Transcription of Hometown Proud #261
Announcer: You are listening to Love Maine Radio, hosted by Dr. Lisa Belisle and recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a writer and physician who practices family medicine and acupuncture in Brunswick, Maine. Show summaries are available at LoveMaineRadio.com. Here are some highlights from this week’s program.
Renee: I didn’t think I would come back to Portland. I hadn’t planned that far ahead. When we were in New York, one of the things that we really liked was the diversity. We really wanted to be in a place where our kids could grow up with some diversity. So, you know, sort of pleasantly surprised by what’s happened in Portland in that I really think there’s a lot of strength that comes from diversity.
Michael : I think that’s the one thing about my kids, is they are happy. They’re happy to be with each other. I don’t mean just the Somali kids and the kids from the Congo, they’re happy with everybody. What I think is a wonderful thing is that the white players and the black players, because of the game, they mesh together. They understand. It’s like an international language.
Lisa Belisle: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you’re listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 261, Hometown Proud, airing for the first time on Sunday, September 18, 2016. Mainers feel a fierce connection to their hometowns, and rightfully so. We are shaped by where we are raised and in some cases have an opportunity to offer our gifts back to these communities.
Today’s guests returned as adults to live and work in their hometowns. Dr. Renee Fay-Leblanc is a physician and Chief Medical Officer at Greater Portland Health. Michael McGraw is the coach of the state championship Lewiston boys soccer team. I know you will enjoy listening to our conversations. Thank you for joining us.
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Lisa Belisle: It’s always very fun to have people in the studio with me whose names and reputation succeeds them, in a good way. This individual is a board certified physician. This is Dr. Renee Fay-Leblanc who attended medical school at the University of Vermont and completed her residency in internal medicine at New York University.
Renee has been working in the Portland area for the last 10 years and as the Chief Medical Officer at Greater Portland Health since 2014. Renee loves providing vital primary care services to the community in Portland where she was born and raised. She now lives in Portland with her husband and two sons. Thanks so much for coming in today.
Renee: Thank you for having me.
Lisa Belisle: I really do love the story of being born and raised and educated, going away for your education, doing a little doctoring elsewhere, and then being back here again and helping out the people in the city. That’s a great story, and it doesn’t always happen.
Renee: Yeah, and I think it was not a story that was planned out that way. I left for college and didn’t expect to move back to Maine. Then was premed in college, mostly because I liked science and wanted to be a biology major. Being premed was pretty similar to that.
After Holy Cross, where I went to college, I actually spent a year abroad in Guyana, South America with a Watson Fellowship. Was supposed to be learning about traditional healing there, but that’s a very long story. It was a great experience.
Then from there actually went out to Oakland, California where I worked as a medical assistant for a couple of years before going to medical school. Then when I went to medical school, I decided I wanted to be closer to my family, so went to the University of Vermont. Then my husband was getting an MFA in poetry at the same time that I was going to do my residency. It was either Iowa or Manhattan.
That’s how we ended up in New York City. Then ended up spending four years in New York City. I completed my residency there. He completed his MFA. Had our first child and quickly decided that our 400 square foot, third floor walk-up wasn’t going to do it for us. We really moved back to Maine to be closer to family. It wasn’t until we got here that we really understood … I mean, I had been gone for almost 20 years … that there’s a really good writing and arts community here for my husband.
Also, it’s a great place to raise our kids. The medical community here, I just think that it’s filled with really smart, compassionate people. It was a nice place to call home. We sort of circled back. It’s been 10 years now that we circled back. I think my husband and I both feel really lucky that we did. My job right now at Greater Portland Health is extremely fulfilling for me. It’s very much a place that wants to make our community better.
I think it’s uncommon that people get that opportunity to really do something that they love, that they feel is making a difference in the place where they grew up, and where they’re raising their kids. I feel really fortunate about the whole thing, and none of it was planned.
Lisa Belisle: Unless there is some bigger something that maybe was …
Renee: Maybe, maybe. You know, it’s so interesting to think back about decisions that you’ve made or things that have happened, and years later you think, “Huh. That really brought me to a place that, you know, I never imagined it would.” Yeah, so it’s been good.
