6 August 15 - 21, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents I t’s a muggy June evening at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, and the starting 11 players for Dallas FC have lined up for the national anthem with their opponents for the night, St. Louis City. The tallest player on the field is Dallas center-back Omar Gonzalez. This is not un- usual. At 6 feet 5 inches, he is one of the tall- est players ever to play in a World Cup game. Gonzalez is hard to miss, especially when he starts waving and blowing kisses to the sold- out crowd. When we asked later to whom he was di- recting his attention, he smiles broadly and says it’s “for his family and friends.” This makes perfect sense, because Omar Gonza- lez grew up just south of Interstate 30 in Oak Cliff. After more than a decade as a profes- sional for teams in California, Toronto and Mexico, Gonzalez is back home playing for FC Dallas, and he and his extended family are loving it. On the bench for this game is Bernard Kamungo. Physically, he won’t be mistaken for Gonzalez. Kamungo is a different kind of predator, wiry and compact. He looks fast, and he is fast. He is on the smaller side, but he has a couple of inches on Lionel Messi. Kamungo is a high-twitch athlete, and his muscles look restless even when he relaxes. His family also lives in Dallas, having moved here when he signed a pro contract before finishing high school. They moved from Abilene, but that’s hardly the story. The far more important move was the one the Ka- mungo family made in 2016, when they were relocated from the Nyarugusu refugee camp in western Tanzania. As Paul Simon might say, they didn’t speak the language and they held no cur- rency. What they did have, for the first time in Kamungo’s short life, was running water, air conditioning, enough food to eat and a bright future. Kamungo is shy by nature. Maybe it has to do with growing up in a refugee camp, or maybe it has to do with being dropped into Abilene when your primary language is Swahili, backed up by a bit of schoolboy French. Initially, Kamungo would sit at the back of his Abilene middle school class with no idea of what was going on or what was being said. But there were two constants that kept him grounded and hopeful: When the midday bell rang, lunch would be served, and when the bell rang at the end of the day, there would be soccer. He figured he could make this work. And it did work. Starting on the middle school team, and then through high school, he became a star. Instructions on the field were minimal. Stay up top, get the ball, score goals. For Bernard and the entire Kamugo family, life was stable, even normal. There were steady jobs for the adults, and there was school for Bernard, with soccer during seasons and pickup games with the adult leagues on the weekends. The shy but incorrigibly likable kid from Tanzania was starting to blossom. In an in- terview with the Abilene ISD he rattled off the coaches and teachers who reached out to him after he signed with FC Dallas: “Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Garza, Mrs. Miller.” The list keeps growing. If the Bernard Kamungo story were a three-season miniseries, season one would be the hardscrabble early years in a Tanza- nian refugee camp. Season two would be overcoming that background to become a high school soccer star. That would make a good story if it ended right there, but would leave out the blockbuster Hollywood con- clusion to this tale. That wouldn’t be right, because in many ways Kamungo’s story is just getting started. Omar Gonzalez would take a different path. The son of Mexican immigrants, Gon- zalez is an Oak Cliff kid through and through. According to the website Behav- ioral Scientist, Mexican immigrants are among the fastest to assimilate into U.S. so- ciety: “In one generation’s time, we find that it becomes hard to tell apart the children of immigrants from the children of the U.S.- born. Both groups are simply American.” In Gonzalez’s home, his parents spoke a lot of Spanish, but he would answer in English. We may have his mother to thank for get- ting him interested in soccer. When the World Cup passed through the Cotton Bowl in 1994, she was a volunteer. When the call came out that kids were needed for some of the ceremonies, she signed up the whole family. By the time Brazil striker Bebeto scored twice in a quarterfinal match against the Netherlands and did his “rock the baby” celebration, 6-year-old Omar Gonzalez had made up his mind. He was going to be a soc- cer player. With his focus, skill and unique size he was plucked out of high school to join the U.S. National Team’s youth program. From there it was three years at the University of Maryland, where he helped the Terrapins win an NCAA title. The personal awards rolled in as well. ACC Defensive Player of the year, first Team All-American, College Cup Defensive MVP. He was on a roll. After his junior year at Maryland, he was selected with the third pick in the MLS draft. Gonza- lez was heading to Los Angeles to play with David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy. ▼ Culture Mike Brooks Omar Gonzalez defends for FC Dallas. >> p8 American Dream Team FC Dallas’ star players glimmer with hope. By Mike Brooks
