Big number, world experiences set
WW South senior class apart
By Dave Owen
WHEATON -- Few schools can match the size of Wheaton Warrenville South’s corps of 2017 soccer seniors.
When it comes to diversity and world experiences, the word few likely becomes none.
The 24 seniors in the Tigers’ program (including 13 on varsity) play their final regular season match and final home game Tuesday night against Naperville North.
The emotions of that finale and the test of facing the no. 2-ranked team in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25 and defending Class 3A state champions would seem to make for a major double challenge.
But the road some Tigers have taken makes facing even the toughest of soccer opponents a relative snap.
Ten years ago, nights like Tuesday would have seemed a pipe dream for Wheaton South senior defender Zung Ling.
Originally from Burma, Ling and his family were among hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled political and religious persecution in that country over the past 10-plus years.
“I went to Malaysia in 2008, and came here in 2011,” Ling said. “I’ve been here (in the Wheaton area) for six and a half years.”
Now well beyond the fear of survival in his strife-torn homeland, the new home has opened endless opportunities.
“Coming to the United States has brought good opportunities to get further than most of my family,” Ling said. “My dad and mom didn’t get a lot of education, but they brought us here to another life to start the first generation here.
“In Burma we don’t get a lot of education, or all the things we get here. We don’t get a lot of opportunities over there, but here we have a lot of great programs that will bring us to the next level.”
Ling is choosing among four or five colleges to attend next fall.
“It’s very different with the education and everything here,” Ling said. “I’m just blessed to come here to the United States.”
The Wheaton Warrenville South senior class soccer melting pot also features a more recent arrival from Burma in Kyaw Than Htike.
Playing on the Tigers’ junior varsity, he arrived in Wheaton this year. And while quickly polishing his grasp on the English language, he was even more instantly amazed by the before-and-after quality of life -- even on the soccer field.
“In my country we don’t have fields like this,” Htike said. “To be honest, I had never seen (artificial) turf before. This school was the first turf I’ve seen. I love this school. I love high school soccer.”
His emphasis on the playing surface is understandable from recent soccer memories of his home country.
“Sometimes we’d play on the roads (in Burma),” Htike said, “and even our fields don’t have much grass. There are stones and things like that, but we play anyway.
And in our country we don’t have soccer cleats and stuff, so we just play with our feet.
“In our country we don’t usually have shoes, just sandals. No cleats. And sometimes we play with sandals, or just the foot. It’s so different. People see us not wearing socks, just sandals. But that’s our country, our custom.”
With forward Bishnu Dhamala (Nepal) and other seniors also having past ties across the globe, the Tigers’ 2017 soccer seniors are a large and diverse group.
“It’s as close to a family as you can get to be honest,” said Wheaton Warrenville South senior co-captain Will Buxton. “We come from all different backgrounds and different places. We have guys from Nepal, Burma, guys from Kenya, Mexico.
“When you come out here because it’s one language, one family, one country all represented. It’s awesome, a great feeling to know you’re part of all these people and all their stories.”
Said Ling: “Since freshman year to now the program’s been great, and soccer is not just a sport, but like Will said brings us all together. We may be from different countries, but we play together as a family. It doesn’t matter where you come from, soccer brings us all together.”
Guy Callipari has coached at Wheaton Warrenville South for 27 years. The size and makeup of the current senior crop is new territory.
“I think it’s our largest group ever, 24 (seniors),” said Callipari, himself a native of Canada. “I think next year is predicted to be about 10. This is definitely a bubble of guys that have been with the program for a long time.
“Two from Burma, a Nigerian, a Ghananian, three from Myanmar in two different regions, and we had another one, Chole’s brother Phillip who was 20 before the season started and couldn’t play this year. I’d never had that before. By the time he got out of the refugee camp and into the educational system, I didn’t know he was ineligible. He played for me last year as a junior and as a senior he hit 20 before the season starts and isn’t allowed to play. This is something new, not only where do you live but how old you are.”
“And our dynamic has changed over the last five years. We’ve had an influx of not only Spanish players but players from Burma, Myanmar and other places in that region where they’ve had refugee status and found their way to the pipeline and now find themselves in our community, which is great.”
The laid-back Callipari has been the perfect director to bring the various parts together.
“There are challenges,” Callipari said, “but then there are moments when you can sit with those guys, talk to them all day long because they can share things with you. And just to watch them through their lens of what we’re providing them through our program, gives you an idea of ‘Are we doing what we need to be doing, and are they getting what they need and what we hope they walk away with.’
“It’s been wonderful that we’ve had this opportunity,” added Callipari. “It’s been a great opportunity for us all to learn and grow.”
