Abdulsalam Noman is the coach and director of the Lackawanna Yemen Soccer Club, a not-for-profit community organization founded in 1975 to serve the community’s youth through sports, dedicated to providing “a safe, healthy environment in which children can learn teamwork and sportsmanship.” Its clubhouse, located in a renovated commercial building bought from the city at public auction in 2002, provides kids with a place to hang out, with table tennis, pool and foosball in the basement, a large-screen TV for watching movies and television shows on comfy couches upstairs, and a computer room where kids can work on homework and develop their computer skills. On the walls are T-shirts, photos and various memorabilia from past soccer matches, and along one wall are dozens upon dozens of trophies celebrating the team’s many victories over the years.

Every indication is that the club is succeeding on many levels, providing its predominantly Yemeni-American members with a home base that nurtures their sense of belonging, cultivating a team spirit that extends from the soccer field to life beyond the field.

This bond has helped the team to get through, intact, a season without soccer at Lackawanna High School. Not for lack of funds, or lack of interest, but because school and Region 6 sports authorities deemed it necessary to ban competitive soccer for the year as punishment for an off-field incident involving a small handful of students and a referee at the end of last season, an incident where neither sticks nor stones were wielded, but instead words were hurled between parties in a parking lot after a tough game. Not only were the individuals involved punished, the entire varsity team—and the JV team as well, whose season had already concluded and whose members were not involved in the October 30, 2006 incident—were also punished with the official cancellation of their 2007 season. The ban just ended on October 31.

While the details of the incident in question remain murky, the players involved admit to having said things they now regret saying, and their coach admits these individuals deserved to be punished for their off-field behavior. But they cursed a referee who has himself—on the public record, in the pages of Newsweek magazine—insulted an entire community, criticized their cultural practices and demonstrated a disrespect for Lackawanna’s hard-playing soccer team. The authorities have said nothing and did nothing to punish the referee.

The ref, John Kramer, has alleged—without producing evidence—that there had been improper behavior on the field. But the coach, Noman, says the game tape shows no such behavior, and the season’s cancellation, at least officially, had nothing to do with these allegations. The season was officially canceled because of what a few of the team’s players are accused of having said to the ref off the field, in the parking lot, long after the game had ended. According to Kramer, several members of the varsity team uttered unsportsmanlike statements at him. Kramer was later quoted in a July 2007 article in Newsweek saying many unsportsmanlike things himself, remarks that in other jurisdictions could well have led to his dismissal for unprofessional conduct. For instance, he commented on the fans who watch the games with these words: “All the women sit in one corner, because, you know, they can’t sit with the men, and they make that Arab sound”—the traditional sound of ululating—“I can’t imitate it. And I’m thinking, ‘My God, what is this?’”

Kramer later told WGRZ Channel 2 that he had been misquoted, but he never withdrew his comments from Newsweek. WGRZ reporter Kristin Donnelly reported that “Coach Abdul Noman is angry over comments made by a soccer official in Newsweek magazine,” and “believes the comments are racist and is frustrated because he believes some disciplinary action should be taken, and so far no one’s doing anything…Coach Noman says the comments are blatant racism,” and “he wants an apology.”

Would the team’s season have been canceled if the players weren’t Arab American, and if the sport was football or hockey? We spent an evening last month at the club’s headquarters, where we enjoyed an evening of candid discussion with Abdulsalam Noman about the 2007 soccer season’s ban, and the controversial events leading up to it.

Artvoice: Since the ban last season on the JV and varsity soccer teams, have the kids been able to get onto the field and play?

Noman: Yes. For the summer season it was fine…we competed better, and we did win all the divisions. We had no problems. The ref that did the high school game [Kramer] wasn’t allowed to do any games for us this summer or tournaments. Matter of fact, he did show up to one tournament in Hamburg, and when we complained to the director of the tournament, he came and took him off the game. And we tried to avoid problems.

Artvoice: Why was the 2007 soccer season canceled?

Noman: In each group—I’m not going to say my group is the best group—but in each group, you are always going to find three or four guys acting up…I mean, nobody’s perfect. But you have to punish the ones responsible for the action. If you don’t—because of what’s going on, 9/11, the “Lackawanna Six”—everybody is thinking Arabs are all bad. You can’t do that. I mean, we live in the United States of America, the land of opportunity, laws and fairness to everybody. What the school did—what Section 6 did—is unfair, unjust. And we are going to continue saying that.

The majority of the players this year on the varsity team are supposed to be seniors—half of them are seniors. And they are supposed to carry this memory with them because they are seniors. This is their last year at Lackawanna High School. If those kids are bad, how come the school did not get them counseling or some kind of behavior program or something? It didn’t happen. It’s like they say, guilty of—what is the saying—of association?

