A Home on the Field
Posted By Andy Durham on January 29, 2008
I was doing some reading from this outstanding book by Paul Cuadros last night at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at Friendly Center and I came to find out it had a Greensboro connection.
The book, A Home on the Field, tells the story how a team from Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City came together to win the NCHSAA State Boys Soccer Championship. The team was made up of almost of all Latino/Hispanics whose parents and relatives worked in the chicken plant there in Siler City. The coach, Paul Cuadros, was a journalist whose works had showed up on a regular basis in the New York Times and he had come to North Carolina to do a story on the poor working conditions in the poultry plants in and around Siler City.
Cuadros becomes the coach of the first-ever soccer team at Jordan-Matthews called Los Jets and they go on to win the State Championship over a very physical team from Camp Lejeune. It’s a great story about overcoming adversity on the parts of the kids, their families, and their coach, Paul Cuadros.
It had become a battle to just to get a soccer team at Jordan-Matthews especially after David Duke had held a rally in Siler City speaking out against the Latinos and their plight to the United States. Cuadros knew he had plenty on David Duke though, when he saw the KKK leader was eating chicken at the Golden Corral on the edge of town after the rally to demoralize all of the workers at the Siler City chicken plant.
Cuadros continued his efforts and was still facing major opposition in his quest to create a soccer team for the boys until a man with Greensboro connections stepped in.
David Moody became the principal at Jordan-Matthews and he was all for getting the soccer team up and going. David Moody grew up in Asheboro, played football for the Blue Comets, went on to play football with his brother Darrell Moody at N.C. State, came back to coach football at Ben L. Smith High School here in Greensboro, and then later was the assistant principal at Greensboro Grimsley High School. Moody’s son played football at Grimsley for the Whirlies and went on to college at the Naval Academy.
If Moody doesn’t step in for the Los Jets and give his approval to Paul Cuadros then there would have been no soccer team and no State Championship in Siler City. Moody was the man and Cuadros was the el capiton.
Interesting, Mr. Moody was the Asst. Principal during my tenure at GHS. Never knew this fact about him.