Lisa Belisle: Tell me about Greater Portland Health that is a public health program and also a clinical program for the City of Portland.
Renee: Greater Portland Health was previously called the Portland Community Health Center. We just changed our name. We are a federally qualified health center, which means that we are supported through grant funding from the federal government to take care of people regardless of their ability to pay. Which is very important to me.
The health center started in 2009. It actually was a group of community members who really wanted to bring a health center to main, who put together a proposal that was initially denied. Then when Obama took office, he granted 100 health centers who had been denied, he granted them grants to become health centers. The Portland Community Health Center was one of those places.
It started out as a joint venture with the City of Portland. Over time, the goal was to be an independent nonprofit, which is what we are now. We’re governed by a community board that needs to be at least 50% patients. They really set the direction and the tone of the health center. The health center has grown very rapidly over the last seven years, from one site and a couple of hundred patients to now we have five different sites, 6500 patients, and are continuing to grow rapidly.
We’ve got several new programs that we’re working on right now. For a variety of reasons, healthcare has changed a lot. As a federally qualified health center, we had the opportunity and have been writing a lot of grants, trying to keep as many services as possible in Portland. We also have an interesting sort of environment here.
One thing is that we didn’t expand Maine Care. We’re the only state in New England that did not do that. That has really hurt our citizens. The other thing is that we have a lot of people who come to Portland to get away from violence in other places, so a lot of people here seeking asylum who don’t have access to services. A lot of those patients come to get their care at the health center.
We also are a regular primary care practice, and so we see people with any kind of health insurance. People sometimes tell me, “Well, you know, I don’t want to go to the health center because I don’t want to take somebody’s spot.” It’s actually the opposite. It really helps us if we have patients who have insurance. We bill their insurance, and it helps us pay for those patients who can’t pay.
We have a variety of different patients. We see kids and adults. We have an integrated behavioral health model. We have teams that include physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, licensed clinical social workers, nurses. We’re in the process of bringing in some more psychiatry. In the process of developing an infectious disease team. We’re also transitioning the health care centers in the schools. We’ll also be running those starting in the fall.
There’s a lot happening at the health center. It’s really growing. It’s a very vibrant place. In addition to the medical and behavioral health services, we have community health workers who help people with where to get food, housing, transportation. We have financial counselors who try to help people get insurance if they can, and then put on our slide if they can’t.
We really try to wrap services around people. It’s not just their physical health that we’re worried about, but their living conditions, their working conditions, their mental health, kind of all together.
Lisa Belisle: What does it mean to be a federally qualified health center?
Renee: Federally qualified health centers, there are 19 requirements that are set up by the federal government. They are things like you have to have a board that’s a community board that’s more than 50% patients. Only a certain percentage, I think it’s 10% of the board or less has to be in the healthcare, can be in the healthcare field. They don’t want the board filled with healthcare CEOs basically. They want it to be community members.
You have to have a sliding scale fee. For patients, depending on where they are in the poverty line, you have to reduce the fee. Some people pay $10. Some people may pay $20. Some people may pay nothing. You have to have that in place and have to see people regardless of their ability to pay.
You need to have a pretty rigorous quality improvement program and be able to show the government what you’re doing for quality improvement, what you’re doing for peer review. We also, as a federally qualified health center, have something called FTCA deeming, which means that we get our malpractice insurance through the federal government. Because of that, they want to make sure that we’re doing due diligence with the care that we provide.
The other 19 requirements, I don’t remember them all, but they’re in a similar vein. There are financial requirements. There are governance requirements. There are clinical requirements. You have to meet all of those 19 requirements in order to stay a federally qualified health center. You need to show that there’s a need in the community in order to stay a health center.
Then, in addition to following all of those rules, you need to keep your grants up-to-date. It’s a lot of grant writing. Basically then that means that the federal government will give us grant money that we can use to pay for some of the services that we offer, especially because right now at the health center, more than 50% of our patients really don’t have any ability to pay. It’s a lot of people who don’t have access to care otherwise.
Lisa Belisle: My understanding of federally qualified health centers is that they often in rural areas. In the state of Maine, we don’t have that many urban areas, but this must be somewhat of a unique situation, to have this right in Portland.
