You (https://theathletic.com) Invite Friends (/share/?source=header) Following Cities Fantasy Football (/fantasy-football/) NHL (/nhl/) MLB (/mlb/) NFL (/nfl/) NBA (/nba/) CFB (/college-football/) CBB (/college-basketball/) Soccer (/soccer/) Motorsports (/motorsports/) • • • (/podcasts/) (/discussions/) A Black soccer culture rose up in Atlanta. Now, it seeks lasting progress. By Felipe Cardenas (/author/felipe-cardenas/) 1h ago 3 The first time Tony Carter was called the N-word on the soccer field came when he was nine years old, playing for the South Dekalb YMCA in a match against a club from Peachtree City. “It was a white player,” Carter said. “I went in for a slide tackle. I probably got a little too much of him and his response when he got up was ‘You god damn n —–.’ I kept on playing. Your adrenaline’s pumping. But after the game it started processing. And it’s like ‘Oh snap. That just happened.’ This wasn’t a documentary. This wasn’t something about Jackie Robinson or anything. That literally just happened to me.” Today, almost 30 years later, Carter is still in the game. He has been coaching soccer in Atlanta for over a decade, and is one of four Black Atlantans that spoke to The Athletic about the slow and still-ongoing transformation of the city’s soccer culture. Amid public protests from Black pro players against police brutality, and a renewed call for Black influence in positions of power within the sport, the stories of those that raised the profile of Black soccer culture in Atlanta offer a glimpse at the progress that has been made, and the work that still remains. Carter still carries vivid memories of that South Dekalb YMCA team — a predominantly Black squad in what was, and still often is, a majority-white sport in the United States at the highest youth levels. “We were always playing all white teams. There was always the murmuring, the different looks when we would walk onto the field,” Carter said. “My team was all Black. We had one white kid, Steve. Steve was invited to the cookouts, that’s for sure.” The unwelcoming environment wasn’t limited to soccer. Carter’s older brother played baseball in Stone Mountain, a suburb in Dekalb County located approximately 25 miles from downtown Atlanta. In the late ‘80s, the symbols of the South’s history of slavery, segregation and racial inequality were still a part of youth sports. The participation trophies that were handed out at the end of the youth baseball season featured the Confederate Flag. “I shit you not. That is what we were living in,” Carter said. “They had a damn Confederate Flag on their participation trophy. Everybody got it.” Added to all of this was the fear that had engulfed the city following the Atlanta child murders, a series of killings of 24 Black children throughout the area between 1979 and 1981 that left a permanent scar on the community. In a roundabout way, the tragedy was the reason why Carter was first introduced to soccer. His parents, both psychologists, kept Carter and his brother enrolled in sports out of fear that they would be abducted. “They didn’t want us to get snatched up,” Carter said. “To be honest, that’s how we got into soccer. They wanted to make sure we had a safe place to go while they were at work.” It was in this environment that a young Carter searched for role models that he could relate to. He found one resource for this at his local Barnes & Noble bookstore, where Carter would thumb through issues of Soccer America, Four Four Two and other soccer magazines looking for Black professional players. “That’s when I saw pictures of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole,” said Carter, who remains a Manchester United fan to this day thanks to that early connection. “I’m seeing them hoisting trophies up and I’m like ‘Yo, these brothers are dark skinned and they look like they’re doing things.’ Shaka (Hislop) was hands down my other idol, in terms of seeing someone of color playing between the posts and doing it in the Premier League. He was definitely a big influence. You didn’t see other Black goalkeepers at the time.” Carter went on to play in high school for The Paideia School in Midtown Atlanta, then played goalkeeper at Howard University, one of the nation’s eminent historically Black colleges. Today, Carter is focused on introducing soccer to Atlanta’s inner-city neighborhoods, increasing access to the sport as director of programs of Soccer in the Streets (https://www.soccerstreets.org/). But he’s still motivated by those first connections, and his experience of seeing