Sports
How one nonprofit is helping young soccer players change their lives
Adversity was on the schedule every week for the South Los Angeles Legends, a soccer team of 11- and 12-year-old girls, many of whom were growing up in underserved communities.
“We were trying to navigate a pay-to-play system that had basically outpriced our community,” said LaShon Wooldridge, the team manager and single mother of its goalkeeper.
That was not the only thing that made the Legends, well, legendary. In what is largely a white suburban sport, especially at the youth level, the Legends’ roster was made up entirely of Black youths from South L.A., girls who had to fight for access and equality before they got close to a playing field.
Yet they didn’t lose a game, going unbeaten in 96 matches en route to an AYSO national championship.
That was five years ago and those pint-sized trailblazers have become high school seniors. For most of them the skills, self-assurance and success they developed in that magical summer on the field have followed them into the classroom, where they have continued to excel and defy expectations.
“It definitely gave me confidence,” said Ameerah Kolleff, 17, an honor student who also plays soccer at the academically challenging Girls Academic Leadership Academy, the only public all-girls STEM school in California. “It showed me that if we fight hard enough, we can get what we want.”
Soccer is also opening doors and opportunities for Sidney Wooldridge, Kolleff’s 17-year-old club teammate at SoCal United who is also an honor student at GALA, where she has won two L.A. City championships.
“I think it started my journey and gave me the idea that I want to continue in soccer in college,” she said. “Having that support system around me, the same people who were there in 2019, having the same people now gave me the reassurance that I can do it.”
To take that success to the next level, both girls have expanded their support systems to include ACCESS U, a nonprofit foundation that provides students from underserviced communities who stand out in soccer and academics with the resources and guidance they need to negotiate the college recruitment process. The foundation was established in 2016 by Joaquin Escoto, now executive vice president of MLS expansion club San Diego FC, and Brad Rothenberg, son of Alan Rothenberg, a former U.S. Soccer president and the man behind the 1994 World Cup, the only one held in the U.S.
The program is not designed to turn young players into pros. Rothenberg said few of the kids currently in the program have the skill or desire to make a living playing soccer. But many, such as Kolleff and Wooldridge, are good enough to get a college scholarship and that alone can be life-changing.
“I’m perfectly happy to help them get to college. So I really think of it as an education program that filters through socio-economic challenges and finds kids,” he said. “By just helping them connect the dots to college coaches and scholarships … these kids are going to elite schools that they didn’t know was in their grasp.”
And they’ll graduate from those schools with little to no debt.
Before launching ACCESS U, Rothenberg was co-founder of Alianza de Futbol, a nationwide program focused on creating soccer opportunities for Hispanic youth, who often found their entry into the game blocked by the same pay-for-play system that frustrated the South Los Angeles Legends.
“Passionately devoted to equity in soccer,” reads the bio on Rothenberg’s LinkedIn page.
ACCESS U provides its student-athletes with as many as 80 hours of one-on-one tutoring, a 10-week test-prep course and college counseling services for free. Some players are also sent to so-called “ID camps,” which can be a crucial part of the recruiting process because they offer a competitive environment for players to experience what college is like while also giving them entry to coaches and schools.
To be admitted to ACCESS U, players must have at least a 3.2 grade-point average and be good enough to compete at the college level, but not necessarily beyond that.
Rothenberg tells the story of Noel Ortega to illustrate the influence his program can have. An excellent student and the City Section player of the year at Birmingham High, Ortega was headed to Cal State Northridge before ACCESS U intervened and helped get him a scholarship to Cornell. He started 11 games in three seasons, scoring just once, but he won an academic All-Ivy League award before graduating into a job as an analyst with Goldman Sachs.
“We have two kids at Harvard, one on his way to Penn,” Rothenberg said. “For these kids that does matter. It’s a resume-maker for them.”