Renee: In large cities, there are lots of health centers actually. The health centers in Maine, you’re absolutely right, most of them are rural health centers. Portland is an outlier. It’s really the only one that is not rural. In places like Boston and the Bay Area and New York, Washington DC, Chicago, all have a lot of inner city health care centers as well.
There are, I want to say, around 1200 federally qualified health centers across the country. It’s a mixture of rural and urban. I think for us at Greater Portland Health, we are part of the Maine Primary Care Association, and so we really work a lot with the other health centers. Some of the things that we deal with are the same, whether you’re rural or urban. Some of the things that we deal with are a little bit different.
Primarily for us is the patient population and the diversity that we have, and the language and cultural diversity that we have, which really the other health centers in the state don’t have as much of that. There are other health centers in the country that certainly do.
Lisa Belisle: When you say “the diversity of the population,” do you mean new Mainers who have come from other parts of the world?
Renee: Yeah. Depending on the time period, it’s different folks. For us, a lot of the patients who are from the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, have been here for a while. The people that we’re seeing mostly that are new are coming from Africa, so Burundi, Angola, the DRC is where we’re seeing the majority of the newest patients.
We certain have a lot of Somali speaking patients. There are some that are new, but a lot of them have now been here for a little while. The patients that are new, new, most of them speak multiple languages, but a lot of them we communicate with them using French. In Angola, they usually speak Portuguese. After English, I think French is the second most common language in the health center right now. It’s African French. It’s not people from France.
Lisa Belisle: That’s so interesting because I remember when I was taking French growing up. My family was French. I believe your family is also, right?
Renee: That’s right.
Lisa Belisle: It’s a French Canadian, and sometimes it’s more of a Parisian French that we’re taught in schools. Here you are using some French, but it’s not the same French.
Renee: Yeah. We do get by okay with the French. It seems like there’s not a lot lost in translation there. It’s the Portuguese that’s spoken in Angola which is very different. It can take a while to find an interpreter that actually speaks the right Portuguese to communicate with those patients. That is a little trickier. The French seems to be a little bit easier.
Lisa Belisle: I know that in addition to having interpreters, you also will sometimes use interpreter phones. You’ll actually have conversations over the phone lines. That’s an interesting experience as well.
Renee: Yeah, you know, it’s so interesting. We actually use the phones most of the time. What we have found is that the communities are pretty small, and that patients don’t want an interpreter to show up that they might know in another capacity. It makes them very uncomfortable. That’s not always the case. Some people really want that live interpreter, and they’ll want a specific person to come and interpret for them, which is fine.
Otherwise, we do use the telephone a lot. It is kind of an interesting interaction. Some of the telephone interpreters are wonderful. Some of them are not. Then, you know, I’ve done this before, where the patient sort of looks at me like, “This is not working,” so we hang up and call someone else. Yeah, so we use the phone interpreters quite a bit.
The other thing that we do is we hire people who can speak multiple languages whenever possible. Most of our front desk staff speak multiple languages. We have providers and nurses and medical assistants who speak multiple languages. Within the health center, we try to have that capacity in case we need to call someone, that sort of thing.
Lisa Belisle: You went to King Middle School.
Renee: I did.
Lisa Belisle: Where one of your sons is now going. You graduated from Portland High School.
Renee: I did.
Lisa Belisle: Did you ever think, as you were growing up, that you would find yourself back in a situation where you were caring for Portland patients, but that they might not be the same types or Portland patients you might expect?
Renee: When I was at Portland High, Portland was a resettlement area back then. There were kids back then coming from Afghanistan, and also a lot of kids from Southeast Asia. I think even back then Portland was becoming more diverse. I experienced more diversity at my Portland High School than I did when I went to college, which was not very diverse.
I didn’t think I would come back to Portland. I hadn’t planned that far ahead. When we were in New York, one of the things we really liked was the diversity. We really wanted to be in a place where our kids could grow up with some diversity. So, you know, I’m sort of pleasantly surprised by what’s happened in Portland in that I really think there’s a lot of strength that comes from diversity.
My kids right now are at Ocean Ave. My son just finished Ocean Ave and will be at King next year. They have quite a bit of diversity in their classrooms, which I really like. I think that, depending on what, the decisions that Portland makes, there’s a way to turn this diversity into something that can keep us very strong.
