Discipline, Dedication, and Success Theme Analysis

For children across the globe, sports teams represent a means of cultivating a good work ethic and a dedication to achieving a goal, and the Fugees are no different. Luma, the Fugees’ coach, sees this discipline and dedication as a requirement for her players—particularly for refugee children who will need to take on more responsibility than other children might. Often, these children’s only alternative activities are getting involved in gangs. Both Luma and St. John demonstrate in Outcasts United that the more discipline and dedication the Fugees have, the more they are able to succeed.

Over the course of the book, Luma coaches many different teams: first, a girls’ team at the Decatur YMCA, and then the three Fugees teams (the Under Thirteens, Under Fifteens, and Under Seventeens). At each team, Luma demands that her team be dedicated and forces them to have discipline in order to play. At Luma’s first team, the girls’ team at the YMCA, she makes her players run for thirty-five minutes and do sit-ups, push-ups, and leg lifts before each practice. She also makes them run longer if they are not on time. Thus, the girls are punished for their lack of discipline. Even though parents get upset about some of Luma’s methods, she sees how the girls are more motivated, responsible, and are actually able to improve. By their third season, Luma’s team goes undefeated and they win their year-end tournament. When Luma begins coaching the Fugees, she drives her team hard during practice. She begins with twenty-five minutes of running laps; when they misbehave, she runs them to exhaustion. She then leads them through sit-ups, push-ups, leg lifts, and bicycle kicks, pushing against the backs of players who try to cut corners during the sit-ups or pushups. They then do a series of drills and end the day with a scrimmage. Luma notes how during the scrimmage, suddenly, the boys would have a great deal of energy. Playing soccer becomes the reward for a hard practice, and they work hard to achieve that. When the Under Thirteens start slacking off and walking during their warmups instead of running, she tells them that they need to get serious and even sends one boy home. She also threatens to cancel the team like she cancelled the Under Fifteens. This threat motivates them to prove their dedication as players— at their next game, they win 5-1.

The Under Fifteens have the most difficult time proving their desire to win. When they don’t have the discipline to show up on time or a dedication to the team, Luma stops coaching them, which sends them into a spiral of disarray. This proves how in the absence of discipline and hard work, the players find very little success. One particular season, the Under Fifteens become very lazy and stop following all of Luma’s rules. One game in particular represents a breaking point: a few of the kids miss the bus, leaving the team two players short. Luma is frustrated. One of the boys, Mandela, asks St. John to drive back and pick up three members of the team. They make it back to the game on time, but when they arrive, Luma simply sits under a tree with her head down and watches the kids melt down. The team ends up losing seven to two because they become angry with each other and frustrated that Luma isn’t coaching. At the end of the match, Luma explains, “They show up to tutoring late,” she said. “They’re disrespectful. They show up to practice not dressed to play, their pants hanging down. I tell them practice is at five-thirty, they show up at six-thirty. I tell them, ‘You have to be at the field at one o’clock for a two o’clock game,’ and they’re coming, what, like ten minutes before the game?” Luma decides to cancel the team, reinforcing the idea that a team cannot succeed without dedication from its players. This setback forces the truly dedicated players like Kanue Biah to round up equally committed team members and convince Luma to continue the season. They do so, bringing boys to try out for the team—St. John describes that they are “Trying to will their team back into existence.” Luma agrees to continue the team after seeing their efforts, and even though their season isn’t the most successful, the fact that their dedication enables the team to continue once again proves that staying disciplined and focused on their goals is necessary for the team to exist at all.

Dedication and discipline are not only required of the boys, but also from Luma herself. She proves her own dedication to the team in all of the actions she takes to support it. She gives up her other jobs in order to devote herself to the Fugees, to their tutoring program, and to their families. Without her dedication and her desire to see the team succeed, the boys could not commit their own efforts to the team’s success as well. Ultimately, it is through their collective hard work that the Fugees are able to become the remarkable story that St. John publicizes for the world in Outcasts United.