UCF women’s soccer player Megan Fish watched the children walk toward the concrete basketball court on the small Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. Some as young as 6 years old came to the court with bare feet and shorts.
Fish was supposed to play basketball with local youth as part of UCF athletics community outreach program during the summer, but it felt more natural to kick around a soccer ball.
The friendly street soccer match changed Fish’s life. She is now driven to bring street soccer to downtown Orlando, giving those without access to elite soccer camps and academies a chance to play the sport she loves.
“I realized that was my passion,” Fish said of the moments she spent playing soccer with underprivileged youth in Saint Vincent. “That’s going to be used as a platform to reach out to as many people as I can, and I’m going to use it as a tool for what I really want to do in life, which is to serve.”
Street soccer is more than a fleeting idea for Fish, a junior midfielder for the surging UCF women’s soccer team ranked No. 23 in the country. Street Soccer USA is a national organization that funds urban teams geared toward adults and children across the nation in impoverished communities.
With the support of mentors and the Street Soccer USA organization, she plans to field Orlando’s first street soccer team in the spring. But first, she has to juggle fall classes and the competitive soccer season. The Knights are 8-2 and riding a five-match win streak. They earned a 2-1 win over Memphis Thursday for the first time since 2008.
Fish has already inspired her teammates to join her urban soccer project.
“Orlando being such a big soccer community already, it was kind of surprising they didn’t have something like this,” said Allie Gerry, Fish’s close friend and teammate who was with her in Saint Vincent for UCF Athletics’ Knights Without Borders community-service program. “When Megan started researching Street Soccer USA, it was like, ‘This was our calling. We have to do this.’ Once we start and Megan solidifies everything, I think so many more people will get involved. It’s just a matter of starting it.”
The first phase is already done.
Fish was the only current NCAA athlete selected to attend the Olympism 4 Humanity program in Olympia, Greece, in June. She joined 45 participants from all over the world who attended the professional training summit designed to equip individuals with the tools to execute their own sports programs for social change in their respective communities.
The director of the program invited Fish to extend her stay in Greece to attend another sports for social change summit, this one sponsored by Harvard.
“She told me that she needed to do a project after she had her summer opportunity in Greece,” said UCF women’s soccer coach Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak. “She never really told me the specifics of it until now, but I’m not surprised [by the project]. She’s a really passionate young woman who likes to help the community. She’s a great teammate, a great friend to her teammates and is always looking out for them, so I’m not surprised this is a project that she’s chosen to do.”
UCF senior Jennifer Martin, one of Fish’s close friends and teammates, said she noticed a difference in Fish after her experiences overseas. Martin and Gerry, who are roommates with Fish, plan to help their teammate complete her project.
“I think Fish has always been really kind-hearted and passionate about helping people, so I didn’t really see a difference in that way. But I definitely saw a difference in that she was more organized and knew how to plan,” Martin said. “She got the tools she needed to formulate how she was going to go about doing what she dreamed of doing, helping people.”
It’s not hard for Fish to relate to adverse circumstances. She was just 13 years old when her father passed away from cancer. She proudly wears a tattoo on her forearm of her father’s final handwritten message to her, “follow your dreams.”
Her challenges extended to the soccer pitch when she was forced to overcome two torn anterior cruciate ligament injuries — both to her left knee —during her freshman and sophomore campaigns at UCF.
But where some see adversity, Fish always sees opportunities.
“The one thing I feel is most important in life is just connecting with each other. So if we can connect, have a support group and love, then I think we can beat any odds – any one of us,” Fish said. “I don’t know exactly where I see my life going, but I know it will be with sports and using that to just unite humanity, inspire and make sure everyone knows they have that greatness, each and every one of us.”