Especially because a lot of the new Mainers that are here seeking asylum are very well educated. They speak multiple languages. They were professionals in their communities. Right now, it’s really difficult for them to work and get jobs. When they do, it’s usually not in their fields. It’s usually low level service jobs. You know, house cleaning, working at hotels, things like that.
There’s a lot of potential, I think, in the community to really utilize the skills of the new folks that are coming. I don’t know if that answered your question. I think I got a little sidetracked.
Lisa Belisle: No, I think that’s a good answer, especially knowing that your experience of Portland growing up wasn’t actually as different as one might think. Even though we think of Maine was being a fairly Caucasian state, that wasn’t your experience of it, and not that long ago.
Renee: Yeah, I mean I think it’s certainly more diverse now than it was, but there was certainly diversity in the high school when I was there.
Lisa Belisle: One of the most interesting things about your home situation is that you’re married to a poet. I don’t know how many people can actually say that, but certainly the doctor/poet combination with the two young children … I think that Gibson was maybe our first guest, if not one of our first guests for this entire radio show, when he was still the director of The Telling Room. Tell me what that is like in your family.
Renee: It’s crazy, and it’s wonderful. When I was in residency and Gibson was in his MFA program, we were always trying to get poets and doctors together. It never worked out. It’s interesting. One of the reasons why I love what I do is that I listen to stories all day long. Patients come in and tell me these amazing things. I try to do what I can to try to problem solve and that kind of stuff with them. I really love that.
So much about medicine is relationship and story, and really that’s what Gibson does too. It’s not so different if you look at it that way. Our lives are a little bit of a juggling act in terms of the nuts and bolts of running a household. We do have a little bit of, you know, our home duties are a little different than other families that we know. It works for us.
Gibson has the ability to be more flexible with his time than I am. That’s helpful for our kids. I think we both try to talk to the kids like they understand what we do. They understand why we do it. They understand it’s really important to us, and that in our own ways we’re both giving back to our community.
I think Gibson’s poetry and the work that he does is all really based in this community and trying to bring arts and education and imagination to both kids and adults. Really seeing that those are ways that people, that telling your story is a really important part of your life. Understanding things, trying to write things down or say them out loud, however you want to express yourself.
His professional life is very much about trying to be a positive force in the community, just like mine is. I think my kids get that even when it’s annoying if we’re not doing what they want us to do at that moment.
The other thing is that it does take a village. We have an amazing amount of wonderful friends and neighbors and feel very supported by the community that we live in. Gibson actually, he’s a poet. He’s also a hockey player. He had an injury about a month ago where he had an open fracture of his humerus and required emergent orthopedic surgery and several days in the hospital.
It sort of turned upside down our … like, huh, we sort of had this work/life balance thing going until he couldn’t participate. A lot of people helped us out. The kids rose to the occasion, and we worked through it. I feel like every day is a little bit of an adventure.
Lisa Belisle: I hope that his broken arm continues to heal quickly, then that way-
Renee: Me too.
Lisa Belisle: It’s nice that he has a doctor to help him work through this transition.
Renee: I’m not sure he thinks that.
Lisa Belisle: Well, I have to admit, whenever people in my family are sick, I think that they would rather that I wasn’t a doctor. I don’t think I’m as nice as some of the nurses that I know. The nurses that I work with are so super warm and friendly and compassionate and caring. I’m thinking my kids would love it if I could be a little bit less clinical and a little bit more soft and fuzzy and warm.
Renee: Absolutely.
Lisa Belisle: I’m not saying you’re like that.
Renee: No, I’m certainly … no one gets much sympathy.
Lisa Belisle: It sounds like you give sympathy in a broader spectrum …
Renee: Yes.
Lisa Belisle: … in a larger way, so I wouldn’t discount that possibility. It’s really been lovely to speak with you today and to hear more about Greater Portland Health. I know that there’s some controversy swirling about in the community. I decided not to talk about that with you because, really, it sounds like you are doing great work. Your entire group is doing great work. You’re moving forward. You’re offering great healthcare.
I encourage people to learn more about Greater Portland Health. We’ve been speaking with board certified physician, Dr. Renee Fay-Leblanc, who was born and raised right here in Portland, where she still lives and now offers care to her patients. We’ll have information about Greater Portland Health on our Show Notes page at LoveMaineRadio.com.