There are a record 66 soccer players — 62 of them girls — currently in the program, said Rothenberg, who would like to see that number grow to four times that many by 2026. To do that, he says the $500,000 budget he had this year will have to triple.
“I went to an Ivy League school,” said Rothenberg, who graduated from Brown “and a lot of my friends have done very well for themselves. They know I’m coming after then. They’re hiding but I’m coming to get them.”
Kolleff hopes her resume eventually includes a degree from Howard University, a historically Black college that recently replaced Stanford as her top choice.
“I wanted to be on a team that looked like me,” she said.
Wooldridge’s mother said her daughter is considering Chicago University, Greenville University and Texas Southern, among other schools.
“I’m a student before I’m an athlete. So in order to succeed on the field I now have to succeed in school as well,” said Sidney Wooldridge, whose club soccer obligations not only include excellent grades but community service hours as well.
“They set the bar high for the younger of girls generation following them,” LaShon Wooldridge said.
ACCESS U graduates will have little influence on the world of elite soccer that Rothenberg’s father has long moved in. Yet it can make a life-changing impact on the families of people such as Ortega, Kolleff and Wooldridge. And the value of that hasn’t escaped the elder Rothenberg, who has the most successful World Cup in history on his resume.
But his son, he said, might be doing more important work.
“He’s provided smart, talented kids the opportunity to receive a college education without debt,” he said. “I’ve always felt organized soccer has left so many behind because of economics, the pay-to-play system. ACCESS U is filling that gap.
“Needless to say, as Brad’s father I have immense pride in what he’s dedicated his life to.”
World Cup tourists are coming to L.A. for the soccer, but they’re staying for the $21 smoothies and Double-Doubles.
As the last Los Angeles FIFA World Cup event ended Friday, soccer fans were eating like locals and famous chains from the region were cashing in.
In the weeks that L.A. has hosted the World Cup, international soccer enthusiasts have flocked to big brands from the area, often in large groups wearing their countries’ jerseys.
It is a phenomenon seen at many of the host cities. In Dallas, giant gas station Buc-ee’s is the main attraction. For people visiting New Jersey, deli shops have been a hot ticket. In L.A., the place to be between matches was Erewhon.
Thirsty international sports fans gathered for pictures outside different Erewhons, wandered their aisles smiling, and, of course, picked up pricey smoothies.
While Erewhon would not comment on its business, mobility data company Arity, which uses phone data to track consumers, said Erewhon visits at the outlets around SoFi Stadium were quadruple what they were a week earlier on June 12, the day of the U.S. national soccer team’s opening match there.
Arity looked at what stores people visited within a 10-mile radius of SoFi that day and also found surges in visitors to nearby El Pollo Loco and Trader Joe’s.
Locals have spotted groups of people in Korea jerseys huddled together, trying to decide what to order at In-N-Out.
Some complained on social media that international tourists at Trader Joe’s were buying up all the mini canvas tote bags.
Soon after the Belgium vs. Spain quarterfinal ended Friday, the In-N-Out near SoFi had a long line of soccer fans stretching out the door in bright red and yellow and black jerseys and matching striped hats and scarves.
One of the workers said he had to explain “spread” and “animal style” to foreign football fans.
“I didn’t know this place existed,” a fan from Romania said while waiting in line.
Los Angeles and other cities and states that have hosted the event need the soccer fans to spend money to make the event worth all the time, effort and money it requires.
A rosy 2024 report projected the World Cup could bring more than $800 million to the L.A. region as 180,000 people converge on the area to sleep, eat and spend.
There were early concerns people weren’t turning up for the event because of the high ticket prices and the difficulty of obtaining visas for citizens of some countries.
However, at least for some L.A. hotels, there was a surge of last-minute visitors which pushed up occupancy and room rates.
While sports fans are not in the region to shop, they do make time for it.
World Cup customer spending is also apparent in beer sales. Andrew Heritage, the chief economist at the Beer Institute said beer purchases at entertainment and attractions in L.A. – outside of World Cup spaces – were up around 10% from normal.
