On Thursday, Jan. 11, the Black & Gold Lions, a Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) student based fan club, held their first meeting of the semester on Drollinger field. They laced up their boots and got to work. Passing the ball around, as members trickled in one by one, they waited for their special guest. As time went on some began to grow restless, simply wanting to play soccer. After 45 minutes, their special guest arrived, ready to play.
Patrick Aviles, LAFC’s head of supporter relations and a representative from their sales department joined the club for the scrimmage.
“A big part of LAFC’s DNA is impacting the community,” said Aviles. “There are nine [professional] teams, we want to be the first club in L.A. That really means not what you do on the field but what you do in the city.”
The Black & Gold Lions is dedicated to using soccer as a vehicle for change.
Before they started their scrimmage, the Black & Gold Lions gathered in a circle to hear Aviles speak. He started off by gifting the club a soccer starter kit, with training jerseys, practice goals and soccer balls. He said that he admired what the students were doing, using soccer as a means to help others. Aviles finished saying the club has the support of LAFC, promising them speeches from himself, scouts, trainers and other executives.
When asked why they decided to support this particular fanbase, he said “I think a lot of it had to do with Eduardo and his experience in youth leadership and his desire to give back to the community.”
The president of the Black & Gold Lions, sophomore marketing major Eduardo “Lalo” Pablin, wanted to continue with the lessons he learned from LAFC’s Youth Leadership Program (YLP).
Pablin grew up in South Central, L.A., and thanks to LAFC and the YLP he stayed out of trouble and learned some valuable lessons.
“It gave me direction and purpose,” said Pablin. “It showed me that we all have a duty to use our gifts and talents for the betterment of others.”
Pablin felt obligated to use his talent of bringing people together and the things he learned at YLP to help create an organization to help the Los Angeles community.
“The main purpose of the club is to use soccer to promote community and service to the students at LMU,” said Pablin. “What my club wants to do is to teach kids the values of integrity, discipline and community through soccer.”
As a result of his experiences, Pablin wants to help younger children realize their potential. With the help of the soccer teams at LMU, he plans on bringing four elementary schools, one for each month of the semester, to campus and running a full soccer clinic for them.
“A lot of people tend to forget the impact that you have on little kids,” said Pablin. “I was one of 22 Youth Leaders responsible for creating and running soccer clinics for youth ages 6-17 in the gang torn community of South Central.”
Affectionately called “Mr. Hairy” by the kids he helped while in the program, Pablin spoke about how a person of his age was able to influence kids and to see the help and goodness it brought them.
“I’ve come to learn and believe that younger kids are going to look up to the next generation before they hear from the real grown adults,” said Aviles.
Aviles continued saying that it’s important for young adults to go out and be leaders because kids look up to them.
“I feel that bringing something like this, in which they can express themselves through a sport is something people don’t do,” said Pablin. “We just want to provide that sort of mentorship.”