Defenders Gabby Lazcano (also a co-captain), Spencer Follett and John Scudder, goalkeeper Benji Cruz and midfielders Unla Husseini, Marco Barrios, Horacio Leon and Jesus Martinez are also part of the deep varsity senior group.
Ling credited Callipari with enhancing the Tiger soccer experience for he and his teammates.
“Coach Callipari’s been good,” he said. “He’s a very good coach, and like a father or brother to us, like a member of the family. He brings us all together from different countries, brings us all together and trains us. He’s a great coach and a very nice guy.”
Ivan Carrillo is another fourth year senior in the program who has seen action primarily at the JV level.
“I’ve been playing (soccer) since I was in kindergarten through park district, and I played club one year,” Carrillo said. “(With so many seniors) you get a feel how everyone plays and build some chemistry, but we don’t play year round together (in club). So it’s kind of hard to have a formula and have everything click. That’s why it takes a few games to get used to everyone and how they like to play.
“Our coaches (Callipari and JV coach Aaron Press) are great. They’ve always taught us to give 100 percent the whole game, never give up, don’t put others down.”
Senior midfielder Barrios has family ties to Mexico, but spent most of his youth in Warrenville.
“I grew up with like five or six (of the seniors), and got to play with three of them for all four years of high school,” Barrios said. “It’s nice meeting new people (from other countries), but the hard thing is sometimes at first we don’t all understand each other. It’s just confusing the first couple of games.”
Even before the influx of talent from Burma and other nations, Barrios knew the language challenges.
“The people I grew up with speak Spanish,” he said. “We just try to speak it to ourselves, but sometimes we’re saying ‘Make the run’ in Spanish, and we forgot (all teammates) don’t speak Spanish.”
Husseini’s interesting senior saga involves a late start in the sport, then rapid development into a key player for the Tigers.
“I was a late bloomer,” said Husseini. “I started playing soccer in eighth grade. I wasn’t really a big soccer player, but my brothers and cousins used to go out and play soccer.
“One day they started bringing me – they told me to come watch and come play, and I’d watch soccer on TV with them on Saturday mornings. I slowly got into it, and then I played on my first team at the Wheaton Park District.”
Husseini would soon be asked to join the Wheaton Wings, and his conversion was complete.
“That was my first official club,” said Husseini, whose family moved to Wheaton in 2001. “At first it was hard to adjust. I didn’t know what was going on. It was hard for me to cope with the training and level of the players. I was not used to it.
“But as I grew older and got basic training from coaches, I started developing a habit of going outside on my own and training and trying to get better than I was.”
That time and effort has paid off.
“It’s been great,” Husseini said. “Coming into freshman year I knew almost none of these guys. I only knew the people who went to my middle school, and then coming into tryouts I met all these new guys. We became close friends, and now we have a certain bond.”
It’s the quest to improve and sharing the experience with friends old and new that has made the Tigers’ current seniors stay with the program.
“Playing for this program is great, being on varsity is awesome,” Buxton said. “Coming out here under the lights and playing in front of big crowds – I’ve been with the same guys since freshman year pretty much the whole time.
“Unla and Marco and Zung have been on my team almost all four years, so we kind of have that bond. And the coaches make it an easy transition. They’re very nice guys. We’re all coachable kids, and we come out here and play hard.”
The level of competition has also been hard, resulting in a 5-10-2 record entering the final days of the regular season.
But those challenges have only fueled the Tigers’ hopes for a big finish.
“We’ve been playing a totally better type of soccer the second half of the season,” Buxton said. “The results haven’t always been there, but it’s definitely been so much better. We’ve played some great teams this year. No easy opponents, and Naperville North the last game of the season.
“We know we could easily take our regional and get a regional championship. And then after that it’s just playing every game and getting better each day. But right now I feel we can definitely take the regional. It’s up for grabs.”
Husseini also has seen the steady progress from August to now.
“In our first couple of games we weren’t playing as a team, and were trying to do individual stuff,” Husseini said. “As the season’s gone on and with the training we’ve had, we have a sense of each other’s playing style. Now we know what a player wants and what he doesn’t like. And towards the end of the season we started playing better.”
Also making the Tigers a more cohesive unit were late-season trips to Kenosha, Wis., and downstate Jacksonville last weekend.
“It’s nice,” Barrios said. “It’s new for us and the program too (the Kenosha and downstate trips). To get to travel with your friends and get some time to eat together, play together, have fun, relieve stress from school and just think about soccer. And coach I think will have some fun too hanging around with us.
