Fast Forward
 By Christopher Stolarski
Photography by Gary Dineen
Perhaps nowhere else in the world has soccer been so important to holding the fabric of a country together as Liberia. Poised on the chin of West Africa, the coastal, tropical republic is Africa’s oldest. Slightly larger than the state of Tennessee, Liberia is home to nearly 3 million people. This country that was settled by former slaves from the United States was marred by a bloody civil war that lasted throughout the 1990s. Just 4 years old when the war broke out, Marquette soccer forward Michael Greene was shaped by the experience.
In 1989, Greene and his family were displaced from their home near the Liberian capital of Monrovia. With five brothers and sisters, Greene bounced from one displacement camp to another.
“The camps were filthy; they looked bad, smelled bad and were overpopulated,” he says. “The lack of safe drinking water and sanitation were major problems.”
Forced to wash the dirt and stench from their bodies in nearby mosquito-ridden rivers, Greene’s family kept moving until they ended up in a refugee camp in Ghana
“The refugee camp was just as horrible as the displacement camps we moved from, except there was no sound of guns,” he says. “At the camp our entire income and support came from family and relatives in the United States. Every month my dad — who moved here at the beginning of the war — would
send money for food, school fees and whatever we needed.
The war lasted through the 1990s and set Liberia’s development back decades.
“Before the civil war, there was electricity, and streets and homes had electric lights,” he says. “After
the war, only a few people and businesses with generators had electric lights. Candles and kerosene lamps were the sources of light for many homes at night, including my home.”
There was one constant and unifying force during the war: a lone hero, Liberian George Weah,
the only soccer player ever to simultaneously hold the titles of World Player of the Year, European Football Player of the Year and African Football Player of the Year, all in 1995. Weah’s success on
the field was a rallying point for Liberians and an inspiration to Greene.
Greene always played soccer, even in the dirt at the displacement camps.
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“After the war, only a few people and businesses
with generators had
electric lights. Candles
and kerosene lamps were the sources of light for many homes at night,
including my home.” |
“I do not know how I got interested in playing soccer,” he says. “It was the first sport introduced to me, and it is the biggest sport in Africa. Everyone plays. Soccer in West Africa is like American football here.
"My country has never made it to the World Cup – perhaps they are waiting for me,” he says, half-joking.
At 17, Greene immigrated to the United States and settled in the Midwest. He played soccer in high school in Brooklyn Park, Minn., and twice made the all-state team. A hot college prospect and fast forward on the field, Greene remembers the call from Marquette Coach Louis Bennett.
Bennett knew Green’s strengths “Michael plays with a spirit you’d want in anyone,” Bennett says. “He has blistering speed and the ability to do the unexpected. He’s an unbelievably tough competitor.”
Greene says his experience at Marquette has been a good one. While he doesn’t want to talk about last season (“look up the record,” he says), he expects his sophomore year to be a big one for the team. That attitude was as important in Bennett’s decision to recruit Greene as was his talent on the soccer field.
“In today’s society, Michael is a unique young man,” Bennett says. “He has lived his life with very little, but that in no way tarnished or soured him. He’s a young man who always has a smile on his face, and he’s constantly seeking the good in people.”
Highlighting Greene’s first year at Marquette was the experience of a lifetime. He escorted Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf during her 2006 visit to campus. Johnson-Sirleaf was elected president in 2005 on a platform of returning democracy to Liberia. (Incidentally, Johnson-Sirleaf defeated soccer great Weah in her bid for the presidency.)
Greene met another president that day, too. “I had the opportunity to meet Father Wild,” he says and smiles big. “He is just one of a kind. The way he talks and smiles is wonderful.”
Besides soccer and classes, the exercise science major also manages to be a member of Marquette’s track and field team. Not surprisingly, people wonder how he does it all.
“Everyone asks me this same question,” he says. “I’m not sure how I do it. I just do it.”
Greene plans to return to Liberia after graduation. There is a Liberian proverb: “He who knows the way must conduct others.” Greene clearly knows the way — on the soccer field, in the classroom and in life.
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