Featured Archives - NISA Network

by NISA Network Staff November 14, 2023

Community, Responsibility, Unity: Josh Prutch’s Experiences at the Akshardham Temple

By Sebastian Johnson One of the four core beliefs of Hinduism is “dharma,” a word that translates roughly to duty or responsibility. A large part of dharma is one’s duty to their own community - and cooperation between community members. This core belief of Hinduism colored NISA Executive Vice President of Expansion Josh Prutch’s recent trip to the magnificent BAPS Shri Swaninarayan Akshardham Temple in Robbinsville, NJ. “During the final phases of ...

by NISA Network Staff June 20, 2023

Chattanooga FC , EDI , Featured , Interview Series , Interview With . . . , Latest News

A Storied Career: Juan Hernandez and The Next Step

By: Sebastian Johnson Juan Hernandez has accomplished things few men have. Over his 126 games played for Chattanooga FC (CFC), the second most ever played for the club, he became their sixth-leading scorer of all-time and their all-time leader in assists. Now, as Hernandez looks to the future, he prepares to take the next step in his storied career – and it’s a step he’s been preparing for since he was ...

by NISA Network Staff May 24, 2023

EDI , Featured , Interview Series , Interview With . . . , Latest News , Savannah Clovers FC

Club, Community, Culture – Clovers

Interview by Sebastian Johnson In the summer of 2006, a bored Brian Sykes was looking for something to watch on TV when he came across the world’s most popular event - the FIFA World Cup. He didn’t expect it to be much more than something to have on in the background, but to his own surprise he was immediately taken with the fluidity and pace of the sport. “Call it a stroke ...

by NISA Network Staff May 5, 2023

Featured , Gold Star FC Detroit , Interview Series , Latest News , Mental Health

Jedidiah McCloud Brings Hope and Inspiration to All Athletes Who Contend with Mental Health Issues

By S.T. Weller In the sports world, heroes don’t just happen on the field. Sometimes, it’s what our greatest sports inspirations do off the field, away from the court, off the ice and away from the roar of the crowd that make them truly heroic. May is mental health month, and Gold Star FC Detroit’s newest addition—midfielder Jedidiah McCloud—is speaking openly about his own longtime struggle with depression, Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and ...

by NISA Network Staff April 1, 2023

EDI , Featured , Gold Star FC Detroit , Interview Series , Latest News

Worlds Apart: Albaraa Alsoufi is Finding Meaning in Heritage

By Sebastian Johnson When Albaraa Alsoufi was 11 years old, he visited the homeland of his parents - Yemen. It wasn’t his first visit to the Middle Eastern nation of 31 million - that would’ve been in 2001 when he was barely a toddler. But it was the first time he was old enough to take notice of the environment around him. “When I arrived in 2011, the civil war had just ...

by NISA Network Staff October 19, 2022

EDI , Featured , Flower City Union , Interview Series , Interview With . . . , Latest News

Giancarlo Canas-Jarquin: Flying High with Flower City Union

By S.T. Weller It is a quintessential Los Angeles day sometime around 2004. Sunshine rains down from the sky. Even the ubiquitous L.A. basin smog has abated, making the sky a resplendent blue. The scene: Whittier Park in Whittier, Calif., 12 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and spectators young and old, gather along the sidelines of the soccer field. The CASSAL youth soccer league (“Los ...

by NISA Network Staff September 20, 2022

ALBION San Diego , EDI , Featured , Interview Series , Interview With . . . , Latest News

Alioune Diakhate: A Banner Season with ALBION San Diego

By Sam Weller Photo by David Frerker 6229 miles is a long way to travel to pursue a dream. But the distance from the west coast of Africa to sunny San Diego, Calif., is all part of the journey that began for Alioune Diakhate when he was a little boy. Sometime between the ages of five and seven years of age, Diakhate, who was born and raised in Dakar, the capital of ...

by NISA Network Staff June 4, 2022

AC Syracuse , EDI , Featured , Interview Series , Interview With . . . , Latest News

Alexander Satrustegui: A Long Way From Home

By Sebastian Johnson When Alexander Satrustegui was three years old, his family uprooted their lives in his birthplace of San Sebastian, Spain, and moved to his father’s hometown of Pamplona - a city 80 kilometers inland from the port town. It was an important moment in Satrustegui’s life, for Pamplona was the place where he truly fell in love with the sport of soccer. “I started playing soccer [in Pamplona] at a ...

by NISA Network Staff January 12, 2022

AC Syracuse , Featured , Latest News

International Game, International Community: NISA Helps AC Syracuse Pulse Owner Samir Belhseine Affect Change in Morocco

By Sebastian Johnson Odds are, the next person that passes you on the street knows next to nothing about Morocco. Were you to stop them and force a Moroccan pop quiz, you’re not likely to get much - perhaps a half hearted attempt at a Casablanca quote. They’ll likely know nothing of the nation’s natural beauty. They’ll likely know nothing of the 37 million people that live in the small, North African ...

by NISA Network Staff November 23, 2021

EDI , Featured , Interview Series , Latest News , New Amsterdam FC

Mayele Malango: Fluent in the International Language

By Sebastian Johnson Photo by Jon DeBoer Duke history professor Laurent Dubois stated, in his book The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer, that soccer is “...a language, probably the most universal on the planet.” This is a fact well known to New Amsterdam FC starting wing Mayele Malango. His journey has taken him thousands of miles - from the rainforests of equatorial Africa, all the way to the east ...