Said Husseini: “Going into the playoffs I think we’re stronger now than ever before, and having the tournament in Springfield will be better for us and gave us a couple more games before the real deal starts. We’re planning to take the regional championship. Like Will said it’s up for grabs. It’s a great opportunity to take that for our senior year.”
Said Buxton of the road trips: “Right before the playoffs especially, it kind of brings us all back together as one unit. We spend basically one and a half, two days together, same bus, same hotel, same restaurants. It brings us together and makes us play for each other.
“Me and our other captain Gabby have really tried to push through to our team that we really have to play for each other. Going down there and establishing that bond will really help us throughout the rest of the season and hopefully deep into the playoffs.”
Callipari shares the postseason optimism of his seniors. Especially with the progress the diverse group has made since Day One.
“At the varsity level we’re playing our best soccer at this time, in part because it’s taken us a month to get that understanding of what we’re good at and not good at,” he said. “Let’s accentuate our positives, get people in impact positions and try to hide what our weaknesses are. And now everyone’s bought into what their roles are and who we are as a team. We’re not this, but if we do this, we’ll be successful.”
Even with five of the seniors basically playing on varsity for the first time this season, the Tigers have meshed.
“The growth curve is just beginning, and getting them on the same page takes some doing,” Callipari said. “What makes it easier is that a lot of them have been in the program, just not at the varsity level. But we also have five or six first year players who are juniors and sophomores.”
“Hence the record is an indication of some growing pains, but we’ve played everybody very well in the conference. We were 1-0 and then 2-1 against Waubonsie Valley, we were 1-0 Naperville Central, 2-0 against Metea Valley. We continue to show worth and understanding.
“I probably wouldn’t have thought that was possible on Day One, so I’m pleasantly surprised,” Callipari added. “And having spoken to Gabby and Will tonight, they feel as energetic as I do about the possibility of going into a regional with Glenbard East and York. Of course we have to play to the best of our ability and make fewer mistakes that have cost us, but I feel pretty good about where we’re at right now.”
Wherever the ride ends this postseason, the Tigers’ seniors will have literally a world of memories to savor.
“Freshman year a bunch of us were on the same team and stayed together,” Barrios said. “This team is really fun. We all combine really well (with different classes). I really like it.
“This senior group, we’re really strong,” Barrios added. “We committed to four years and finished strong together. We didn’t give up on each other. It’s been fun.”
WW South senior class apart
By Dave Owen
WHEATON -- Few schools can match the size of Wheaton Warrenville South’s corps of 2017 soccer seniors.
When it comes to diversity and world experiences, the word few likely becomes none.
The 24 seniors in the Tigers’ program (including 13 on varsity) play their final regular season match and final home game Tuesday night against Naperville North.
The emotions of that finale and the test of facing the no. 2-ranked team in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25 and defending Class 3A state champions would seem to make for a major double challenge.
But the road some Tigers have taken makes facing even the toughest of soccer opponents a relative snap.
Ten years ago, nights like Tuesday would have seemed a pipe dream for Wheaton South senior defender Zung Ling.
Originally from Burma, Ling and his family were among hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled political and religious persecution in that country over the past 10-plus years.
“I went to Malaysia in 2008, and came here in 2011,” Ling said. “I’ve been here (in the Wheaton area) for six and a half years.”
Now well beyond the fear of survival in his strife-torn homeland, the new home has opened endless opportunities.
“Coming to the United States has brought good opportunities to get further than most of my family,” Ling said. “My dad and mom didn’t get a lot of education, but they brought us here to another life to start the first generation here.
“In Burma we don’t get a lot of education, or all the things we get here. We don’t get a lot of opportunities over there, but here we have a lot of great programs that will bring us to the next level.”
Ling is choosing among four or five colleges to attend next fall.
“It’s very different with the education and everything here,” Ling said. “I’m just blessed to come here to the United States.”
The Wheaton Warrenville South senior class soccer melting pot also features a more recent arrival from Burma in Kyaw Than Htike.
Playing on the Tigers’ junior varsity, he arrived in Wheaton this year. And while quickly polishing his grasp on the English language, he was even more instantly amazed by the before-and-after quality of life -- even on the soccer field.
“In my country we don’t have fields like this,” Htike said. “To be honest, I had never seen (artificial) turf before. This school was the first turf I’ve seen. I love this school. I love high school soccer.”
His emphasis on the playing surface is understandable from recent soccer memories of his home country.
“Sometimes we’d play on the roads (in Burma),” Htike said, “and even our fields don’t have much grass. There are stones and things like that, but we play anyway.
And in our country we don’t have soccer cleats and stuff, so we just play with our feet.
