Transcription of Michael McGraw for the show Hometown Proud #261
Lisa Belisle: As a long-time soccer mom, and actually lacrosse mom, swimming mom … You name it, I’ve been that kind of mom and athlete … I’m always very happy to have in the studio with me people who coach. Today we have a very special coach. This is coach Michael McGraw, Mike, who is the head coach of the boys soccer team at Lewiston High School.
He led the team to the state championship last fall, which was no small feat. It’s a really big deal. It’s also a really big deal that you came in and were willing to have this conversation today. Thank you.
Michael : You’re very welcome. I’m happy to be here.
Lisa Belisle: This was, I believe, the first time that Lewiston High School won a state championship.
Michael : Yeah, it’s the first time in probably, well since 1974. That’s when Paul Neto who was the coach at the time. He started the program. I like to call him the first father of soccer in our area.
Lisa Belisle: The reason this is a particularly big deal is because you received really national coverage for this win, CNN, USA Today. The Portland Press Herald obviously, Lewiston Sun Journal, those are both in our state. But because you had such a diverse team that was able to pull together and really make a go of it last year.
Michael : Yeah. First of all, the team is very talented and mature and have played together for a long time. The players love each other. The community that they live in really supported them. I think the people involved in making them the players that they are really backed them up and trained a lot of those kids, so I’m kind of lucky.
As far as diversity goes, the diversity is similar to the one where Rocco Frenzelli of Portland and Joel of Deering, they have similar diversified teams as well. They’re two people that I actually like to talk to, especially about our team. We do talk about issues and things that occur.
This team, they did something very special. The sky was the limit for them, and they reached for it.
Lisa Belisle: From what I understand, you had six different nations that were represented on your team last year?
Michael : Yep. We had Somalia, Kenya, the Congo, Germany, Turkey and, of course, the USA.
Lisa Belisle: I believe that there was a fair number of the Somali students who had actually been together in a refugee camp before they even came to the United States.
Michael : I don’t know if they were all together. Their parents were in refugee camps. They were either babies or young kids while they were there. Since refugee camps are sometimes quite large, they may not have known each other. Certainly the one thing that bonds them, the one thing that brings them together is the game.
Lisa Belisle: You were born and raised in Maine.
Michael : Yep.
Lisa Belisle: You graduated from Lewiston High School.
Michael : Yes.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve really lived and been a part of the Lewiston Community for all but, I believe, the four years of your education.
Michael : Yep, that’s true.
Lisa Belisle: And then you didn’t go too far. You went down to Gorham and got your teacher education.
Michael : Yes I did.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve seen a lot of changes I would say.
Michael : Yeah. I’ve seen changes from a mill town to a town that is more service oriented and becoming a lot more diverse. There’s some great energy in town to create some nice spaces to live and work, and have business. The school is outstanding. I mean, it’s still got its share of issues with the poor and academically trying to reach everybody.
I’ll tell you, Lewiston-Auburn, I believe the schools are trying as hard as they can to make sure they reach every single kid, and that no kid gets left without an opportunity. I’m finding that it works. It works. All we have to do is get the adults, parents and the kids all on the same page, and some good things are going to happen.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve been part of the school system now as an educator for 40 years?
Michael : Yep.
Lisa Belisle: You teach biology now?
Michael : I teach biology, yeah.
Lisa Belisle: What have you noticed about the academic situation. You’re a coach but you also teach, so are you noticing similar things happening within the classroom that you’re noticing on the sports field?
Michael : If you talk about the influx of some of our African population, I’ve seen that they’ve gone from … This is a really good thing. They’ve gone from struggling with the language, struggling with school culture and responsibility, to one of which they want to excel. They want to do well.
Granted, like everybody else, you get some kids that can’t do well, that don’t do well or refuse to do well. There are more kids that are honor roll students. As a matter of fact, two years ago, Muno, who was a Somali student, was the president of her class, which is phenomenal. Those kids and those families, their families are really pushing them to excel in school. Not just to graduate, not just to pass, but to excel, go on to good colleges.
