Thabi Seifrit, a Lesotho native, is contributing to a soccer team’s success in America

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Thabi Seifrit (Image Credit- Reading Eagle: Ben Hasty)

Thabi, then a soccer novice, has become one of Gov. Mifflin’s top scorers, putting home five goals and two assists in the Mustangs’ six games this season before Monday.

The senior went to the United States shortly before his ninth birthday. He was adopted by Stephanie Seifrit, along with his two younger siblings after they lost both parents to illness.

Thabi was born in Lesotho. During the 18 months that preceded his adoption, he took care of his brother and sister on his own. They lived in an orphanage for a short time and often didn’t have enough food.

“Days were long,” Seifrit said. “There were a whole bunch of kids. It was not really organized. We were just going places, moving around and doing different activities. That was really it.”

The Seifrits became an instant family and went through the growing pains one might expect. At first, their communication featured Stephanie looking up words in Sesotho, the children’s native language, and pantomiming what they meant. It took several minutes to convey something that should take seconds.

Thabi learned English quickly and became the translator.

“He was the rock for them,” said Stephanie, who works as director of human resources at Mifflin. “I can’t imagine what the transition would have been like for the little ones without him. He was their whole world.”

Seifrit went to school almost immediately and began soaking in the education he had never received.

After about a year, Stephanie tried to find her older son a sport to play. Like most boys his age, Thabi needed to burn off some energy.

The World Cup was in South Africa in 2010, the year he was adopted. Mom picked soccer.

“He knew how to kick a ball,” she said. “He didn’t know the rules. He’d never played it on a team. It was the only sport he recognized. We picked a winner, I guess.”

Soccer became Seifrit’s way to connect with his new world. He made friends with boys that he still plays alongside today. Fredericks, a Mifflin defender, was one. Another was Cameron Rowe, the team’s top scorer.

“It opened me up with my teammates when I talked to them,” Seifrit said. “I got more in touch with them. It was like a second family. We started hanging out and going places together.”

Seifrit’s skills were raw. He was athletic and fast, which helped overcome his lack of formal training. When he first started playing, he kept taking off his cleats because they felt foreign to him.

His youth coaches worked on that habit and helped mold his talent.

“You could tell he had the desire, the speed and the strength,” said Mifflin coach Jose Garcia, who coached Seifrit when he was younger. “He was rough around the edges. He loved the game but he never learned the game. Nothing like today. He’s a complete player now.”

He knows if there wasn’t a woman on the other side of the world ready to adopt three children at once, his life could be much different. It could be much worse.

He’s thankful.

“I could have stayed back and been in a bad place not too long after that,” he said. “Being here took away all those things that could have happened. I’m lucky. I’m lucky how it turned out.”


Originally published by Jason Guarente on Reading Eagle.

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