AV: …guilt by association?

Noman: That’s what it is. Something is not right. I mean 50 kids lost their fall season this year, varsity soccer and JV soccer. It seems to me they punished not only the kids, but the whole of Lackawanna united behind the teams. We are four or five thousand people that live in the city of Lackawanna now. We are the Yemenite community, the second-largest taxpayer in Lackawanna. If you look at it, the Lackawanna Yemenite community is the second taxpayer of owners and businesses: 4,500 immigrants live in the City of Lackawanna, out of probably 19,000 people that live here. So from that 19,000, almost 5,000 are immigrant Americans living here. From the first generation, second, third and fourth.

AV: With the Yemenite population such a big part of the Lackawanna community, and playing a growing role in its economy, you’d think those in power would pay closer attention to the community.

Noman: Well, basically this year back in September, one of those people, the board [of Education of the Lackawanna City School District] president, she could have done something. We did sit down and talk about the suspension. We begged her to do something. She didn’t give us an answer. When she ran for mayor, every household that she went to visit, they asked her, “Why did she do this?” “Oh, it’s not me. It’s the other one.” Everybody blamed the other one. Everybody says, “It’s not me,” you know?

So, she got voted out. She didn’t get a chance…They voted for Norman Polanski because of what she did. That’s why we tell our people here in Lackawanna, our power is our vote. If you don’t vote, no one is going to look at us.

AV: It seems that the ballot box could be a powerful tool to make changes.

Noman: Yes. And we’ve been registering the new community, those over 18, or anybody that moves to Lackawanna, US citizens—we always carry registration forms and a committee goes around and gives those forms and makes sure they are using their vote. Because we felt like what the school did to us, that’s a wakeup call.

And even look at the job issue: It’s only five [Yemenis] working in the school system. Five for my community, five. Forty percent of the population in the Lackawanna school system’s student body is Yemenite American. Something is out of balance.

I hope things will change. Because what they did to the boys’ soccer program, the varsity and JV, is unfair, unjust and something has to be changed. I mean, if the team wasn’t Arab American, this would never happen.

The report that ref wrote last year at the end of the game, basically it was mostly about lies. Nobody spit at anybody. We had two police officers present every game, and nobody punched each other…The report that he made was unfair, unjust, and to prove to you from the Newsweek what he said [pointing to a copy of the article]—that’s the evidence. This person is a racist, and he should not be allowed to ref the game. And he’s the president of the Buffalo referee unit and he’s a secretary for Section 6. A person that would say those remarks basically should be removed.

AV: How long have you been coaching in Lackawanna?

Noman: I’m the coach since 1989. I was hired in 1989 to turn a dying program in the right direction. And I did. I tried my best. When I took over, the program wasn’t even in existence anymore. The interest wasn’t there. We had no equipment, no field to play on.

We were losing in the past, back in the early ’90s…we were weak at that time, we had just established the team. We were building the program. Now, in late ’90s to the 2000s, you know, things changed. We’re getting better. We spend time playing the sport all year round, and we’re winning.

People don’t like that. Now, we’re dirty. Now, we’re no good. But when they were beating us, everything was fine. I always talk to my guys, because they try to get into your skin, so you’d be off focus, and not stay focused on the game—and you focus instead on them. And they try to take you away from the game, so you will get in trouble.

AV: Would that happen all the time?

Noman: In some areas. Not all of them. You know, in some areas, they never saw anyone different. Some areas. This was when we started winning, I mean, or after what happened on 9/11, you know, that situation. But in a lot of areas where we go, they’re fine. They’re okay. I mean, our school district, even during the summer league, we had no problems.

I don’t know if it’s because of what happened on 9/11. We had nothing to do with that. We were hurt by what happened in New York City. We are citizens of the United States. We are part of this nation. We pay taxes. Our kids grow up here, and we breathe the same air like anybody else. Home is here—we’re not going nowhere. I mean, don’t judge us because of what happened there.

AV: Tell me more about the game last October 30.

Noman: Going back to the game we played on October 30, the referee of that game, you could prove that he was unfair. I mean, he was gunning for us. Absolutely, he was gunning. We had a couple of times when our player got [tackled] in a box in the area that was supposed to be a PK [penalty kick], but he never followed up, he said just play on. And we proved to the league and to the school system that referee basically—this is the same referee that made the racial remark—the ref did not call a fair game. He did not. The field was horrible. We lost 3-2 that day. And yes, two students—one for whom I think it was a mistake because the field was muddy, the kid tracked—he got a yellow card for that. And one kid, he stopped the ball with his hand. You know, I can’t stop the kid from doing that. He got a yellow card. One kid…I think, yeah, [we had] three yellow cards.