I’ve seen it, and it’s working. As a matter of fact, one of my former students is a Bates grad. She spoke at one of the celebrations that we had. I’ve got two players that are going to go to prep school to prepare themselves for high level soccer and high level education. One of them was recruited by Bates College, Swarthmore, and Dartmouth.
It’s out there if they want it. Some of the kids are reaching for that, which I think is the single most important change for that population from 10 years ago to today. Also, our school is doing a lot to try to ramp up the rigor. I’m finding that it’s starting to work. A previous superintendent wanted kids to learn how to write better for communication purposes. I’m seeing better writing even from students who struggle.
I’ve got to give credit to the teachers for buying into that. There are elementary school teachers who have really worked so hard. We have teachers at all levels that just bust their butt to make sure they’re getting the best out to our kids. I’m happy for that. As high school, I get that, it makes my job a little easier.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I was thinking as you were talking about being a high school coach, and you’re a high school teacher, so really you get the benefit of all of the education, and all of the coaching, and all of the community building, and all of the parenting that has happened over the first 12, 14 years of the child’s life.
Michael : Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lisa Belisle: That’s important.
Michael : Yes, it is. I’m lucky. I’m a really lucky coach, and a lucky person that I’ve had longevity. I’ve seen my share of success. I’m very happy with that. Especially throughout my coaching career, I’ve been lucky with having great kids who believed in me, believed in what I do. I’m lucky now because I have phenomenal players. I have unbelievably good assistant coaches, great assistant coaches from the seventh grade on up.
I have several people in the community, one of which who was my eight grade coach, Abduli Abdee, who I call the second father of soccer in Lewiston because our kids just look up to him because he does everything. He’s a club coach. He’s an adviser. He’s a counselor. He’s like another parent for them. His son is one my assistant coaches. He’s a great coach. I don’t know what I’d do without him.
Another coach, Dan Gish, who has been my assistant since 2000. He is one of the most respected teachers. He loves the kids. They love him. Then I’ve got a goalkeeper coach who is crazy. You have to be crazy to be a goalkeeper. I love the guy. He’s had tremendous experience throughout the world, and he brings that with him with his passion.
He wasn’t sure he was going to coach because high school kids weren’t his thing. He was more like college and professional. As soon as he met my kids, whoa. It just completely turned him around. He loves them, and they love him back because they have that same passion for the game. I get chills just thinking about it.
Lisa Belisle: What is special about your kids? As individuals and as a group, why are they so passionate?
Michael : It’s part of their culture. Their culture loves the game. If you go anywhere else in the world, you may talk about NBA basketball, it could be rugby, it could be lacrosse some place, or cricket, or anything. You go any place in the world and you mention the game football. It’s like a religion. If you got to northern Maine for basketball, that’s a religion, snowmobiling and basketball.
That’s only actually seasonal, but when it comes to the game of football, soccer, for these kids it’s 365 days of the year. When they plow out the cul-de-sac in the winter, they’ll throw down two chunks of snow for goals. There’ll be 24, 25 kids out there playing in their street shoes in the winter.
As soon as the grass is open down at Simard-Payne Park downtown where the balloon festival is, it’s amazing. I went down there and, no lie, there’s 80 kids playing. There’s various different groups that are warming up, getting ready to play a game on a makeshift Maine field. Their ages go from 12 to 35. It’s a phenomenon.
That’s why I’m lucky. A lot of other coaches, they have to fight with baseball, basketball, hockey to build in a little bit of time in the off season. My kids are there. I’m lucky, very lucky.
Lisa Belisle: It’s interesting for me to think about even playing during snow. I have three soccer players in my family. I don’t think any of them would have gone outside at any stage to play soccer in the snow. These are people that, many of them have come from a very warm climate to a very cold climate, and still they’re out there.
Michael : I think they’ve got to stay warm. The other thing is, they live downtown or in low-income housing for the most part. They just get out, get away from staying inside and doing something that they love. For some people it might be reading or art. For a lot of other people, they’re able to go cross-country skiing or travel. These kids, this is all they’ve got.
