Jonathan Haskell has been using soccer to build community in East Knoxville for years. In 2025, his efforts formalized as Ujima, an afterschool program that trains students in "the beautiful game" while also providing academic support, mental health support and leadership training.
Boys and girls were gathered behind Vine Middle Magnet School on a blazing hot August afternoon. Some wore cleats and athletic clothes, while others had on sandals and jeans. Many already had soccer balls out, messing around before practice kicked off.
They were soon playing a game of "don't drop the egg," in which students paired up to hold the ball in the air together while also attempting to knock down other teams' balls.
"When we work?" Haskell called between drills.
"We work together," the kids called back. "When we rise?" he asked. "We rise forever."
As the program picks back up with the start of school, the organization is pursuing 501(c)(3) status as its own entity, and is continuing to build on its efforts to increase opportunities for students.
Lessons on and off the field
Haskell's family lived in Hungary for a decade. His two sons grew up playing soccer there. When they returned to the U.S. and made Knoxville their home, everyone told them if their sons wanted to keep playing, they needed to live in Bearden or Farragut. So that's what they did. But it was something that stuck with the Haskells.
"If you live in this big city, why do you have to live in this one little neighborhood or one little community to be able to play soccer?" he said. "But we quickly began to see how differently soccer operates in the U.S. It is, unfortunately, a game that costs a lot of money. There's not a lot of opportunity. There's not a lot of access." He acknowledged that the landscape has changed since then with Emerald Youth Sports and One Knox Youth Club, but a need for a program like Ujima remains.
Haskell's family moved to Burlington in 2015 in the hopes of becoming involved in a community where they could make a difference. He started volunteering at Vine that year. An early version of Ujima − a Swahili word for collective work and responsibility − began there two years later. Some of the participants went on to be part of Austin-East's first-ever soccer state championship win in 2021.
Now, Haskell is running Ujima programming at Green Magnet, Sarah Moore Greene, Spring Hill and Belle Morris, where it operates in school, plus the flagship program that's still at Vine. There, students participate every day after school for two hours. Volunteers help run the program, which starts indoors with some kind of lesson, whether that's asset mapping with psychology graduate students from the University of Tennessee or collecting and analyzing their own stats.
Then, it's soccer time until students have to go home, using transportation provided by Ujima. The organization provides snacks, and all the equipment, too.
"These kids know that growing up in this neighborhood is hard. They hear what the city says about them, and so we know that we've got to have each other's backs if we're going to be successful. We've got to support one another," Haskell said. "We want Ujima to be a place of safety and belonging."
To learn more about volunteering or make a donation, visit UjimaSoccer.org.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Afterschool soccer program improves skills on field and in classroom
