Imagine growing up in a neighborhood isolated from the rest of the world, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean 1,000 miles away from the nearest continent, secluded from just about anything.
Now imagine there’s a couple more people like you. Similar talents and interests, separated in age by no more than a year. How likely would it be that you would ever cross paths with those people?
For three Bermudian soccer stars at Flagler College — Khyla Brangman, Triston Hall and Marco Warren — a 3-mile stretch of land was enough to keep the trio separated until they made their way to St. Augustine.
“We should have known each other sooner, we were in the same club team,” Brangman said. “But they’re both a year older than me so we never really crossed paths until now.”
Though Hall and Warren both knew each other since the third grade and Brangman played in the same top-tier club team on the island, the three were not aware of each other’s existence until recently. Brangman, a freshman, completed the trio’s arrival to St. Augustine earlier this year.
Warren went through the familiar sounding troubles of adjusting to life away from home, even when he left before his senior year to play at Montverde Academy, located outside of Orlando.
“It was hard at first, because when you get frustrated in a place you’re not familiar with it’s easy to get homesick and it affects you mentally,” he said. “Two and a half hours on a plane from here is still a ways away.”
One thing that has made life easier for not just Warren, but Hall and Brangman as well, are the similarities between St. Augustine and their hometowns of Southampton and Warwick.
But similarities don’t mean duplicates. Hall and Warren both got warmed up to the stateside style of soccer by playing their senior years of high school at Montverde Academy, taking the team to an ESPN Rise National Title in 2011.
As for Brangman, she spent her entire life on the island and only recently got a taste of American soccer.
As far as talent goes, she says it’s a no-brainer: Flagler has the advantage.
“My team right now would absolutely kill the national squad,” Brangman said. “It’s more serious here, more disciplined. In Bermuda it’s more relaxed and the favorites get to play no matter what. That’s not the case here.”
Maybe relying too heavily on its island motif, the laid-back atmosphere of Bermuda didn’t translate well to playing NCAA soccer. The spots are limited and hotly contested, but the three have adjusted well to the change in attitude and all made an impact on their team’s seasons.
The biggest change for the three have been in the games that supposedly didn’t matter, which Brangman soon realized they very much did.
“The preseason in Bermuda is really relaxed,” Brangman said. “But over here I was getting flipped, hit to the ground, and that’s when I noticed that I needed to step my game up big time.”
Even their social lives have had to adjust, especially when dealing with innocent, yet ignorant questions.
“First question I get is about the Bermuda Triangle, dumb questions,” Warren said. “Like apparently I have to parachute down from a plane to get home.”
But other than a few eye-rolling moments, the adjustment has gone smoothly.
Warren, a redshirt freshman this past season, started the most games out of the three. He’s also the smallest of the group, listed at only 5-foot-4. During the summers, Warren goes back to Bermuda to his job as a summer camp counselor for children — children whom, for lack of a better term, look down upon him.
|