I take that back, they have really bought into FIFA, Xbox or PlayStation, oh my god. While it’s nice outside, while they can play … I know several of my players, once it gets dark, they’ll go home, plug in a game. I especially know two players that will stay up until about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. That’s only because they’re so competitive. If this guy wins a game, then his brother will come in and say play again. They’ll go back and forth. It’s fun. I can’t take that away from them.
Lisa Belisle: I’ve spoken with other young athletes who are Muslim. One of the things that can be an interesting balance is that sometimes Ramadan will fall during the sports season. You can’t, I believe, eat or drink anything from sunup to sundown. If that falls during soccer season, how does that work for you?
Michael : Two things that I noticed early on, when Ramadan came during the season, after about a week, their bodies become a little bit acclimated, but you kind of worry about this. I distinctly remember it was during the regular season. We had a night game. At half-time, I had to wait until they replenished themselves before I talked because there’s no way they’d actually listen to me when they’ve been fasting all day.
Myself and my coach would sit there and wait. A couple of the kids would bring down food and tea, and let them go, and the whole team just ate for a while. We’d take the 10 minute break. It took about five to seven minutes for them to replenish themselves. Then I could talk. We had to make sure what we had to say was done quickly.
That actually is probably pretty good because with teenagers what you say in the first three minutes is totally forgotten in the last three minutes. That was interesting to see.
When Ramadan occurred during preseason tryouts, when we had double sessions, that’s when I worried, because of the weather. We made a couple of adjustments. We didn’t take too much off of them, but just wanted to make sure that we watched carefully because these kids will go as hard as they can go.
When they start to falter, I know it’s not because they’re being lazy, although there are some lazy players. You get to know who they are. That works out pretty good. We’ve gone through it and know what we have to do. The next cycle that it comes during the season is going to be a few years away.
Lisa Belisle: It’s like anything with an athlete, if you know that there’s something you need to work around, you work around it.
Michael : Yep.
Lisa Belisle: This just happens to be maybe a larger group of your athletes, but it’s not undoable.
Michael : No. What I like about them is that they’ll play pretty well, pretty hard, and then they’ll say, “Coach, Ramadan is going to be this coming Tuesday. On Thursday’s game, watch out, we’re going to be ready.” In fact, that doesn’t really happen because then they’re fat and happy. Not fat, but you know, they’ve become satisfied. It takes them awhile to get back into that routine again. Happy? They are definitely happy.
I think that’s the one thing about my kids is they are happy. They’re happy to be with each other. I don’t mean just the Somali kids and the kids from the Congo, they’re happy with everybody. What I think is a wonderful thing is that the white players and the black players can, because of the game, they mesh together. They understand.
It’s like an international language. The kid from Turkey, the kid from Germany, the kid from the Congo, and the kid from Somalia all play the game the same way. They enjoy each other. What’s interesting is that most of them know maybe four or five languages. My white kids are great with them.
I always check in to say, “How’s it going? Does everybody include you? Are you guys getting … ?” The invariably say, “Coach, we’re fine. We’re great.” They like each other. I think it’s because they play the game.
Lisa Belisle: It’s interesting to think about just even the idea of play. These are older children obviously, but I think sometimes that commonality, it can kind of transcend big issues that adults worry about sometimes.
Michael : Yeah. As a matter of fact, Kevin Mills, who is a reporter for the Sun Journal, wrote a tremendous article about soccer and integration about three years ago. I think he got some kind of a national award for it. In there, he’d asked me how I got my kids to at least trust each other or play together, something like that.
I didn’t think very much of it at the time, but there was one scenario in preseason that I found. What I did was I saw the Somali kids in one area, in the shade getting ready for practice, and the white kids up on the side of a hill, out in the sun. Why they were out in the sun in 95 degree weather … Anyway. They were there.
I said to my coach, “I really don’t think this should happen. They’re separated.” By the third day of the tryouts, after the teams had been picked, I said, “Okay, you guys down here, I want you right here in the middle. You guys up here, I want you right here in the middle.” Then I mixed them up. I took this kid and put him here, and that kid.