“In our country we don’t usually have shoes, just sandals. No cleats. And sometimes we play with sandals, or just the foot. It’s so different. People see us not wearing socks, just sandals. But that’s our country, our custom.”
With forward Bishnu Dhamala (Nepal) and other seniors also having past ties across the globe, the Tigers’ 2017 soccer seniors are a large and diverse group.
“It’s as close to a family as you can get to be honest,” said Wheaton Warrenville South senior co-captain Will Buxton. “We come from all different backgrounds and different places. We have guys from Nepal, Burma, guys from Kenya, Mexico.
“When you come out here because it’s one language, one family, one country all represented. It’s awesome, a great feeling to know you’re part of all these people and all their stories.”
Said Ling: “Since freshman year to now the program’s been great, and soccer is not just a sport, but like Will said brings us all together. We may be from different countries, but we play together as a family. It doesn’t matter where you come from, soccer brings us all together.”
Guy Callipari has coached at Wheaton Warrenville South for 27 years. The size and makeup of the current senior crop is new territory.
“I think it’s our largest group ever, 24 (seniors),” said Callipari, himself a native of Canada. “I think next year is predicted to be about 10. This is definitely a bubble of guys that have been with the program for a long time.
“Two from Burma, a Nigerian, a Ghananian, three from Myanmar in two different regions, and we had another one, Chole’s brother Phillip who was 20 before the season started and couldn’t play this year. I’d never had that before. By the time he got out of the refugee camp and into the educational system, I didn’t know he was ineligible. He played for me last year as a junior and as a senior he hit 20 before the season starts and isn’t allowed to play. This is something new, not only where do you live but how old you are.”
“And our dynamic has changed over the last five years. We’ve had an influx of not only Spanish players but players from Burma, Myanmar and other places in that region where they’ve had refugee status and found their way to the pipeline and now find themselves in our community, which is great.”
The laid-back Callipari has been the perfect director to bring the various parts together.
“There are challenges,” Callipari said, “but then there are moments when you can sit with those guys, talk to them all day long because they can share things with you. And just to watch them through their lens of what we’re providing them through our program, gives you an idea of ‘Are we doing what we need to be doing, and are they getting what they need and what we hope they walk away with.’
“It’s been wonderful that we’ve had this opportunity,” added Callipari. “It’s been a great opportunity for us all to learn and grow.”
Defenders Gabby Lazcano (also a co-captain), Spencer Follett and John Scudder, goalkeeper Benji Cruz and midfielders Unla Husseini, Marco Barrios, Horacio Leon and Jesus Martinez are also part of the deep varsity senior group.
Ling credited Callipari with enhancing the Tiger soccer experience for he and his teammates.
“Coach Callipari’s been good,” he said. “He’s a very good coach, and like a father or brother to us, like a member of the family. He brings us all together from different countries, brings us all together and trains us. He’s a great coach and a very nice guy.”
Ivan Carrillo is another fourth year senior in the program who has seen action primarily at the JV level.
“I’ve been playing (soccer) since I was in kindergarten through park district, and I played club one year,” Carrillo said. “(With so many seniors) you get a feel how everyone plays and build some chemistry, but we don’t play year round together (in club). So it’s kind of hard to have a formula and have everything click. That’s why it takes a few games to get used to everyone and how they like to play.
“Our coaches (Callipari and JV coach Aaron Press) are great. They’ve always taught us to give 100 percent the whole game, never give up, don’t put others down.”
Senior midfielder Barrios has family ties to Mexico, but spent most of his youth in Warrenville.
“I grew up with like five or six (of the seniors), and got to play with three of them for all four years of high school,” Barrios said. “It’s nice meeting new people (from other countries), but the hard thing is sometimes at first we don’t all understand each other. It’s just confusing the first couple of games.”
Even before the influx of talent from Burma and other nations, Barrios knew the language challenges.
“The people I grew up with speak Spanish,” he said. “We just try to speak it to ourselves, but sometimes we’re saying ‘Make the run’ in Spanish, and we forgot (all teammates) don’t speak Spanish.”
Husseini’s interesting senior saga involves a late start in the sport, then rapid development into a key player for the Tigers.
“I was a late bloomer,” said Husseini. “I started playing soccer in eighth grade. I wasn’t really a big soccer player, but my brothers and cousins used to go out and play soccer.
“One day they started bringing me – they told me to come watch and come play, and I’d watch soccer on TV with them on Saturday mornings. I slowly got into it, and then I played on my first team at the Wheaton Park District.”
Husseini would soon be asked to join the Wheaton Wings, and his conversion was complete.
