Chee Wit Dee

Pay It Forward

Hi everyone,

When I first came to this small town where I live now, I was surprised to find out that the children here didn’t know how to play SOCCER at all. I came from Thailand and almost every kid there played soccer. When the  World Cup Soccer tournament started, Thai people dropped what they were doing. They watched all the matches. All over the world, people watched the most  popular sport SOCCER, but not here in this small town, where football is the dominant sport and baseball is second. So I decided to do something about this matter. I got together with the local YMCA and a nice gentleman ( ex-professional Baltimore Colt player ) to organize a soccer league. We set up two days for a basic soccer clinic. I coached both 100 volunteer adults and 500 children how to play soccer, coaching and refereeing. It was a big challenge for me at that time because they didn’t know anything about soccer and it was such a very large crowd. I had to use a bull horn to instruct them. The clinic went smoothly and so did the first season of soccer. The children had a lot of fun and their parents were cheering for their kids. They were so proud of their boys and girls.

A few years later, we made a big change from a fun league to a competitive league. We tried to give our children  a chance to advance their skills and to know where they stand in comparison to children in other cities. One of the teams was an 8 yr. old division that my son played on. They had a first scrimmage of the season. They lost 13 to 1. The coach was yelling at them and told them that they were no good. The kids felt so sad and did not enjoy playing the game. They lost their self esteem. I went to talk to their coach and let them know that it was not a proper way to educate the children. They need some guidance and positive encouragement. They asked me if I knew anything about soccer. I told them yes. They wanted me to take over the team.  From that moment on, I coached that team and completely turned the team around. Two years later at the age of 10, the team entered a competitive tournament in the town bigger than ours by about 3 times. We won first place and a big championship cup. We  not only won the championship, but we won every single game by a shut out. Two years later at the age of 12, we repeated it again. We won the tournament in the city that  was ten times bigger than ours. We won every game by a shut out, and no one scored a single goal on us. The children did very well and their parents were so proud of them. I was very happy that the kids’ parents put a great trust in me and gave me an opportunity to educate them.

The reason for our success was hard work, respect, discipline and focus. I taught them to respect their parents and teammates. For their parents, I wanted them to say yes m’am or no sir and  to always show respect to the elderly. I taught them to show their love by action such as by doing some house chores without being asked. If you saw your dad doing yard work, don’t just  ask him, “May I help you dad?” You need to go in there and help him or take over the yard work. That’s what I call showing your love and respect. They need to show their love while they are still alive.  I taught them to work hard by jogging a few miles a day and to keep increasing the mileage. They did very well by disciplining themselves and practiced hard all the time. I taught them to stay focused on whatever they were doing, no matter if it was on the field or off the field. That’s how they were so successful on the soccer field. Some of them got good scholarships, and some of them played professional soccer and football. They are all enjoying good lives and have good families now. They told me that they will teach their children the way I taught them. They are paying it forward.