I’ve explained this, I’ve told the story dozens of times. I said, “This is how you have to play on the field.” What I did was I said, “You have to do this.” An amazing thing happened. Several kids started smiling. After practice, I said, “What were you guys smiling about?” They said, “Coach, we all wanted to do that, but no one was going to take the first step. You did it and that was pretty good.” It was kind of a special thing that happened.
It evolved. The idea stuck, and it evolved. We had to make sure that they took care of that. Every once in a while I have to revisit it, but it was a pretty special moment.
Lisa Belisle: We had Jim Wellehan on the show. He was talking about the French Canadian and the Irish Catholic, French Catholic and Irish Catholic in Lewiston, and how they were two very different groups. For a long time, they kind of circled around each other. There was some animosity. There was some difficulties. Eventually everybody came to some kind of general understanding of one another. Obviously, your last name, I’m guessing you must have a little Irish in you.
Michael : Yeah, Scottish, Irish. I don’t know.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve got some of that Catholic thing going on.
Michael : Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Isn’t it interesting that we keep replaying the same newsreel. You bring people in and you have to try to figure it out. You define some commonalities. Then you kind of move in a direction together. It seems like the story just, it’s not one that’s unheard of.
Michael : Nope. It’s interesting because my mother’s last name is Rivard. I’m used to going over to my grandmother’s house for dinner when we were little. It was just a cacophony of French and English and hybrid language going on with 15 people having dinner. Then going over the my cousin Bruce’s house, my father’s side, and that being rural Maine type of environment.
It was an easy thing for me. As a matter of fact, I think I learned French first, before I learned English. I’ve done a little bit of research on that because I would tell people that early on, when they had French Irish baseball game … They always had a French Irish baseball game. I was supposed to be nine innings, but they go through the seventh inning and got that far without a fight, it was considered a good game.
I think the first Lewiston/Edward Little football game, one of the sports reports on it was, “It was a very spirited game that had to be held up a couple of times to break up fights on the field and in the stands.” I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t just rivalry of two schools, but rivalry against French and Irish.
You could look at a lot of instances that occurred. It probably was the same in Biddeford/Saco, Bangor/Brewer, Waterville/Winslow, all of these cities that were associated with rivers. It’s out there. To me it’s interesting that when you get a population like the immigrants coming to Maine and everything that goes on … I think everybody took a history course or Maine history, but they forget.
Lisa Belisle: I think that’s true. It think it’s harder to sometimes be in the moment but understand that this moment is not new. It’s something that has absolutely happened before.
I also think it’s interesting that sometimes what we need to do is engage. Sometimes to just pretend that the conflict doesn’t exist and to not get out there on the field and play soccer or have the French Irish game.
Sometimes to just pretend that there’s not something simmering, that really doesn’t work well at all. You actually need to have a place where you can have some healthy competition. You can have some back and forth and have some shared understanding of something that you feel passionate about.
Michael : Having an outlet to expend a lot of the energy, whether it’s positive or negative, is a healthy thing. My feeling about competition, especially with my players, is if you got into a game spiritually, tactically, and physically ready to play and prepared to play, and you do absolutely everything you can, if you are the superior team, you should win. If you’re the inferior team, then you should lose. That isn’t always the case.
Games aren’t won on paper. I think games are won more mentally and with heart. I tell my players, if you’ve expended everything, you’ve done everything that you can, then that’s why you shake a guy’s hand at the end of the game, because you played a great game. That’s what real sportsmanship is about. I think our kids, I think Maine kids for the most part actually do that very well.
Because I think their coaches have promoted sportsmanship for the most part, at least the informed coaches. The younger coaches who haven’t been informed or older coaches who never did this, it’s just something that they have to learn. In my opinion, what I’ve seen with other coaches and other teams, our kids do a good job.
Lisa Belisle: It has truly been a pleasure to have you talking with me about the Lewiston soccer program, the boys soccer program. Congratulations on your Class A State Championship from 2015. I wish you all the best in 2016. I’ve been speaking with Coach Michael McGraw, who is the head coach of the boys soccer team at Lewiston High School. Congratulations on all that you’ve accomplished, and thank you so much for coming in.
Michael : Thank you. This has been a great experience for me too. Thanks.