‘Someone who’s helping them to dream.’ Soccer leader helps kids envision bigger futures

By Steve Young, for Pigeon605

Leo Diaz works with children – echoes, really, of the child he used to be.

He runs a soccer academy here in Sioux Falls for youth from many diverse backgrounds. Many are Hispanic like himself. Quite often, their stories are his story. Children who crossed the border into America as immigrants. Who found themselves struggling with a language they didn’t know or understand. Who saw themselves on the outside looking in at school. Or whose families have labored every day to rise above the hardships they hoped they had left behind.

Against that backdrop, some kids will take the wrong turn. But through Atlas FC Sioux Falls Soccer School, Diaz is showing families that he can give them a shot at a better quality of life through sport. He doesn’t promise athletic glory to children who have grown up idolizing soccer heroes in their homelands. But through his soccer school, he is building character. And just as important, he’s showing his students how opportunity, hard work and success are intrinsically linked together.

“I think what is unique to Leo is that he is working intentionally with an underrepresented community,” said Kira Kimball, a friend and the chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at Marsh McLennan Agency. “He is a credible messenger as a person who identifies as a Hispanic individual that those young people are able to see as a successful person, a successful coach and someone who’s inspiring. Someone who’s helping them to dream.”

Dreams? Diaz has plenty of those himself. But the big one on his radar right now is shared by many in the community – how to develop the area southwest of 10th Street and Cliff Avenue where Drake Springs, Nelson Park and the future Sioux Falls skate park are located, as well as the current Department of Social Services campus and what once was called Stadium Court.

There’s a project in the works for that area called the Riverline District, one that potentially could include year-round recreation access, housing, business developments or even a new sports stadium. It’s being spearheaded by a committee called the Friends of the Riverline District. Diaz’s work on improving the lives of Hispanic and immigrant youth offers a good perspective to that committee.

As one who struggles every year to find space to hold his soccer school, he would love to see a multisport facility go into that district that could accommodate many different activities. As it is now, he has room for just 60 children to learn soccer skills Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church gymnasium, with over 200 families on an outreach waiting list.

“All the available space is taken up by bigger organizations and are doing very well,” Diaz said. “But what about these families I serve? What about kids from Title I schools? What about, for example, our success stories? These kids are thriving because of us and other organizations, but what do we give them throughout the winter?”

That said, Diaz’s place on the committee has less to do with promoting a space for soccer programs and more about improving the quality of life for young people and families who already have experienced their share of hardship.

“Whatever we do with this project, it is that quality of life we should emphasize,” he said. “It should attract kids to a new downtown, where there’s a family-oriented atmosphere and where kids from the Whittier Park neighborhood, kids I serve, the economically impacted families and the people that have transportation issues, can be within walking distance to come to whatever is developed there.”

All this is important to the 37-year-old husband and father of four because of where he came from. Diaz spent the first years of his life in a small town of 400 people called Cupuato in Mexico’s Guanajuato state, in a house across the street from a patch of grass where he learned to love soccer.

For his parents, it was a hard life, an impoverished life. Diaz does not expound on this, just to say “that things were kind of getting bad back home at the time, and my parents decided, ‘You know what? We’re not going to stick around.’”

His father had submitted legalization paperwork for his family, yearning for a better quality of life for them, so they headed north. Diaz remembers the walk from Mexico north and across the border. “It was really harsh … all of those traumatized memories,” he said. “As I got older, I knew I wanted to make a difference because I knew what some of these kids here in Sioux Falls had gone through.”

The family settled in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, where Diaz’s aunt lived. The challenges that met him were daunting, he said. Nobody understood his language. School was difficult. “It was hard. I mean, how does a 6- or 7-year-old communicate when there’s no one around who speaks your language? I remember those years were tough.”

Fortunately, he picked up English quickly. And he spoke a universal language: soccer. As he and his brother made friends with other kids, they would play in the yard or in green spaces nearby. At 15, his high school partnered with a private school in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, to be part of a soccer program. Diaz’s talents landed him on a developmental Olympic team for Minnesota that traveled to compete against similar age groups in Illinois, Iowa and Ohio.

“I felt like a professional,” he said. “It was just the way they treated you … hotel, buffet, transportation from the hotel to the stadium. I was really desiring at that young age to play at a professional level.”

But dreams and desires, it turns out, are never guaranteed. His working-class parents didn’t have the finances to pay for his ambitions. So he came to the University of Sioux Falls on a soccer scholarship, played the sport he loved, got a degree and moved on in life.

He had started at Wells Fargo part time in college and stayed on after graduation in a full-time role. He was part of Junior Achievement in Sioux Falls as well when he started mentoring Hispanic students at Roosevelt High School who had challenges. The hope was that someone from a Hispanic background who was successful like Diaz might inspire these kids.

“A lot of these kids were not engaged, not motivated,” he said. “GPAs were low. English as a second language was a challenge. There were lots of kids that were being rebellious toward teachers.”

What would make you change your ways, he would ask them? What do you like to do that would change your behavior?

Soccer, they told him.

So Diaz researched what was available in town. There were plenty of good soccer programs but few that were reaching out to Hispanic and diverse populations. Transportation was an issue for many families, so Diaz had to find a way to bring the sport to them. In 2019, his academy was born.

“It’s not club soccer. The difference between a club and what we do in the academy is we say that we are transforming kids to take their place in a better society, a better culture,” he said. “There are a lot of good soccer programs in Sioux Falls. But how we differentiate ourselves is by transforming these kids into better human beings so they can be a better part of society. We do that through building character, leadership and, most importantly, consistency.”

Kimball, his friend, said she believes the ability for these young people to see and be influenced by Diaz is transformative.

“With Leo, they can see themselves a successful adult who’s helping them dream and helping make their world and future opportunities bigger,” she said. “I love the other soccer programs in town, and they’re important. But the reality is there are different starting lines, if you will, for populations within our community. And we all don’t start with the same resources, access, protection, opportunities, investment.”

Diaz works with children primarily 5 to 13 or 14 years old. He helps their families wherever he can too. Do you need assistance from an immigration lawyer, he asks them. Are your health care needs taken care of? “We just don’t provide soccer,” he said. “We’re a resource center for them, too, trying to direct them to the right organizations and services in Sioux Falls.”

After 13 years at Wells Fargo, Diaz left financial services a year ago to build his academy, spend more time with his family and work at a drywall business with his brother. While he thoroughly enjoyed the banking world, he enjoys more being able now to work with young kids and redirect them if they are going through a hard time at home, in school or any other issue.

Though he charges a small fee for participation, the coaches all are volunteers. The program goes on every week, all year long, Tuesdays and Thursdays. And Diaz has been talking with another soccer program that works with immigrants, mostly African, about joining forces. Someday, he would like to grow his nonprofit enough to hire a business manager and find wintertime space.

Perhaps the Riverline District will answer that need for him. Regardless, he has captured the attention of Mayor Paul TenHaken, who acknowledged Diaz in his State of the City this week.

For now, Diaz is satisfied turning around as many young lives as he can.

“I want our community to invest in Leo,” Kimball said. “We need to lift up underrepresented folks who are doing amazing things and provide them resources and remove barriers. Leo is doing that. His work is going to make Sioux Falls a better community.”