What happened after the game, I have nothing to do with. I mean, we had two police officers that were present. We had chaperones there…men that work at the school were there taping the game. Fans were there. Yemenites were watching the game. I don’t know from where these lies came. Three school board members saw that game. Section 6 refused to watch [our video of] it. They don’t want to because they are coming for this guy. They are coming for John Kramer because it’s their buddy. I believe it came from the Lackawanna City Schools, and they somehow, they worked with Section 6…

It’s such a big punishment. I mean, what if you ask yourself, “What did we do wrong?” If there was a fight in the field, a riot in the field, or something happened bad in the field, I could see that. But the folks that did this acted up in the parking lot. I wasn’t even around for that. Nobody was around it, except there was another ref. The other referee never wrote the thing up. Never did a report, okay? Nobody was around except them. The other guy didn’t know anything, and he said during the hearing, “I’m not against the Lackawanna game. I have nothing against it.”

I was shocked. I was surprised. I’m ashamed that the School Board went with [John Kramer] and Section 6 went with him. How do you agree on something that somebody just created, some kind of report and saying that we spit at the kids, we fight with the kids. Nothing happened—nothing.

AV: Was there a fight in the parking lot after the game?

Noman: It wasn’t a fight. It was just mouthing off. I mean, these kids—they should be punished. I don’t agree with what they did, I don’t agree with what they said. I mean, mouthing off—I don’t accept it. We don’t tolerate this kind of behavior. But this stuff did not take place on the field.

And no one did anything to the Akron team, nobody. Nothing came from Akron. That’s the team we played that day. Nothing happened. It was a game like any other game. The field was terrible, horrible. And the [Lackawanna athletic director] refused two or three days before that to switch the field. See, it shows how much racism is there, because I personally requested to switch the field to a drier field. They have a football field behind the school that is not used no more, because they moved their games to the Lackawanna Stadium, owned by the City of Lackawanna. When I asked to play the games at the field behind the school—you know, I don’t want a stadium, I’m not interested. All I need is to play on a dry field. You know, it rained since the end of August. It rained in September, and it rained in October, and then we had snow—two feet of snow. I asked to play in that field just for that game, you see. You know, they rent it over the summer to outsiders. They’re making money on it. But for the students that go to Lackawanna schools, it was off-limits. That field, they’re not even using it anymore. They just use it for practice. It’s unfair. Capital improvement has been left out. Even when 80 percent is paid by the State of New York to fix the field, do the grounds.

And, for each student, New York State pays $9,500—I think that’s the amount they pay for each student. And 40 percent of the Lackawanna City School is Arab American. Yet we have only five jobs. Five jobs. We have a counselor, a Yemenite American who wasn’t able to get a job in Lackawanna—he’s working at Lockport High School. We have another math teacher who could work in Lackawanna but they did not give him the opportunity, and so he works at Sweet Home. That’s not fair. That’s unjust. Even cleaning people—we don’t have that. Even cafeteria people—we don’t have that. It’s all left for their buddies. We have one maintenance person—just one. And two teachers’ aides and two teachers. That’s it.

AV: It must be hard to maintain patience in the face of inequity. How do you do it?

Noman: Because if you get angry, people believe that you are guilty. I mean, you are hiding something. But when you are patient, things will come around. The fruit will come out. That’s how I learned to be patient, you know. Like this building, it took us a while to get it. But with patience, things come slowly, people help out.

This past spring, the students, the varsity and the JV, they collected a petition, 261 names, from the students and their parents and their friends. Not only Yemenites but others, too. The person responsible handed it in May to the school, to the Lackawanna Schools clerk and the superintendent—and they didn’t even get a response. They showed no respect. At least respond in writing or something. I mean, here they say you have a right to petition. I mean, you know, as a citizen, you have all those rights. But it seems to me the students and the parents have no rights at all. They didn’t even respond and say, “Thank you for sending this petition.”

AV: Is it just the school or is there tension with the city as well?

Noman: Our relationship with the city of Lackawanna is great. We have a nice, beautiful two soccer fields and the city gets along great with us. Everything’s perfect. With Lackawanna City Schools, it’s a different story. Big difference. After this punishment, you know, their way of conducting business, it showed: “This is who we are—you can’t do anything to us. We could do anything we want.”

But it worked when we voted against the person who ran for mayor. We showed her that our community is not going to forget.