Salsa dancing, camping and pupusas bring together diverse Rock Hill soccer

The rain is pouring down outside the Rock Hill High gym, but you can’t hear the lightning crackling inside.

The weather is drowned out by Puerto Rican bachata music, as Bearcat boys’ soccer players dance their way to a chair, then turn and jog back. This is part of the practice warmup for Cesar Robles’ team, a way to express themselves but also feel more comfortable in front of their teammates. Or at least try.

“My style?” junior Nick Gulley asks. “I just do what everyone else does. I’m not too good at it.”

That usually means copying his teammates’ various takes on salsa dancing.

“I do the dances that are gonna get me fastest to the chair,” Gulley said, smiling.

Results on the field have been much better for Rock Hill soccer in Robles’ three years in charge, a 180-degree change in quality of play and atmosphere, according to senior Georgie Mendez. The team was 7-14 in Robles’ first season, 11-9-2 last year, and 9-4-3 so far this season. Rock Hill has wins over ranked 2A, 4A and 5A schools and is right smack in the middle of a crowded Region 4-5A playoff scrap.

The team’s roster also looks different than before with players from 10 different countries wearing the Bearcats colors.

When Robles swapped Northwestern High’s girls’ team for Rock Hill’s boys, he immediately began reaching out to a group of students at the school that he was uniquely equipped to reach. Robles, born in the United States but of Mexican descent and a fluent Spanish speaker, visited ESL classes and spoke with kids that previously felt removed from school soccer for various reasons, including language. Now they’re some of the team’s best players.

“He’s done a lot of hard work in getting players that were already at the school and maybe didn’t have the confidence to come out, specifically the big Hispanic population he has,” said Northwestern coach Dom Wren, a close friend of Robles. “He’s done an amazing job with those guys.”

Team meals provided by player’s families have melded the international group together. The menus range from burgers and hot dogs to tacos or pupusas, an El Salvador dish that’s similar to a gordita.

“It’s pretty cool that we’re able to experience each other’s cultures,” said Robles, who is coaching in the North-South all-star game this summer. “I try to make sure we all embrace each other. Even though we’re different cultures, different languages we all have the love that’s common for soccer. And having that love and the pride for the school and the program, binds us together.”

The Bearcats come from the United States and Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, and even Ukraine. A preseason camping trip further tightened the group, the Bearcats suddenly united in their shared distaste for sleeping outdoors in freezing February.

They also love their coach.

“He’s super hard on us sometimes but he’s also one of our really good friends,” Mendez said. “We all look up to him and respect him in that way.”

Robles negotiates the line between former Marine and players’ coach. He served four years active duty but screaming inches from teenagers’ faces isn’t his style.

“I think they know that side is there,” Robles said. “I don’t like to go to that side.”

“I’ve known Cesar for about 15 years now and I’ve only seen him lose his temper once,” said Wren. “He demands a lot from his boys, he has the military mentality, but certainly he is a coach the players respect and the players respond to. He is not a shouter because he knows kids don’t respond to that.”

Robles said his military background reveals itself more in Rock Hill’s training, and, he hoped, in its mindset.

“The training I was exposed to you had to do, you couldn’t stop, you couldn’t take a breath or sit out,” he said. “You had to keep going. So I try to put them in situations where they’re uncomfortable but they realize, ‘you know what? I can keep going.’ It’s hard and stinks, it’s difficult and it hurts, but I can keep going.”

Tuesday offered a perfect opportunity to test that sentiment. The Bearcats beat Northwestern last season for the first time in nine games and had big hopes to make it two straight this week. Robles’ team took a 1-0 lead but lost to Wren’s crew on a late goal.

A few wins separate the five Region 4-5A teams, and Rock Hill’s players and coach still like their chances of reaching the playoffs from one of the best leagues in the state. But as the Bearcats sat around Robles after Tuesday night’s match, their exerted bodies confronted by quickly cooling March evening air, they experienced a new sensation, one that can be oddly more satisfying than a pupusa hot off the griddle: expectation.

“I think that’s the difference now, we know that we deserve better,” Mendez said. “We’re capable of better.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2017 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Salsa dancing, camping and pupusas bring together diverse Rock Hill soccer."