“That was my first official club,” said Husseini, whose family moved to Wheaton in 2001. “At first it was hard to adjust. I didn’t know what was going on. It was hard for me to cope with the training and level of the players. I was not used to it.
“But as I grew older and got basic training from coaches, I started developing a habit of going outside on my own and training and trying to get better than I was.”
That time and effort has paid off.
“It’s been great,” Husseini said. “Coming into freshman year I knew almost none of these guys. I only knew the people who went to my middle school, and then coming into tryouts I met all these new guys. We became close friends, and now we have a certain bond.”
It’s the quest to improve and sharing the experience with friends old and new that has made the Tigers’ current seniors stay with the program.
“Playing for this program is great, being on varsity is awesome,” Buxton said. “Coming out here under the lights and playing in front of big crowds – I’ve been with the same guys since freshman year pretty much the whole time.
“Unla and Marco and Zung have been on my team almost all four years, so we kind of have that bond. And the coaches make it an easy transition. They’re very nice guys. We’re all coachable kids, and we come out here and play hard.”
The level of competition has also been hard, resulting in a 5-10-2 record entering the final days of the regular season.
But those challenges have only fueled the Tigers’ hopes for a big finish.
“We’ve been playing a totally better type of soccer the second half of the season,” Buxton said. “The results haven’t always been there, but it’s definitely been so much better. We’ve played some great teams this year. No easy opponents, and Naperville North the last game of the season.
“We know we could easily take our regional and get a regional championship. And then after that it’s just playing every game and getting better each day. But right now I feel we can definitely take the regional. It’s up for grabs.”
Husseini also has seen the steady progress from August to now.
“In our first couple of games we weren’t playing as a team, and were trying to do individual stuff,” Husseini said. “As the season’s gone on and with the training we’ve had, we have a sense of each other’s playing style. Now we know what a player wants and what he doesn’t like. And towards the end of the season we started playing better.”
Also making the Tigers a more cohesive unit were late-season trips to Kenosha, Wis., and downstate Jacksonville last weekend.
“It’s nice,” Barrios said. “It’s new for us and the program too (the Kenosha and downstate trips). To get to travel with your friends and get some time to eat together, play together, have fun, relieve stress from school and just think about soccer. And coach I think will have some fun too hanging around with us.
Said Husseini: “Going into the playoffs I think we’re stronger now than ever before, and having the tournament in Springfield will be better for us and gave us a couple more games before the real deal starts. We’re planning to take the regional championship. Like Will said it’s up for grabs. It’s a great opportunity to take that for our senior year.”
Said Buxton of the road trips: “Right before the playoffs especially, it kind of brings us all back together as one unit. We spend basically one and a half, two days together, same bus, same hotel, same restaurants. It brings us together and makes us play for each other.
“Me and our other captain Gabby have really tried to push through to our team that we really have to play for each other. Going down there and establishing that bond will really help us throughout the rest of the season and hopefully deep into the playoffs.”
Callipari shares the postseason optimism of his seniors. Especially with the progress the diverse group has made since Day One.
“At the varsity level we’re playing our best soccer at this time, in part because it’s taken us a month to get that understanding of what we’re good at and not good at,” he said. “Let’s accentuate our positives, get people in impact positions and try to hide what our weaknesses are. And now everyone’s bought into what their roles are and who we are as a team. We’re not this, but if we do this, we’ll be successful.”
Even with five of the seniors basically playing on varsity for the first time this season, the Tigers have meshed.
“The growth curve is just beginning, and getting them on the same page takes some doing,” Callipari said. “What makes it easier is that a lot of them have been in the program, just not at the varsity level. But we also have five or six first year players who are juniors and sophomores.”
“Hence the record is an indication of some growing pains, but we’ve played everybody very well in the conference. We were 1-0 and then 2-1 against Waubonsie Valley, we were 1-0 Naperville Central, 2-0 against Metea Valley. We continue to show worth and understanding.
“I probably wouldn’t have thought that was possible on Day One, so I’m pleasantly surprised,” Callipari added. “And having spoken to Gabby and Will tonight, they feel as energetic as I do about the possibility of going into a regional with Glenbard East and York. Of course we have to play to the best of our ability and make fewer mistakes that have cost us, but I feel pretty good about where we’re at right now.”
Wherever the ride ends this postseason, the Tigers’ seniors will have literally a world of memories to savor.
“Freshman year a bunch of us were on the same team and stayed together,” Barrios said. “This team is really fun. We all combine really well (with different classes). I really like it.
“This senior group, we’re really strong,” Barrios added. “We committed to four years and finished strong together. We didn’t give up on each other. It’s been fun.”