ONE GOAL: A Coach, a Team, and the Game That Brought a Divided Town Together

by Amy Bass
 
If I weren’t a member of the Boston area Bates College Alumna Book Club, I might never have found One Goal, a true gem.  Written by a Bates alumna, One Goaltells the story of the Lewiston High School men’s soccer team’s quest for a 2015 state championship with a team composed mainly of Somali immigrants that had settled in the Maine town. 
 
Many residents of predominantly white Lewiston, a struggling, old mill town that had fallen on economic hard times, were uncomfortable with the influx of thousands of Somali immigrants that began in 2001.  In one decade, the non-white population of Lewiston grew by 800 percent.  (Of the 1,300 students in the public high school today, 25 percent are African immigrants, most of them Somali.)  Bass followed several of the Somali boys from the team and their families as they struggled to assimilate into their new lives in Maine.  The reader cringes along with Bass as she tells their stories, rife with acts of prejudice.
 
But the Lewiston High School soccer coach, Mike McGraw, himself a lifelong resident of Lewiston, decided to work with the refugee community and he figured out how to integrate the Somali boys onto his team.  They experienced many bumps along the way, but in the end, the team brought the town of Lewiston together. Through hard work and real grit, they won a state championship.  In so doing, they showed the adult community around them what cooperation and teamwork can accomplish.  This is a book that will fill your heart with hope at a time when stories about embracing immigrants and refugees are all too rare.  I recommend this book highly. (Liz)