Thanks so much for coming in today.
Renee: Thank you so much for having me.
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Lisa Belisle: As a long-time soccer mom, and actually lacrosse mom, swimming mom … You name it, I’ve been that kind of mom and athlete … I’m always very happy to have in the studio with me people who coach. Today we have a very special coach. This is coach Michael McGraw, Mike, who is the head coach of the boys soccer team at Lewiston High School.
He led the team to the state championship last fall, which was no small feat. It’s a really big deal. It’s also a really big deal that you came in and were willing to have this conversation today. Thank you.
Michael : You’re very welcome. I’m happy to be here.
Lisa Belisle: This was, I believe, the first time that Lewiston High School won a state championship.
Michael : Yeah, it’s the first time in probably, well since 1974. That’s when Paul Neto who was the coach at the time. He started the program. I like to call him the first father of soccer in our area.
Lisa Belisle: The reason this is a particularly big deal is because you received really national coverage for this win, CNN, USA Today. The Portland Press Herald obviously, Lewiston Sun Journal, those are both in our state. But because you had such a diverse team that was able to pull together and really make a go of it last year.
Michael : Yeah. First of all, the team is very talented and mature and have played together for a long time. The players love each other. The community that they live in really supported them. I think the people involved in making them the players that they are really backed them up and trained a lot of those kids, so I’m kind of lucky.
As far as diversity goes, the diversity is similar to the one where Rocco Frenzelli of Portland and Joel of Deering, they have similar diversified teams as well. They’re two people that I actually like to talk to, especially about our team. We do talk about issues and things that occur.
This team, they did something very special. The sky was the limit for them, and they reached for it.
Lisa Belisle: From what I understand, you had six different nations that were represented on your team last year?
Michael : Yep. We had Somalia, Kenya, the Congo, Germany, Turkey and, of course, the USA.
Lisa Belisle: I believe that there was a fair number of the Somali students who had actually been together in a refugee camp before they even came to the United States.
Michael : I don’t know if they were all together. Their parents were in refugee camps. They were either babies or young kids while they were there. Since refugee camps are sometimes quite large, they may not have known each other. Certainly the one thing that bonds them, the one thing that brings them together is the game.
Lisa Belisle: You were born and raised in Maine.
Michael : Yep.
Lisa Belisle: You graduated from Lewiston High School.
Michael : Yes.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve really lived and been a part of the Lewiston Community for all but, I believe, the four years of your education.
Michael : Yep, that’s true.
Lisa Belisle: And then you didn’t go too far. You went down to Gorham and got your teacher education.
Michael : Yes I did.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve seen a lot of changes I would say.
Michael : Yeah. I’ve seen changes from a mill town to a town that is more service oriented and becoming a lot more diverse. There’s some great energy in town to create some nice spaces to live and work, and have business. The school is outstanding. I mean, it’s still got its share of issues with the poor and academically trying to reach everybody.
I’ll tell you, Lewiston-Auburn, I believe the schools are trying as hard as they can to make sure they reach every single kid, and that no kid gets left without an opportunity. I’m finding that it works. It works. All we have to do is get the adults, parents and the kids all on the same page, and some good things are going to happen.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve been part of the school system now as an educator for 40 years?
Michael : Yep.
Lisa Belisle: You teach biology now?
Michael : I teach biology, yeah.
Lisa Belisle: What have you noticed about the academic situation. You’re a coach but you also teach, so are you noticing similar things happening within the classroom that you’re noticing on the sports field?
Michael : If you talk about the influx of some of our African population, I’ve seen that they’ve gone from … This is a really good thing. They’ve gone from struggling with the language, struggling with school culture and responsibility, to one of which they want to excel. They want to do well.
Granted, like everybody else, you get some kids that can’t do well, that don’t do well or refuse to do well. There are more kids that are honor roll students. As a matter of fact, two years ago, Muno, who was a Somali student, was the president of her class, which is phenomenal. Those kids and those families, their families are really pushing them to excel in school. Not just to graduate, not just to pass, but to excel, go on to good colleges.
