Haitians honor soccer's Namphy

Members of South Florida's Haitian community celebrated the life of Joe Namphy on Sunday at Boyd Anderson High the way he would have wanted them to: They played soccer.

Namphy, a Haitian soccer ambassador and former Broward resident, died Sept. 19 at age 73. The event featured three soccer matches, including one team made up of former players from Haiti's national team.

Namphy was the head of Haiti's national soccer association in 1974 -- a World Cup year -- and more recently helped bring the Brazilian national team to Haiti in 2004, just years after it won the World Cup.

Ernst ``Zenono'' Jean-Baptiste, the Broward College soccer coach and a longtime friend of Namphy's, has fond memories of the day in 2004 when United Nations vehicles lined the Haitian soccer field to protect the hugely popular Brazilian players just months after a coup overthrew Haiti's former president.

Jean-Baptiste said the match, largely set up by Namphy and the country's prime minister and impossible without the new artificial turf they lobbied for, helped bring Haitians back together.

``If you said, `Joe, come on, let's go to the moon,' '' Jean-Baptiste said. ``He would start coming up with ideas. That was Mr. Namphy.''

-- EVAN DREXLER

miamiherald.com