Black players succeed in the sport in as many ways as possible. “Back in the day, (if) you’ve got a fast Black kid, (you’d) put him up top,” Carter said. “(Today) I’m seeing more Black kids playing left back or center mid.” In his position, Carter has helped his organization’s Station Soccer initiative (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV_mw5k09Xw&feature=youtu.be), which has placed small fields at Marta stations throughout Atlanta, especially those serving low-income areas. “The part that I still feel has a lot to gain ground on is the lower-income Black culture,” Carter said. “That’s the main reason why I work this job. But I think that’s still part of the Black (soccer) culture that’s lagging behind within Atlanta.” Killer Mike and the Golden Spike (Michael Chang / Getty Images) Introducing the world’s game to predominantly Black neighborhoods is not an Atlanta problem; it’s an issue that persists throughout the United States. What is unique to Atlanta is how culture, music and fashion have been at the forefront of soccer’s rise in the South. As a club, Atlanta United has tapped into the city’s modern hip hop culture. OutKast’s Big Boi, rappers and activists Killer Mike and T.I., Waka Flocka Flame, 2 Chainz, Trinidad James and Rich Homie Quan, among others, have all featured in a number of the club’s marketing campaigns or participated in the pre-game hammering of the spike. Atlanta-based rapper Archie Eversole’s 2002 single ‘We Ready’ is played at the start of every Atlanta United home match. The intersection of hip hop, fashion and Black soccer culture (https://youtu.be/cuAytnDGKMQ) has become an integral part of the 2018 MLS Cup champion’s brand identity. It’s a culture reflected in the club’s support as well. Influential hip hop group Goodie Mob served as inspiration when Curtis Jenkins, a Black man, and Stefan Kallweit, a white man, co-founded a supporters group with a name to which they could both relate: Footie Mob. “One of my mom’s best friends lived three doors down from CeeLo Green,” Jenkins said. “I remember being at her house for a Labor Day cookout and she said ‘Carlo and his little friends think they’re going to be rappers one day.’ And lo and behold it happens. So it’s intentional. It’s one of those things where hip hop and Atlanta are synonymous. It’s one of our best exports. It’s Coke, Delta then OutKast. That’s what we want to communicate. This is Atlanta. We embrace every bit of it and that includes the hip hop community.” Jenkins’ father grew up in South Carolina and played football. As Jenkins put it, “sports are handed down to you by your parents,” meaning soccer was not an important part of his childhood. He fell in love with the sport after the 2006 World Cup in Germany; today Jenkins helps lead Footie Mob’s community efforts to bridge the gap between race, culture and soccer. He has worked as a fire marshal for 13 years. “Every stadium should look, feel, sound different,” Jenkins said. “I don’t know if it’s arrogant of us to have thought so, but yo, Atlanta’s stadium should sound like Atlanta. It should look like Atlanta. It should reflect those things in ways big and small that are obvious so that a blind person knows ‘I’m in Mercedes- Benz Stadium.’” Jenkins, center, and Footie Mob members (Dori Kallweit) Recent events, though, have called for more than simple visible alignment. The defining push over this summer by Black players and fans has been to use each teams’ unique platforms to enable lasting systemic change. Many supporters’ groups have followed suit. Jenkins acknowledged that after George Floyd’s death in May, Atlanta United had reached out to the supporters groups to open the lines of communication about next steps. The groups have since had regular conference calls with Catie Griggs, Atlanta United’s vice president of business operations. “I think they’ve made a corporate first step,” said Jenkins. “And I don’t mean that as a derogatory statement towards them. If you aren’t of and from (Black) culture, you’re not sure what the proper steps may be. Like having Killer Mike, T.I. and all those people do the spike is great because it’s a recognition that, yes, they are part of this city. But I think any corporation, MLS as a whole, Western soccer as a whole, still isn’t quite sure what to do with the hip hop community slash Black and brown communities. If you don’t have somebody from those communities in your boardroom, you’re not going to go ‘Ok, well what’s next?’” When reached for comment for this story, Griggs supplied a statement via email.