10%

BEHIND THE STRIPES

Kaseem Ladipo

By Atlanta United FC

June 19^th, 2025

Nestled under the MARTA line at West End Station sits a glowing example of progress. As the trains pass over, the nets rustle with the wind of the city. The soft roar of public transit accompanies pitter-patter of cleats playing passes. The folks of West Atlanta congregate and share in competition and community at two mini soccer pitches created by StationSoccer.

Kaseem Ladipo wanders around the premises of an already-immense cultural accomplishment wanting more.

“Just imagine, that area down there, if we had two more pitches or an additional community space,” he says.

His selfless nature shines as the Executive Director of Soccer in the Streets, a nonprofit organization that promotes access to soccer across Metro Atlanta. StationSoccer is one of many projects he leads.

Ladipo has lived every level of the sport, from youth leagues to select clubs, collegiate to semipro and even coaching. Now, he’s an executive who has made a career of devoting his time and energy towards bringing people into the game and building communities in the process.

“I’ve evolved again and have looked at soccer as a way to economically develop communities, catalyze new initiatives in community, connect citizens through this common language of the sport,” he said.

Ladipo’s mission — and that of Soccer in the Streets — is to give everyone a chance to grow through playing the Beautiful Game. He speaks with certainty that soccer can teach lessons, open worlds, transform lives. It did just that for him as a born-and-raised ATLien from the West End.

Becoming a community builder

Pointing down the street at West End Station, Ladipo laid out landmarks of his childhood. He was introduced to soccer in the backyard of his Southwest Atlanta home by his Nigerian father.

Less than 10 minutes down the road, the YMCA on Campbellton Road gave him his first experience with organized play. At the time, African American children didn’t have many options if they wanted to be a soccer player, but those leagues were one of a few possible avenues.

As his skills progressed, opportunities for further development dried up around him. The infrastructure wasn’t there in the West End, so his parents decided he would join a program up in Sandy Springs. That led him to high school play and eventually a collegiate career at Syracuse University.

“I'm one of those stories of folks who actually had the means to continue to pursue the sport at a time where it was difficult for others to do that,” Ladipo said. “It's an experience that I always thank my parents for, because my life is now completely immersed in the sport. I know that never would have happened had I not had the opportunities that my family gave me to pursue the sport, no matter what barriers were put in front of me.”

“You're playing that role of strengthening community through the sport.”

Ladipo’s fascination with soccer as a child was simple: it was something fun to do with friends. But as he grew up with the game, he learned about ways in which it could be so much more.

Syracuse wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be, he was much too immersed in the sport. Ladipo played for the Atlanta Silverbacks, a semiprofessional team that played in multiple men’s soccer leagues before Atlanta United brought professional soccer to the city. He found his way to coaching as an outlet for mentorship.

“That was when I began to really embrace soccer as a community asset,” Ladipo said. “You are now, as an adult, playing the role of community leader and supporting the development of young people in the same way you look at teachers, the same way you look at summer counselors. You're playing that role of strengthening community through the sport.”

Coaching proved just the beginning of that mindset. Ladipo now takes on an even broader role as an executive.

“I'm realizing that we're now at a time where we have to use soccer as truly a force for good,” Ladipo said. “That's something I wouldn't have really been able to internalize if I hadn't gone through this whole journey from being a player to being a coach, mentor and now an executive.”

Embedded in community

StationSoccer is a testament to Atlanta’s rich soccer culture, an ardent fire that drives fandom for the sport across the city. You don’t find projects like this everywhere.

The birth of StationSoccer is thanks in large part to Atlanta United through the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation’s support of soccer as a vehicle for community building. It took a significant financial investment first and foremost to help build each of the six active StationSoccer locations at MARTA locations across the city. Moreover, the Foundation provides the human capital and technical resources to maintain the pitches and make sure they’re being utilized.

“To ensure that these are not just fields that are built, that they're fields that are utilized on a regular basis to support development of kids, but also be a catalyst for community development,” Ladipo said. “That, by itself, is already an amazing investment.”

The ties are continuous, as Atlanta United brings coaches and players to Soccer in the Streets and StationSoccer events.

“What I love about the relationship is that there's a constant conversation around how we continue to deepen the relationship for the betterment of growing the game in the Metro area,” Ladipo said.

The day-to-day as Executive Director of Soccer in the Streets is a whirlwind. Ladipo is tasked with just about everything, from fundraising for projects to organizing youth and adult soccer leagues, networking with neighborhoods and more.

Everything about Soccer in the Streets is curated for accessibility. The central premise of the StationSoccer project is making pitches easier to get to by literally putting them under the nose of public transit. As someone who made a long commute to get to quality youth soccer programming often as kid, Ladipo wants better for the generations to come.