I’ve seen it, and it’s working. As a matter of fact, one of my former students is a Bates grad. She spoke at one of the celebrations that we had. I’ve got two players that are going to go to prep school to prepare themselves for high level soccer and high level education. One of them was recruited by Bates College, Swarthmore, and Dartmouth.
It’s out there if they want it. Some of the kids are reaching for that, which I think is the single most important change for that population from 10 years ago to today. Also, our school is doing a lot to try to ramp up the rigor. I’m finding that it’s starting to work. A previous superintendent wanted kids to learn how to write better for communication purposes. I’m seeing better writing even from students who struggle.
I’ve got to give credit to the teachers for buying into that. There are elementary school teachers who have really worked so hard. We have teachers at all levels that just bust their butt to make sure they’re getting the best out to our kids. I’m happy for that. As high school, I get that, it makes my job a little easier.
Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I was thinking as you were talking about being a high school coach, and you’re a high school teacher, so really you get the benefit of all of the education, and all of the coaching, and all of the community building, and all of the parenting that has happened over the first 12, 14 years of the child’s life.
Michael : Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lisa Belisle: That’s important.
Michael : Yes, it is. I’m lucky. I’m a really lucky coach, and a lucky person that I’ve had longevity. I’ve seen my share of success. I’m very happy with that. Especially throughout my coaching career, I’ve been lucky with having great kids who believed in me, believed in what I do. I’m lucky now because I have phenomenal players. I have unbelievably good assistant coaches, great assistant coaches from the seventh grade on up.
I have several people in the community, one of which who was my eight grade coach, Abduli Abdee, who I call the second father of soccer in Lewiston because our kids just look up to him because he does everything. He’s a club coach. He’s an adviser. He’s a counselor. He’s like another parent for them. His son is one my assistant coaches. He’s a great coach. I don’t know what I’d do without him.
Another coach, Dan Gish, who has been my assistant since 2000. He is one of the most respected teachers. He loves the kids. They love him. Then I’ve got a goalkeeper coach who is crazy. You have to be crazy to be a goalkeeper. I love the guy. He’s had tremendous experience throughout the world, and he brings that with him with his passion.
He wasn’t sure he was going to coach because high school kids weren’t his thing. He was more like college and professional. As soon as he met my kids, whoa. It just completely turned him around. He loves them, and they love him back because they have that same passion for the game. I get chills just thinking about it.
Lisa Belisle: What is special about your kids? As individuals and as a group, why are they so passionate?
Michael : It’s part of their culture. Their culture loves the game. If you go anywhere else in the world, you may talk about NBA basketball, it could be rugby, it could be lacrosse some place, or cricket, or anything. You go any place in the world and you mention the game football. It’s like a religion. If you got to northern Maine for basketball, that’s a religion, snowmobiling and basketball.
That’s only actually seasonal, but when it comes to the game of football, soccer, for these kids it’s 365 days of the year. When they plow out the cul-de-sac in the winter, they’ll throw down two chunks of snow for goals. There’ll be 24, 25 kids out there playing in their street shoes in the winter.
As soon as the grass is open down at Simard-Payne Park downtown where the balloon festival is, it’s amazing. I went down there and, no lie, there’s 80 kids playing. There’s various different groups that are warming up, getting ready to play a game on a makeshift Maine field. Their ages go from 12 to 35. It’s a phenomenon.
That’s why I’m lucky. A lot of other coaches, they have to fight with baseball, basketball, hockey to build in a little bit of time in the off season. My kids are there. I’m lucky, very lucky.
Lisa Belisle: It’s interesting for me to think about even playing during snow. I have three soccer players in my family. I don’t think any of them would have gone outside at any stage to play soccer in the snow. These are people that, many of them have come from a very warm climate to a very cold climate, and still they’re out there.
Michael : I think they’ve got to stay warm. The other thing is, they live downtown or in low-income housing for the most part. They just get out, get away from staying inside and doing something that they love. For some people it might be reading or art. For a lot of other people, they’re able to go cross-country skiing or travel. These kids, this is all they’ve got.