“That tells me that fans in the L.A. area have decided to extend their stay and take in all the other things that the area has to offer, rather than just the match itself,” he said.
On social media, the purpose of these shoppers is clear: grab a quick souvenir or local specialty and take a selfie.
The data from Arity suggests that fans are very efficient when they spend at local spots, diving in, getting what they want and getting out as soon as possible, said Jeff Schlitt, a director at the company.
“Normally you’re there for an hour. They’re going to be there for 15, 18 minutes,” he said. “Why is that? Because they were purpose-driven shoppers.”
For some travelers, the more popular American chains aren’t unfamiliar. But some of the native L.A. fare still comes as a surprise.
As one Belgium-Spain matchgoer from the Netherlands stood taking a picture of the In-N-Out sign after the game, he said he’d never had a burger like the one he’d just tried.
“We only have McDonald’s and Burger King,” he said. “It’s way better.”
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The face of baseball will not be at Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his start on Friday as the Los Angeles Dodgers said he will also miss the Midsummer Classic with what the team called left knee irritation.
Ohtani, for obvious reasons, has become an All-Star Game fixture. He has earned the honor in each of the past five seasons and made his first start in 2021.
Starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani #17 of the Los Angeles Dodgers warms up before the MLB game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on June 03, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
The two-way phenom is on his way to winning his fifth MVP award in his last six seasons as he is hitting .290 with a .939 OPS and pitching to a minuscule 1.79 ERA, the second-lowest in the sport among pitchers with 80-plus innings. His OPS is also the seventh-best mark in the league.
The Dodgers said Ohtani will be the team’s designated hitter up until the break, but he will “have some interventions on his knee to put him in the best position for the second half of the season.”
Ohtani dealt with knee issues earlier in the season.
It is certainly a big hit for the game as the other face of the sport, Aaron Judge, will miss the game due to a fractured rib that has kept him out since late May.
Shohei Ohtani #17 of the Los Angeles Dodgers gets ready in the on deck circle against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on June 01, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images) (Norm Hall/Getty Images)
DODGERS WILL AGAIN VISIT WHITE HOUSE TO CELEBRATE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP, OFFICIAL SAYS
Ohtani hit 99 home runs combined in 2024 and 2025, leading the National League with a 1.025 OPS in that span. Ohtani did not pitch in 2024 after elbow surgery but returned to the bump last year and owned a 2.87 ERA and 11.9 K/9, a figure he also put up in 2022 that led the American League.
The “Japanese Babe Ruth” is the only player in MLB history to have 300-plus plate appearances and 40-plus innings in six separate seasons (Ruth only did it twice and never stole 50 bases), and he has more than excelled at both.
Shohei Ohtani pitches for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, on May 13, 2026. (Gary A. Vasquez/Imagn Images)
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Ohtani is not hitting like he has in the past, but certainly the best pitching performance of his career will make up for it. He “only” has 20 homers and 56 RBI this season.
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If Mikel Merino is sleeping, please don’t wake him. If the last week has been a dream, he’d just as soon keep dreaming.
Because on Friday, for the second time in five days, Merino came off the bench for the final five minutes of a World Cup knockout game and scored the winning goal, the latest lifting Spain to a 2-1 victory over Belgium and into next week’s semifinal against France in Arlington, Texas.
“Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what’s happening right now, right?” Merino said in Spanish. “Honestly, it’s crazy.”
How crazy? Merino has played less than 10 minutes in the last two games and has two goals. He’s taken four shots in the World Cup and put two of them in the back of the net, the first in stoppage time to beat Portugal in the Round of 16 and in the 88th minute Friday to beat Belgium in a quarterfinal and extend Spain’s unbeaten to streak to 36 games.
“I don’t really even know what to say. I still can’t quite believe it,” Merino said.
