Wake Forest to Host 3v3 World Cup Soccer Tournament
All proceeds to benefit Grassroot Soccer organization

Oct. 1, 2008

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - For the second straight year, Wake Forest will host the Youth 3v3 Grassroot Soccer Tournament. The event is scheduled for this Saturday, October 4, at Spry Stadium, prior to the Wake Forest-Virginia Tech men's soccer game. Anyone interested in participating can register online at ecmiracles.com. The cost to register is $35 for kids age 6-14 and $10 for college-aged students and above.

Registration for the event begins at 11 a.m. and the first games in the tournament will start at 1 p.m. The championship game of the tournament will be played later that night during halftime of the match between the Deacons and the Hokies.

Each participant in the tournament will receive two tickets to the Wake Forest-Virginia Tech match, a tournament t-shirt and entry into the skills challenge, where participants have a chance to win a number of Wake Forest soccer prizes.

All proceeds from the event go to benefit Grassroot Soccer, an organization dedicated to using soccer in the fight against AIDS in Africa. The organization provides African youth with the knowledge, skills and support to live HIV free. Ethan Zohn, Co-Founder of Grassroot Soccer, recently sat down with WakeForestSports.com to discuss the organization. A transcript of the interview is below.

Q: When did you get started in soccer and what's your background?
A: I've played since I was six years old. I played four years in high school and four years in college. I played for about 5 years in the United Soccer Leagues with the Hawaii Tsunamis and Cape Cod Crusaders. I spent a year playing in Zimbabwe, in the Zimababe Premier League. I was also an assistant coach at Fairleigh Dickinson. I've also done broadcasting on Fox Soccer Channel, ESPN and MSG.

Q: What is the mission of Grassroot Soccer?
A: We use Africa's most powerful role models, soccer players and coaches to teach kids lessons with HIV/AIDS and how to stay healthy in life. Our official tagline is "to use the power of soccer in the fight against AIDS." We use professional soccer players and coaches in Africa to teach that message to the youth of Africa.

Q: You're in the process of dribbling a soccer ball from Boston to Washington, D.C. Where did you get that idea and how has the trip gone so far?
A: With Grassroot Soccer, all of our work is currently done outside the United States. We've graduated over 250,000 students in the program and we're looking to graduate 1.25 million people by 2010, when the World Cup is held in South Africa. Our work in the United States is mainly fundraising. We created Grassroot Soccer United, which is a youth-led movement to end AIDS in Africa. The way we're promoting that is me dribbling the soccer ball from Boston to Washington, D.C. I started on August 20 in Boston and will end on December 1, which is World AIDS Day, in Washington, D.C. I was working on the idea for about two years. It was a novel idea, something that no one had done before. In the morning, I'll get up and dribble 12-15 miles each day. In the afternoon, we'll have a clinic, or a 3v3 tournament, or I'll go to a high school soccer match. Wherever I can get in front of the most people and share the message, that's where I'll go.

The trip has been great. The most fun for me is when I'm on the road dribbling. I've been dribbling for 40 days. In Africa, 7,000 people a day die from AIDS. So, in the 40 days I've been dribbling, 280,000 people have died from AIDS in Africa. It really motivates me each day to get up and dribble.

Q: Give an example of some of the impacts you've seen from your work with Grassroot Soccer?
A: When we were in Ethiopia, we trained 220 gym teachers with the Grassroot Soccer curriculum. We were up one morning jogging. We saw these kids playing on the side of the road. We jogged by and they were doing grassroot soccer activities. They remembered what they had learned. One kid was teaching the other 10 kids a game. It proved the kid enjoyed what he learned and is teaching it to other kids. We've developed a curriculum that's fun. So it's always enjoyable when you see kids who have been through your program teaching what they learned to other kids.

Q: If people aren't able to participate in the 3v3 World Cup this weekend, how else can they donate to Grassroot Soccer?
A: They can visit the website (grassrootsoccer.org) and donate there. We have Grassroot Soccer apparel online that can be purchased and the proceeds from the sale go to Grassroot Soccer. We also have a fundraising competition. The top 11 fund raisers nationwide get a free trip to Africa in the summer of 2009. We also have a program that sends college students and recent graduates over to Africa for a period of 12 months to teach the GRS curriculum to professional soccer players in Africa. If anyone is interested in getting involved in that program, they can visit the website at www.grassrootsoccer.org.