Amy Bass

Amy Bass is the author of One Goal: A Coach, a Team, and the Game That Brought a Divided Town Together.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to write about this team of mostly immigrant soccer players from Lewiston, Maine, and given the current political climate, what do you think their story says about the role of immigrants and refugees in the United States?

A: I went to Bates College, which is in Lewiston, so I lived there years before the Somali community began to arrive. When the soccer team started to climb the national rankings in fall, 2015, a friend from college posted a newspaper article about them on Facebook.

Things in my head just began to click – there was so much heated dialogue at that moment about refugees; Syria was such a focal point; U.S. governors were saying “we don’t want you” about those who were fleeing Syria’s terror and violence.

But in Maine, these guys were playing soccer, making it work, coming together as a team, coming together as a community. This, I thought, is how America lives up to all those revered documents we keep in the National Archives.

There was – there is – so much fear driving and dividing this country. This story, I think, puts that fear...[read on]

Visit Amy Bass's website.

--Marshal Zeringue