Yet Spain’s final substitution, which brought on Merino in the 86th minute, wasn’t the only one that figured heavily in the result. Fifteen minutes earlier Belgian coach Rudi Garcia sent backup goalkeeper Senne Lammens on for Thibaut Courtois — not by choice, by necessity.
The dropoff in talent wasn’t great — Lammens started 32 times for Manchester United this season — but the difference in experience was. Courtois was playing in his 21st World Cup game, second-most all-time, and he had been brilliant up to then.
But he tweaked a muscle making a save minutes earlier and dropped to the turf just before the second-half hydration break. After being attended to by the team’s trainers, he tried to continue but couldn’t, eventually hobbling to the sideline and collapsing on the bench in tears.
“We didn’t want his injury to get worse. That’s why I subbed him off,” Garcia said.
“It’s part and parcel of high-level sport. You need to be concentrated, 100% focused, and need to be able to perform. I did not want to put players on the pitch who were not 100%.”
The margin between Belgium and Spain, after all, is a small one, even if the teams took completely different routes to the quarterfinal.
Spain, which hadn’t gone past the Round of 16 in a World Cup since 2010 when it won its only title, had gone a record six games and 609 minutes without allowing a World Cup goal, dating to the group stage of the last tournament four years ago.
Spain midfielder Mikel Merino scores off a rebound in front of Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens during the second half of Spain’s 2-1 quarterfinal win in the World Cup quarterfinals Friday at SoFi Stadium.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
You could binge watch two seasons of “Abbott Elementary” in that time.
But if Spain, the reigning European champion, and goalkeeper Unai Simón were the immovable objects, Belgium, playing in the quarterfinals for the third time in four World Cups, was an unstoppable force. With 12 goals in the last three games, it entered the quarterfinals with the third-most goals in the tournament. And no team had taken more shots.
Spain struck first, with Fabián Ruiz giving La Roja a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the tournament in the 30th minute. The sequence started with Pedro Porro sending a cross into the box for Dani Olmo, whose shot was parried away by Courtois. But Ruiz pounced on the rebound and deflected a shot off defender Timothy Castagne and into the back of the net.
In any other game of this tournament, that would have been enough for Simón. But not against Belgium, which ended Spain’s shutout streak in the 41st minute on a brilliant header from Charles De Keterlaere, who shielded Pau Cubarsí with his body and one-hopped a Castagne cross past a flat-footed Simón for his third goal in two games.
“The record and the milestones are there,” Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente said of his goalkeeper’s record streak. “It’s been decades since the last record was set. And perhaps somebody will break the clean-sheet record.
“But it’s going to be many, many years before that happens.”
Belgium opened the game up a bit when Garcia brought Romelu Lukaku, the country’s all-time leading scorer, on at the hour mark. But Courtois was called to make two saves in the next three minutes and came up lame after the second.
Shorty after he came off, De la Fuente summoned Merino over.
“He didn’t say much to me,” Merino said. “He told me I was coming in as the No. 10. And then, as the game was coming to an end, he told me I was incredible.
“Those are the only two things he said to me.”
The first shot Lammens faced came moments later, when Cubarsí put a one-hop shot on goal from distance. The keeper dove to his right to stop it with both hands, but the ball skipped just before it reached he and Lammens had trouble with the rebound, pushing it toward the edge of the six-yard box for Merino, who tapped it in.
“Unfortunately, to beat a team of this caliber, you need luck on your side,” Garcia, the Belgian coach, said. And the stars didn’t align for us.”
So while Belgium goes home, Spain goes to Texas for Tuesday’s semifinal with France, the only team in the world ranked ahead of it.
“Ever since the World Cup started, everyone has been waiting for this match,” Spanish wunderkind Lamine Yamal said. “I’ve been really looking forward to it. To me, they’re the two best teams in the World Cup.
“If anyone can take on France with confidence, it’s us.”
Especially if Merino keeps dreaming.
Sports editor Iliana Limón Romero contributed to this story.
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