sports superstar. One way or another, you learn their dream is a compilation of the hopes, successes, and failures of an entire community they call home. For DaMarcus Beasley - American soccer icon and a minority owner of the United Soccer League's newest expansion team, the Fort Wayne Football Club - the community responsible for cultivating his dream was the city of Fort Wayne, a.k.a. The Fort, Indiana's second-most populous city located in the heart of the Rust Belt.

"Dad used to drive trucks across the nation. One time he stopped in Fort Wayne, and he ended up staying." He had a good reason DaMarcus would note - he met his mother, Joetta Beasley, a Fort Wayne native. Henry Beasley, originally from Savannah, Georgia, toiled away at the Dana Holding Corp. plant making parts for General Motors while Joetta worked as an accountant for the same company. "They put food on our table for my brother and I, clothes on our backs, and they did that with just hard work. And that's what Fort Wayne is. It's a family city, and it's a family that really builds on hard-working people. That's what we were about. I'm a Beasley, and I love where I came from and how I grew up."

Henry and Joetta would name their first son Jamar, born three years before DaMarcus. The two boys were born with innate athletic ability. In a 2014 interview with local Fort Wayne news station WANE-TV, Henry shared his initial speculation on his sons' sport of choice. "They both were good at basketball. So I'm thinking, you know, like most parents, they're going to go to college and play basketball." Ironically enough, both Beasley boys would skip college right after high school, but not because they were hoopers. Their precocious soccer talents were too tempting for the burgeoning Major League Soccer (MLS) and its team executives to pass up.

"My brother was the first-ever player signed out of high school to the MLS in '98. The first one ever signed out of high school was my big brother, Jamar Beasley." DaMarcus has a special bond with his older brother. He attributes his dogged attitude and tough as nails personality as a player to the physical lessons Jamar would dish out when they were kids. "He would beat me up sometimes. That made me the player I became. Having that kind of that fighting spirit, that always not wanting to back down, always getting back up...I was always feisty. I wanted the smoke...and I got that from my brother."

DaMarcus would carry those early lessons with him throughout his illustrious career spanning two decades in international and club soccer. Beas, or RunDMB as he was called, with his ferocious pace, dazzling quickness, and prodigious technical awareness would earn starting roles on teams in the top leagues of the Netherlands (PSV Eindhoven), Scotland (Glasgow Rangers), Mexico (Puebla), and America (Chicago Fire and Houston Dynamo). Despite the unmatched heights he reached while playing in Europe - before this year, DaMarcus was the only American soccer player to reach the semifinals of the UEFA Champions League - it was DaMarcus's exploits representing the US Men's National Team (USMNT) that would cement his legacy as an American sporting legend. Let me run them off for you:

Won the Silver Ball (2nd Best Player in the Tournament) at the 1999 Under-17 World Cup
first American to play in four World Cups (2014, 2010, 2006, and 2002)
his 124 caps (appearances) are the fifth-most in USMNT history,
he also has the 8th most assists (13) and is tied for the 9th most goals (17)
won four CONCACAF Gold Cup titles: 2002, 2005, 2007, 2013, captaining the 2013 title-winning side
appeared in at least one game for the US every year for 15 consecutive years (2001-15)

The values of hard work and unwavering determination stemming from his days growing up in the Fort ultimately inspired DaMarcus to embark on his latest endeavor as a proud minority owner of the Fort Wayne Football Club, the newest club addition to the United Soccer League (USL) League Two. USL League Two is the leader in pre-professional soccer in North America. As a player development league, it's unofficially considered the fourth tier of competition in the US Soccer Federation behind MLS (Division I), USL Championship (Division II), and USL League One (Division III).

On Wednesday, October 28th, the official club announcement was made with DaMarcus's addition to the ownership group. "I'm a Fort Wayne Boy. It's a dream come true." He remains acutely aware of what it means to have someone like him in such a heralded position. Outside of the final moments in the player's tunnel before the kickoff of his very first World Cup Match (2002, in South Korea), bringing professional soccer to the Fort sits atop his list of impressive accomplishments. "This is one of the highest ones, one of the biggest ones...The fact it's in my hometown is even sweeter. The fact that I'm black is even better. I know where I came from and I never forgot where I came from."

