They Were No Longer Poles Apart : Kennedy Soccer Star Reunites With Mother, Adjusts to U.S. Life

When Mark Florek plays soccer for Kennedy High School, he forgets about being in a new country, about struggling with the English language, about the friends and family he left behind in Poland. He just concentrates on the game.

“He says that when he plays, he doesn’t think about anything else,” said Florek’s mother, Ewa King. “It has filled out his life.”

For the past six years, Florek’s life has been a waiting game. His efforts to be reunited with his mother--whom he had last seen when he was 11--were stalled by government paper work and politics.

A little less than three months ago, Florek, 17, finally came to the United States, moving in with his mother and new stepfather in La Palma, and enrolling at Kennedy.

The transition has been difficult, but soccer is helping to dull the shock of adjusting to a new country, a new language and a partially new family.

And Florek is helping Kennedy’s soccer team adjust to winning.

The team is off to its best start in the last few years. The Irish have an 8-2-2 overall record and lead the Garden Grove League at 5-0. Florek, a junior, leads the team with eight goals, including three in one game, and has earned the nickname “The Polish Sensation.”

“I don’t think I’m playing so sensational,” Florek said with a shrug.

Florek never played organized soccer in Poland. But Kennedy Coach Vladimir Nieto, who teaches Spanish next to the English-as-a-Second-Language classroom where he spotted Florek, figured that someone who grew up in Eastern Europe might have acquired some soccer skills. He was right.

“I just told him to do what he does best,” Nieto said. “The first thing he did was make a beautiful pass, and I knew right away he was a soccer player.”

Florek grew up in Szczecin, in northwest Poland, playing soccer at lunchtime and after school. He was 11 when his mother came to the United States. He lived with his grandparents, and grew into a young man while waiting to join her.

“It was difficult,” he said. “I had nobody to tell about my problems, nobody who could understand.”

The separation was not planned. Florek’s mother, who divorced Florek’s father 11 years ago, came to the United States on a six-month visa intending to improve her English skills and return to Poland. She had been working as a transportation research analyst in Poland and was a member of Solidarity, the independent trade union. But she wanted to get a job working with an import/export company and needed to polish her language skills.

In the fall of 1981, Florek’s mother received a six-month visa.

On Dec. 13, 1981, martial law was imposed in Poland in response to the mobilization of the Solidarity movement and the members’ increasing demands.

“After it happened, there was no news from my family,” King said. “All communication was cut off for months. But I finally got a message from my mother, through Sweden, that said not to come back.”

King and her son wrote to each other constantly, but any letters they received would arrive opened, stamped by a censor. Often the letters, which they kept track of by numbering, would not arrive at all.

As soon as it became clear she could not return to Poland, King applied for permanent residency and was granted political asylum by the United States. But she could not apply to have her son join her until her permanent status was granted.

“His status was just hanging in the air,” she said. “My visa was automatically extended, but that did not help Mark.”

One year after it was imposed, martial law was lifted and the communication between Florek and King became more normal. Their letters were no longer censored, and they spoke on the phone every month. But still they waited.

Four years passed, and still King was not a permanent resident. But in 1986, she married a U.S. citizen and soon after, both she and Mark received green cards. Their reunion seemed imminent.

Last January, Florek, green card in hand, applied to immigrate. But his request was denied.

“They never give you any explanation,” King said.

Said Florek: “They didn’t want to let me from Poland. I had to be a soldier.”

Florek was 17, and in Poland, young men who are not enrolled in the university are required to join the army at age 18.

But last July, Polish officials eased restrictions on allowing families to reunite, King said. Florek’s passport was immediately granted, and he arrived in California in October.

His first few days were difficult. His mother, realizing that Florek was upset, thought he missed his Polish friends. But that was not the main problem.

“He said he felt very strange,” King said. “The school system is totally different. He was only spending an hour at a time with the same students instead of five hours. The language was difficult. It was as though he was by himself; he had never met my husband, and, after six years, I was somebody totally different. He had no one to talk to.”

But then he joined the soccer team. And suddenly he found people with whom he had something in common.

Florek is just one member of the Kennedy soccer melting pot. The Fighting Irish varsity and junior varsity teams are composed of players from Argentina, Japan, Syria, Afghanistan, Guyana, Vietnam, Costa Rica and Mexico, as well as athletes born and bred in Orange County. Nieto, the coach, is from Colombia.

“The players from other countries have brought up the level of the team’s play,” Nieto said. “And the team is truly representative of the Kennedy student body.”

The team’s second-leading scorer, behind Florek, is sophomore Kyong Kim, who started on the team last season as a freshman. Kim was born in Korea but was reared in Paraguay, playing soccer in the streets at lunchtime and after school. It has been less than two years since Kim, who is fluent in Spanish, Korean and English, came with his mother and brothers to California.

“The boys from other countries have gone through the same process that Mark is going through,” King said. “It has made him more comfortable talking to people.”

Florek, who speaks English at home with his mother, thinks his English is poor. But his coach says it has improved dramatically in the past few weeks. And Florek’s mother has also seen a change in her son, apart from his language skills.

“I think the soccer success makes him happy,” she said. “It is giving him, maybe, more confidence with himself.”