By Linda Delmonico-Prussen
A 21-year tradition, the festival is a week-long event at which boys and girls teams of various ages come from across the world to compete. It had been three years since the United States last attended.
Vince O'Connor, parent coordinator of the U-16 (under 16) Junior Select Long Island Team that Keri and Meghan play on, said the city of Aberdeen, Scotland wanted to, in some way, help heal New York's pain in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Basically," O'Connor said, "the Aberdeen Football Festival reached out to the New York area." New York City "initially received the invitation, but they handed it off."
O'Connor explained that, when city officials received the invitation, they were focused on the many immediate problems at hand, and they were aware that the Long Island Junior Soccer league had more than 100,000 members, many of whom were affected by the Sept. 11 tragedy.
With so many members, one might wonder how Keri and Meghan's team was chosen to go.
The "Select" organization is a subdivision of the league, equivalent to an all-star team. O'Connor said the team is "a microcosm of all Long Island, a cross section of Long Island."
The city of Aberdeen also wanted to send a team with a connection to the Sept. 11 tragedy.
Keri's dad, Kevin Koegel, is a New York City firefighter and pediatric home-care nurse. On Sept. 11, Koegel was with Spencer, the 13-year-old child he cares for at Martin Viscardi School in Albertson, a school for children with medical disabilities.
When Koegel learned of the attack, he arranged for Spencer's parents to come to the school, so that he could head to the city. He rushed to ground zero on the Tuesday of the attack and stayed until the weekend. He put his nursing on hold for about a month.
Once the firefighters were put on 24-hour shifts, Koegel continued to work at the site and attended many funerals in the weeks and months that followed. Fifty of Koegel's co-workers died in the attack.
Of the other Select Team members, one had a parent who worked in the Twin Towers and another had a parent who worked in Building 4. Both escaped unharmed. Meanwhile, O'Connor, a funeral director in Belle Harbor, buried 14 people from the World Trade Center.
He estimated that the City Council of Aberdeen spent $30,000 to fly 18 players and two staff members on British Airways to the tournament, as well as to provide housing and food for the week. The parents who attended, like Koegel, paid their own way.
"I was a little concerned when the trip came about. I immediately said if I had vacation time, I would go with the girls," Koegel said.
Once there, the team stayed in single-room dorms at the University of Aberdeen along with the other teams attending from around the world.
Keri, who had never been out of the country, said the people of Aberdeen went out of their way to be accommodating. "If you ask where a place is, they walk you there," she said. Meghan, who also had never been out of the country, agreed. "Everyone was really nice. They were warm and welcoming."
Beside the competition, the teams were given parties and a banquet. There were also a disco and fun competitions off the field. The team got to know many of the other athletes. "Some Scottish girls asked if we were scared when [9/11] happened and what happened."
The U.S. girls also befriended the teams from Zimbabwe and Finland and exchanged T-shirts with the Irish boys team. "They came to every one of our games and cheered us. The Irish team had one of our flags. They held it and jumped up and down," Keri said.
Not only did the Irish team cheer the girls on; the South African team chanted in unison for the Americans, as well.
The competition was held in a stadium similar in size to Mitchel Field. "The first day, every single team came to watch us," Keri said. "I've never had that many people come and watch me play."
Any nerves Keri initially experienced on the field quickly disappeared as the U.S. team began eliminating their opponents. The competition was broken into four preliminary games and the final.
Meghan, a junior at St. Anthony's who plays sweeper and last defensive back, was chosen as team captain throughout the tournament based on her play in a previous tournament. Keri, a Calhoun High School junior who plays center mid-field, was chosen as the team's co-captain at the final game based on her performance in the previous game of the tournament.
A true crowd-pleaser, the final pitted the U.S. against the host team Scotland. "With two minutes left in the game, a girl stepped on my foot and sprained my foot," Meghan said.
Playing through the pain, she and the U.S. squad beat Scotland in double overtime with a nail-biting 1-0 score. Each team member was awarded a gold medal, and the squad was given a replica of the Lord Provost Cup to bring back to the U.S. The actual cup remains in Aberdeen city hall and, like hockey's Stanley Cup, is engraved with each team member's name.
O'Connor stressed that both Keri and Meghan contributed much to the team's victory. Kevin Koegel described the team's win as an "Olympic moment. They ran around the field with the flag."
Meghan says of her first international tournament: "It was a good experience. People were so nice to us. They would have done anything for us."
Koegel said the tournament was an experience for the team that will "stay with them forever." He described the trip as a kind of rebirth. "To see how these people cared for us gives you renewed faith in humanity," he said.
