November 01, 2008
Ramapo HS to Honor Soccer Great Serving in Iraq
Congratulations Lloyd Osafo. Thank you for your service in the GWOT.
Soccer always has been a huge part of Lloyd Osafo’s life.So he’s quick to tell you about how he is trying to win the trust of strangers in a war-torn city by the simple act of giving a boy a soccer ball.
What Osafo may not tell you is how that same boy can step from behind a wall the very next day with an automatic weapon and take a shot at him.
"Apparently, the enemy told that kid that if he didn’t shoot at American soldiers, they would kill his parents," said Evan Baumgarten, Osafo’s high school soccer coach at Ramapo.
Captain Lloyd Osafo is serving his second tour of duty in Iraq, the second in command of a company of 100 soldiers and more than a dozen tanks and armored vehicles stationed in the Sadr City region of Baghdad.
It’s a far cry from his life growing up in Franklin Lakes, where the soccer goal he used to shoot at as a kid stands ready in the back yard of his parents’ home and where people still remember him as the All-American midfielder who helped lead Ramapo to a share of the Group 3 State soccer championship as a senior in 1999.
Next spring Osafo, a four-year starter who scored 46 goals with 31 assists in his final two years for the Green Raiders, will be inducted into the Ramapo High School Hall of Fame.[...]
College: West Point
High school career: All-American midfielder who led Ramapo to a share of the Group 3 State soccer championship as a senior in 1999.
Quote: "I've been privileged to grow up in this country, and I owe something back." — Lloyd Osafo
Teh kewl.
