Sport

Shek Borkowski (born January 30, 1963) is a Polish born women's association football manager currently in charge of Haiti women's national football team. He joined the Haitian team after watching it perform at the 2012 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying tournament. He felt that lack of international experience in the football game is preventing Haiti from taking necessary steps for improvement. Haitian footballers are not facing good international opponents because neither we have enough resources to travel anywhere, nor is anyone willing to travel to Haiti to play us. Lack of experiencing good challenger is very retarding for improvement. Facing good competitors of other countries can improve our positional play, tactics, stamina, discipline and never-die attitude. In a fascinating move for the preparation of 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup (starting October 15), he took nearly the entire national women's football team to the United States to play for F.C. Indiana Lionesses. F.C. Indiana is an American women's soccer team based in Indianapolis, Indiana, that participates in the Women's Premier Soccer League (WPSL), and it is the second North American women's team ever to win the league and cup double. F.C. Indiana is also coached by Borkowski. The WSPL is an ideal nurturing ground for good footballers because the teams here are stocked with many talented players.

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Emerge Miami Bike Ride Immersive Experience Strengthens Cultural Ties. Activist cycling group Emerge Miami (EM) is partnering with Celebrate Diversity Miami (CDM), developed to strengthen communal ties between different ethnic neighborhoods in the metro area. EM is sponsoring their 100th neighborhood bike ride with CDM to focus on bringing awareness of each area's cultural and civic improvements in recent years. The ride to take place on October 11th will depart from City Hall and wend its way by principal heritage spots and places of interest in Overtown, Liberty City, and Little Haiti. Its final destination is Museum Park where a waterfront picnic will take place.

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Haiti sends Emergency Money to Trinidad/Tobago Soccer Team. Responding to a tweet, Shek Borkowski, coach of Haiti's soccer team, sent the last of the team's money, $1,316, to the Trinidad and Tobago (T and T) National Soccer Team to cover lunch. The tweet said the money the team arrived with was not enough to cover necessities while they were in Dallas for the next few days.

Haiti's magnanimous gesture left the team in a bind, until the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), hearing of the selfless gesture, stepped up to the plate. CGI made a call to Haiti's soccer federation and offered to support, not only Haiti's bid for the CONCACAF championship, but subsidize the women's soccer program for the long haul.

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Former coach of the Haitian soccer team, former player Wagneau Eloi, has been named the new coach for the FC Miami City Champions. The announcement was made in early December that Eloi had been named Head Coach, after spending time as technical director of the US Champions Soccer Academy he co-founded. His post is as head of the new expansion in the metropolitan area of Miami, Florida of the PDL expansion franchise.

Eloi carries with him an impressive record. Early in life he lived in Paris, France, where he began in a Red Star FC youth program, playing for four seasons. From then, he was a part of the Paris Football Club, then of the Racing Club de Lens as a first-time professional player. He spent four years there before joining AS Nancy Lorraine, where he met his future mentor and coach, Roger Lemerre. Through Lemerre's help, Eloi would win his first championship title, and he caught the eye of AS Monaco FC's president, who enlisted him. By 2002, Eloi would play with Guingamp, before later moving to Belgium to play with La Louviere and Roeselaere. Following these steps, Eloi moved back to Haiti and became the national team's head coach.

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Many often forget that Haitians were the unsung heroes of the emancipation of slavery. They drew bloody victory from their French oppressors, lighting a fire under slaves in other countries who chanced to hear what they had accomplished. Few know, however, that the Haitians did this by developing their own style of fighting, using the very tool that had become a symbol of their oppression. Today, a short film being showcased in Miami tells the story of the Haitian martial art of Tire Machet.

Being shown as part of Miami's Borscht Film Festival, the Jonathan David Kane short was screened at the Little Haiti Cultural center and the Adrienne Arsht Center. It tells the story of the first successful slave rebellion that gave birth to the first free black state, and how it was all achieved using what the film's developer, Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, calls the Third World Excalibur. The style incorporates traditional techniques such as French fencing, proto-capoeira, and African stick fighting. Over the years, whole the skill lost its necessity, it continues to be practiced for its fluidity and beauty. The practice has also become a sort of elite sport, in which only trusted community members are trained, and only a few are allowed to witness a session. Today, there is only one master willing to teach the skill to visitors.

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Born to Haitian parents, American footballer Louis Delmas spent much of his early life living among the people who could teach him, through their practices and culture, a little of what his parents' country is like. Now, after many years living where his career allowed, Delmas is finally back in North Miami, and it seems he could not be more happy and comfortable with the move.

After having spent his first five seasons in the American National Football League (NFL), Delmas was eager to find somewhere where he was more comfortable. The state of Florida has America's largest population of Haitians, and so, while in free agency in early 2014, Delmas considered the State for his next move.

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Soccer has not seen a player like dynamic and spirited Sebastien Thuriere of the Dayton Dutch Lions. The 24-year old Haitian-American, born in St. Petersburg, Florida, started his youth career with the South Florida Bulls in 2008, playing with them until 2012. He began in 2011 to play in the senior division, beginning with the Bradenton Academics where he made 14 appearances, scoring 2 goals.

Thuriere was quickly traded to the VSI Tampa Flames in 2012, where his stats show 15 appearances and 2 goals scored . In 2013 he began playing for VSI Tampa Bay for with 21 appearances and 1 goal. Currently with the USL Pro Dayton Dutch Lions he has made 7 appearances and scored no goals yet.

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Emmanuel Sarki, Nigerian-born in the African state of Kaduna in 1987, has been unable to qualify for Nigeria's Super Eagles National Team. As a minor, he represented the Golden Eaglets and the Flying Eagles of Nigeria, and made it to the Under-17 World Cup in 2003. But since reaching his majority has been traded around without much success from England's Chelsea club to Belgium and Israel, before Poland's Wisla Krakow club accepted him as a midfielder.

A breakthrough for Sarki's soccer career happened recently when FIFA, the international soccer governing board, qualified him to play for the Haiti National Team when they play a friendly against Chile at Fort Lauderdale's Lockhart Stadium in September. He became eligible when FIFA learned his great grandparents are from Haiti and cleared him.

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Haitian soccer player, Sony Norde, active since 2008 when he first played with the Boca Juniors, was the fourth draft choice for India's Mohun Bagan A.C. Norde began life in Grand' Anse, Haiti, and made a lasting impression at the CONCACAF Men's Olympic Tournament. It was during this tournament that Norde tackled striker Clinton Colaco so aggressively, his leg was broken.

During the last six years Norde has played for several foreign teams: San Luis (as a loaner); Estudiantes de Altamira; Sheikh Russell KC; and Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi. He has amassed a total of 91 goals.

Norde performed outstandingly in one of Mohun Bagan's earliest games of the season. Playing against East Bengal F.C. during the 118th IFA Shield Semi-Final, played in Kolkata, he scored one of three goals. Norde has also played for the Haiti and Haiti U-23 national soccer teams with 12 appearances and five goals.

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The Sport for Hope Center was inaugurated in Port-au-Prince in a ceremony located at Olympic Park, land donated by the Haitian government. In attendance at the event were President Martelly; Prime Minister Lamothe; International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Bach; and Haitian Olympic Committee (HOC) President Larsen.

The SHC arose as a result of the IOC's partnership with private investors and the Haitian government. Together they funded the project that totaled $18 million. Bach, during his remarks, emphasized "The Sport for Hope Centre is open to all Haitians--from the young to the old . . . from professional athletes to beginners . . ."

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