I take that back, they have really bought into FIFA, Xbox or PlayStation, oh my god. While it’s nice outside, while they can play … I know several of my players, once it gets dark, they’ll go home, plug in a game. I especially know two players that will stay up until about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. That’s only because they’re so competitive. If this guy wins a game, then his brother will come in and say play again. They’ll go back and forth. It’s fun. I can’t take that away from them.
Lisa Belisle: I’ve spoken with other young athletes who are Muslim. One of the things that can be an interesting balance is that sometimes Ramadan will fall during the sports season. You can’t, I believe, eat or drink anything from sunup to sundown. If that falls during soccer season, how does that work for you?
Michael : Two things that I noticed early on, when Ramadan came during the season, after about a week, their bodies become a little bit acclimated, but you kind of worry about this. I distinctly remember it was during the regular season. We had a night game. At half-time, I had to wait until they replenished themselves before I talked because there’s no way they’d actually listen to me when they’ve been fasting all day.
Myself and my coach would sit there and wait. A couple of the kids would bring down food and tea, and let them go, and the whole team just ate for a while. We’d take the 10 minute break. It took about five to seven minutes for them to replenish themselves. Then I could talk. We had to make sure what we had to say was done quickly.
That actually is probably pretty good because with teenagers what you say in the first three minutes is totally forgotten in the last three minutes. That was interesting to see.
When Ramadan occurred during preseason tryouts, when we had double sessions, that’s when I worried, because of the weather. We made a couple of adjustments. We didn’t take too much off of them, but just wanted to make sure that we watched carefully because these kids will go as hard as they can go.
When they start to falter, I know it’s not because they’re being lazy, although there are some lazy players. You get to know who they are. That works out pretty good. We’ve gone through it and know what we have to do. The next cycle that it comes during the season is going to be a few years away.
Lisa Belisle: It’s like anything with an athlete, if you know that there’s something you need to work around, you work around it.
Michael : Yep.
Lisa Belisle: This just happens to be maybe a larger group of your athletes, but it’s not undoable.
Michael : No. What I like about them is that they’ll play pretty well, pretty hard, and then they’ll say, “Coach, Ramadan is going to be this coming Tuesday. On Thursday’s game, watch out, we’re going to be ready.” In fact, that doesn’t really happen because then they’re fat and happy. Not fat, but you know, they’ve become satisfied. It takes them awhile to get back into that routine again. Happy? They are definitely happy.
I think that’s the one thing about my kids is they are happy. They’re happy to be with each other. I don’t mean just the Somali kids and the kids from the Congo, they’re happy with everybody. What I think is a wonderful thing is that the white players and the black players can, because of the game, they mesh together. They understand.
It’s like an international language. The kid from Turkey, the kid from Germany, the kid from the Congo, and the kid from Somalia all play the game the same way. They enjoy each other. What’s interesting is that most of them know maybe four or five languages. My white kids are great with them.
I always check in to say, “How’s it going? Does everybody include you? Are you guys getting … ?” The invariably say, “Coach, we’re fine. We’re great.” They like each other. I think it’s because they play the game.
Lisa Belisle: It’s interesting to think about just even the idea of play. These are older children obviously, but I think sometimes that commonality, it can kind of transcend big issues that adults worry about sometimes.
Michael : Yeah. As a matter of fact, Kevin Mills, who is a reporter for the Sun Journal, wrote a tremendous article about soccer and integration about three years ago. I think he got some kind of a national award for it. In there, he’d asked me how I got my kids to at least trust each other or play together, something like that.
I didn’t think very much of it at the time, but there was one scenario in preseason that I found. What I did was I saw the Somali kids in one area, in the shade getting ready for practice, and the white kids up on the side of a hill, out in the sun. Why they were out in the sun in 95 degree weather … Anyway. They were there.
I said to my coach, “I really don’t think this should happen. They’re separated.” By the third day of the tryouts, after the teams had been picked, I said, “Okay, you guys down here, I want you right here in the middle. You guys up here, I want you right here in the middle.” Then I mixed them up. I took this kid and put him here, and that kid.
I’ve explained this, I’ve told the story dozens of times. I said, “This is how you have to play on the field.” What I did was I said, “You have to do this.” An amazing thing happened. Several kids started smiling. After practice, I said, “What were you guys smiling about?” They said, “Coach, we all wanted to do that, but no one was going to take the first step. You did it and that was pretty good.” It was kind of a special thing that happened.
