When Foday Kabba moved to Portland in his early teens, he didn’t speak much English, but he was fluent with a soccer ball at his feet. His family had fled Sierra Leone’s civil war, which came close enough to Kabba’s house for him to hear the sounds of gunfire and bombs. School in the States was tough, and friends were hard to come by, but one day, as he was walking by himself through his North Portland neighborhood, Kabba spotted a group of kids kicking a ball around a park.



He walked up to the coach, his scrawny chest pushed out and head held high, and asked if he could join the team. “Sure,” came the reply. “We’re here every Tuesday and Thursday.”



And that was it — the Kabba’s foothold in his new country, the first step in a journey that would eventually land him on a soccer scholarship at Gonzaga University.



“Soccer eased my transition,” Kabba explained, “because soccer has been...