Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference

Luma Mufleh, most often referred to as Coach Luma in the book, is the 31-year-old founder and coach of the Fugees. She is the primary protagonist of Outcasts United. Luma is defined by her dedication to the refugee families she works with and by her strictness as a coach. The tension between these two aspects of her identity adds nuance to her character. Throughout the book, Luma’s relationships with the Fugees and their families transcend the traditional coach-player relationship. When Beatrice Ziaty worries that the commute to practice is too dangerous for her son, Jeremiah, “Luma promise[s] to pick Jeremiah up before practice and to drop him off afterward” so that he won’t have to walk alone through the streets of Clarkston (57). Beatrice finally agrees to let Jeremiah join the team on the condition that Luma “[gives] Beatrice her cell number and promise[s] to be reachable” (57). Luma’s willingness to agree to these conditions evidences her dedication to her players and the team.

Luma also supports the players’ families in other material ways. Because she knows how difficult it can be to transition to life in America, Luma “spen[ds] her evenings and weekends driving around Clarkston visiting and helping [the Fugees’] families—shuttling them to doctors’ appointments, making sense of their phone and power bills” (151). When she learns that Jeremiah Ziaty’s family has run out of their monthly food stamps, Luma “[drives] straight to the store and [buys] groceries for Jeremiah’s family” (61). Luma’s material support of the Fugees’ families demonstrates her commitment to Clarkston’s refugee community and belief in The Value of Organized Sports for Young People.

St. John’s depiction of Luma also highlights her strict and sometimes brutal coaching strategies. Luma “refuse[s] to coddle” her players (46), regardless of age. In one telling example, Luma refuses to coach the under-15s when the majority of the team shows up late to a game—a major faux pas under Fugees rules. While the confused players wait for instruction, “Luma stay[s] where she [is], head down, in the shade, refusing even to make eye contact with her players” (129). She later explains her strategy to St. John: “[T]he way they’re behaving is the way I’m going to behave. They’re being irresponsible, and I’m not going to be accountable for them” (132). In other instances, she speaks harshly with her players (all of whom are minors) and allows them to see her anger and frustration. After the under-13s lose a game, she calls them “a pathetic excuse for a soccer team” and says, “[I]f I had some eight-year-olds out here they’d be laughing at you” (278). This harsh language adds nuance to Luma’s character, complicating her depiction as a coach, despite her players’ continued dedication to the team.

St. John positions Lee Swaney, the mayor of Clarkston, Georgia, as the primary antagonist of Outcasts United. He describes Swaney as “heavyset, but fit-looking, with a barrel chest and bulky midsection” (187). He has “soft, wind-worn features, and with his gray mustache and carefully combed-back thatch of white hair, he project[s] a grandfatherly air” that belies his role as antagonist (187).

St. John characterizes Swaney by his opposition to refugee soccer teams in Clarkston—a prejudice St. John believes to be an abuse of Swaney’s mayoral power—the embodiment of The Systemic Obstacles Facing Refugees in the United States. Swaney receives national publicity when he bans an adult soccer team comprised of refugees from practicing in Clarkston’s Milam Park, claiming, “[T]here will be nothing but baseball down there as long as I’m mayor […] those fields weren’t made for soccer” (9). His opposition to soccer is explicitly a rejection of refugee communities in Clarkston; his constant references to baseball, the quintessentially all-American sport, suggest that he considers soccer a foreign sport, or at least a sport for foreigners. His second rejection of refugee soccer is less public but still deliberate. When Luma seeks permission for the Fugees to practice in Milam Park, he defers to the city council, who he fully expects to reject her request. Given the book’s thematic interest in The Value of Organized Sports for Young People, Mayor Swaney’s opposition to the Fugees reifies his position as the primary antagonist of Outcasts United.

Mayor Swaney’s portrayal as an antagonist is also enhanced by his blatant and repeated abuses of power. In his interview with St. John in Chapter 20, Swaney struggles to justify his ban on soccer in Milam Park and seems “to be changing his argument on the fly” (189). Because the mayor’s rules for soccer in Milam Park “[are] constantly shifting” (190), St. John concludes that Swaney’s rules for governance in Milam Park “[exist] only in his head, where they [can] be altered later if necessary” (190). This suspicion is proven correct in a later city hall meeting, when it is revealed that Mayor Swaney put up a sign prohibiting dogs in Milam Park even though “there [is] no such law in the books” (192). Again, St. John explicitly criticizes Swaney: “[T]hose who governed Clarkston had a tendency to overreach their authority, at least until called to account by the citizens” (192).

Beyond his role as antagonist, Mayor Swaney gives voice to the racial, xenophobic, and socioeconomic bias espoused by the older, conservative, white population of Clarkston. Throughout the book, Swaney refers to refugees derogatorily as “these people” and “them people” (188), deliberately othering the refugee communities. St. John makes it explicitly clear that Swaney is representative of Clarkston politically: “Swaney’s words echoed a common belief among many of the longtime Clarkston residents […] that the refugees were a monolithic group of strangers” (188).