War & Peace

The boys’ soccer team at Jamaica High School seems a perfect fit for sophomore attacker Rori Georg Byrd. His smooth integration with the Beavers’ offense is no secret, as evidenced by the two goals he scored soon after entering the PSAL ‘B’ championship game on November 9. Less obvious to observers is the special bond he shares with senior captain Dan Chevau Brown, who, like Byrd, made the transition from Jamaica the island to Jamaica the neighborhood.
It was only two years ago that Byrd was 1,500 miles away and his role as keystone of the Beavers was anything but inevitable. He lived in an environment defined by “war and fighting,” as he describes it, in a country that has been ravaged by crime and violence in many areas. When asked about the biggest difference between his current and former homes, “We get to go to school every day” is his answer.
Where Byrd used to live, the daily route to school was sometimes blocked. “You couldn’t get past the borderline to the schoolhouse,” he says, leaving him an average of two or three days a week in the classroom. Byrd’s older brother and sister passed through Jamaica’s educational system, but his family decided that its youngest member deserved something better. So they went to Queens, where some extended family lives and encouraged a move. Today, Byrd lives in Rosedale with his mother, grandmother, uncle, sister, and brother.
He arrived in New York last November, and since his entrance, playing soccer for Jamaica High School has been his favorite pastime of living near the city. Brown, the older, wiser senior with identical roots, has taken Byrd under his wing.
“He’s a good friend and he cooperates with everyone,” Byrd says. “He’s a great captain. He’s supportive. … He told me [early on] that he’s always gonna be there for me.”
Byrd and Brown combined for four goals in the city final against Hillcrest, which Jamaica won 5-2. It was Byrd who gave the Beavers their first lead, faking his way around the goalkeeper in the 58th minute, and who scored their first goal, just moments after entering the game late because of an ID card snafu. It was Brown who scored Jamaica’s fourth and fifth goals, graciously calling Byrd “our forward, our engine” after the contest was over.
Moreover, on-field chemistry between Byrd and Brown may have been the game’s real decider. For the first half-hour, while Byrd was on the sidelines and Brown was filling a hole in goal, there was little progress to speak of on the Beavers’ offensive half of the field. But as soon as the two Jamaicans returned to their rightful positions (at exactly the same time), they revitalized the Beavers. Byrd scored right away. Jamaica went on to turn a 1-0 deficit into an easy victory.
“It was really good,” Byrd says of the proceedings on November 9. “I just came up here, and I scored two goals that made Jamaica win the title.”
Soccer exploits aside, Byrd is finally getting the education that prompted his family’s move. He enjoys Jamaica High School, and he points to English and science as his favorite subjects. “Science tells you about nature,” he says, “and English makes you cooperate with people, stuff like that.”
His collegiate ambitions — no doubt a rewarding part of the decision to relocate — are to play soccer and study science. Byrd has professional ambitions, too, which revolve around playing soccer and going into business.
But above all, he’s taking his time to enjoy the opportunity he’s been given. And he knows that one day, no matter what he does, he will look back fondly on the team that chants “pop-pop-pop” at its games and be proud of the distance he has traveled.