His voice as an ambassador for American soccer and his presence as an owner isn't only refreshing. It's necessary, especially in today's America, where difficult conversations around race, equity, and access are trending towards the center of public discourse. In this space, DaMarcus exercises the same maturity and technical acumen that afforded him such a lengthy playing career. Beasley knows we could be doing better as a country in making the game more accessible for communities of color. He has personally opened multiple mini-pitches (miniature soccer fields with hard-court surfaces similar to basketball courts in size) in the cities of both Houston and Fort Wayne as part of the MLS's Safe Spaces to Play Initiative and in partnership with the Indiana Soccer Association respectively. But Beasley knows a mini-pitch without any sustainable programs won't get the results the US Soccer Federation's board is expecting. "The programs you put with those pitches are key... I'm talking about real effort into making programs that put Black and Brown people to learn and play the game safely, and that all builds from US Soccer." It's important to note here that there are currently zero Black Americans sitting on the USSF's board of directors.

Despite this glaring lack of representation in the boardroom, DaMarcus remains optimistic about the immediate future of the USMNT and its second "Golden Generation" of current and future stars on the soccer pitch. And for the first time in our lives, there's a considerable contingent of black players who are earning their stripes overseas at some of the world's biggest soccer clubs. "We have so many brothers in huge clubs [for kids] to look up to and say, "I can be a Weston McKinnie (Juventus FC). I can be a Sergiño Dest (FC Barcelona). I can be a Zack Steffen (Manchester City FC). This is the time to really implement change in the youth system in America for soccer."

In the final scenes of the Netflix documentary "A Kid From Coney Island," a touching moment is captured between professional basketball player and Coney Island native Stephon Marbury and a young boy inside a local barbershop. "I grew up in Coney Island like you," Marbury says to the small boy sitting in the barber's chair. Their innocent grins are identical. Stephon senses he's seen this boy before despite the generational age difference. The boy has dreams of playing in the NBA. And that's when it clicks for Marbury. The boy he's speaking with is him - same smile, same caring eyes, same dreams - just 30 years younger. "But you don't have to play basketball. You could be the President of the United States. If you the President of the United States, that mean you could help all of the people in Coney Island."The boy replies, in a tone replete with disappointment, "Nobody told me that." "I know," Marbury says assuredly. He proceeds to exhale deeply while wiping away tears carrying the lost dreams of black boys from Coney Island, to Chicago, to Compton, to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Marbury is the documentary's subject, but so is Coney Island - the barbershop, the street corners, the courts where he honed his skills, the Surfside project buildings, and the apartment where he grew up are all part of the film's canvas. You immediately become aware that Marbury's dream to play in the NBA is deeply entrenched and woven into the lives of virtually everyone in Coney Island. Like Marbury, DaMarcus Beasley knows the dream of "making it out" still offers limited escape routes for inner-city youth and small-town kids alike. Beasley left Fort Wayne as a 15-year-old kid with a dream rooted in hard work, grit, toughness - values instilled in him by his family and further nurtured by his hometown. He now returns, his childhood dream fulfilled, as a seasoned 38-year-old man with a new dream to share with his beloved city. It is a full-circle moment he hopes will inspire the next generation of kids from the Fort. "I want to give kids hope, not just being an athlete, but they can be more than an athlete. They can do more than just kick a ball or shoot a basketball. I want them to open their dreams to know that anything in this world is possible...That to me is bigger than actually becoming an owner."

By Garrett Richardson

Garrett Richardson is a 30 something from New Jersey and currently resides in the city of Brotherly Love. He loves to tell stories celebrating Black life and culture through the global lens of the beautiful game. Oh and it’s always #ForçaBarca !!