It evolved. The idea stuck, and it evolved. We had to make sure that they took care of that. Every once in a while I have to revisit it, but it was a pretty special moment.
Lisa Belisle: We had Jim Wellehan on the show. He was talking about the French Canadian and the Irish Catholic, French Catholic and Irish Catholic in Lewiston, and how they were two very different groups. For a long time, they kind of circled around each other. There was some animosity. There was some difficulties. Eventually everybody came to some kind of general understanding of one another. Obviously, your last name, I’m guessing you must have a little Irish in you.
Michael : Yeah, Scottish, Irish. I don’t know.
Lisa Belisle: You’ve got some of that Catholic thing going on.
Michael : Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: Isn’t it interesting that we keep replaying the same newsreel. You bring people in and you have to try to figure it out. You define some commonalities. Then you kind of move in a direction together. It seems like the story just, it’s not one that’s unheard of.
Michael : Nope. It’s interesting because my mother’s last name is Rivard. I’m used to going over to my grandmother’s house for dinner when we were little. It was just a cacophony of French and English and hybrid language going on with 15 people having dinner. Then going over the my cousin Bruce’s house, my father’s side, and that being rural Maine type of environment.
It was an easy thing for me. As a matter of fact, I think I learned French first, before I learned English. I’ve done a little bit of research on that because I would tell people that early on, when they had French Irish baseball game … They always had a French Irish baseball game. I was supposed to be nine innings, but they go through the seventh inning and got that far without a fight, it was considered a good game.
I think the first Lewiston/Edward Little football game, one of the sports reports on it was, “It was a very spirited game that had to be held up a couple of times to break up fights on the field and in the stands.” I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t just rivalry of two schools, but rivalry against French and Irish.
You could look at a lot of instances that occurred. It probably was the same in Biddeford/Saco, Bangor/Brewer, Waterville/Winslow, all of these cities that were associated with rivers. It’s out there. To me it’s interesting that when you get a population like the immigrants coming to Maine and everything that goes on … I think everybody took a history course or Maine history, but they forget.
Lisa Belisle: I think that’s true. It think it’s harder to sometimes be in the moment but understand that this moment is not new. It’s something that has absolutely happened before.
I also think it’s interesting that sometimes what we need to do is engage. Sometimes to just pretend that the conflict doesn’t exist and to not get out there on the field and play soccer or have the French Irish game.
Sometimes to just pretend that there’s not something simmering, that really doesn’t work well at all. You actually need to have a place where you can have some healthy competition. You can have some back and forth and have some shared understanding of something that you feel passionate about.
Michael : Having an outlet to expend a lot of the energy, whether it’s positive or negative, is a healthy thing. My feeling about competition, especially with my players, is if you got into a game spiritually, tactically, and physically ready to play and prepared to play, and you do absolutely everything you can, if you are the superior team, you should win. If you’re the inferior team, then you should lose. That isn’t always the case.
Games aren’t won on paper. I think games are won more mentally and with heart. I tell my players, if you’ve expended everything, you’ve done everything that you can, then that’s why you shake a guy’s hand at the end of the game, because you played a great game. That’s what real sportsmanship is about. I think our kids, I think Maine kids for the most part actually do that very well.
Because I think their coaches have promoted sportsmanship for the most part, at least the informed coaches. The younger coaches who haven’t been informed or older coaches who never did this, it’s just something that they have to learn. In my opinion, what I’ve seen with other coaches and other teams, our kids do a good job.
Lisa Belisle: It has truly been a pleasure to have you talking with me about the Lewiston soccer program, the boys soccer program. Congratulations on your Class A State Championship from 2015. I wish you all the best in 2016. I’ve been speaking with Coach Michael McGraw, who is the head coach of the boys soccer team at Lewiston High School. Congratulations on all that you’ve accomplished, and thank you so much for coming in.
Michael : Thank you. This has been a great experience for me too. Thanks.
Lisa Belisle: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 261, Hometown Proud. Our guests have included Michael McGraw and Renee Fay-Leblanc. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit LoveMaineRadio.com. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Love Main Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter as Dr. Lisa, and see my running, travel, food and wellness photos as Bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Hometown Proud show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
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