The work Ladipo and his organization are doing is on its face impactful, but it means even more in the realm of soccer. The sport has long held a reputation of inaccessibility due to the pay-to-play model that often demands exorbitant tuition fees for youth soccer programs. Not Soccer in the Streets, it’s tuition free. In their recreational leagues, adults pay fees to play in their leagues so that the children don’t have to.

Ladipo spends much of his workday building relationships with schools, parks and recreational departments and other pillars of community. He’s been able to integrate StationSoccer seamlessly into various neighborhoods around the city to provide youth safe spaces to fall in love with the game of soccer. There are pitches at the East Lake, East Point, Five Points, Lindbergh, Kensington and West End MARTA Stations, and they have plans to build more.

“We bring fields and opportunities directly to the neighborhoods,” Ladipo said. “We continue to use it as a platform to teach other things that tie to improving young people but also connecting neighborhoods to the rest of the world.”

Representation in the soccer space and honoring Black Excellence

Ladipo is all about widening the avenues for children to get into the sport. Some methods he and Soccer in the Streets can control in the short term, like tuition or location of pitches. Others are plays for the long haul.

Children are visual learners, Ladipo admits. They resonate heavily with people who look like them and are more likely to follow in their footsteps. Representation is massive for that very reason. He wants to inspire more Black kids to play soccer, rise up the ranks and set an example for future generations.

It’s personal for Ladipo. He grew up one of few Black kids in the soccer space and credits his family for inspiring him to keep it up. He spoke about the uncertainty that many children face when getting into the sport.

“The reality is a big part of what determines whether they pursue something is if people that look like them, people that come from similar neighborhoods, people that come from similar circumstances, are playing the sport,” Ladipo said. “[Representation] melts away any possible belief or mindset that this isn't for them.”

“[Representation] melts away any possible belief or mindset that this isn’t for them.”

Ladipo himself is a role model for Black kids everywhere, though he would rather spend time highlighting the ones who came before him. On the week of Juneteenth, the date commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, Ladipo reflected on how best to honor the holiday and the Black trailblazers whose work enabled what he does.

“When I think about Black Excellence, I think about it as an ever-evolving journey,” Ladipo said. “It's about forging paths that are historically never traveled.

“Black Excellence is Martin Luther King and everything that he stood for, but that was in the 50s and 60s. Black Excellence is Herman J. Russell and what he did for real estate but also to support the civil rights movement, but he extends only into the 80s or 90s. Ultimately, Black Excellence has to constantly evolve. At the core, it's about the willingness to be a trailblazer, the willingness to have courage, willingness to sacrifice, but also the willingness to take what you've learned and make sure it is spread throughout the community.”

That’s what Ladipo is putting into practice now. He’s sharing his love for soccer in his community, across the city of Atlanta and throughout the country. He encouraged others to do the same regarding Black history.

“Deeply ground yourself in the stories. Don’t just celebrate them,” Ladipo said. “Deeply ground yourself in who the trailblazers were and why they were super important to us, being able to be in present day doing the things that we're able to do. Teach your children, learn from family members. This is our story, Juneteenth.”

Spreading the world’s game

Soccer has a remarkable way of transcending barriers. Any given club team will have players from five or six continents, all speaking different tongues. When they get out on the pitch, though, sharing the ball is like sharing culture. Different countries play differently, expressing their own unique traits.

Ladipo believes in soccer as a uniting cultural force. He wants children growing up to access new worlds, new ways of life through the sport.

It’s not just the values that are instilled playing team sports — teamwork, sacrifice, communication. It’s meeting people from different walks of life. It’s bonding over a sport they play on the opposite end of the world, all with different styles and subcultures.

“This is a global language,” Ladipo said. “In some cases, we think academic settings, political settings are where the real change happens. But I would argue the platform of soccer can probably change more minds and more communities, more so than those other spaces, because we're all speaking the same language.”

“This is a global language. In some cases, we think academic settings, political settings are where the real change happens. The platform of soccer can probably change more minds and more communities."

StationSoccer is a first-rate example of that change. At the West End Station pitches, there’s also a community garden for anyone to cultivate. It’s holistic community building at its finest, and soccer is the common denominator.

Ladipo envisions a day where the U.S. national teams are full of players who began their soccer lives at programs like StationSoccer. Real grassroots, real accessible soccer.

At one point during Ladipo’s photoshoot, a soccer ball fell out of the sky, bouncing off a park table just outside the West End Station pitches. He explained that someone had probably kicked a ball up onto the MARTA tracks at some point, and the train passing by must’ve sent it back. It was as if Atlanta itself wanted to say, ‘let’s play!’

Soccer in the Streets and Atlanta as a city have the chance to influence other cities to take up similar projects. That’s a legacy Ladipo would be proud of.

“Every main street in America [should] consider a pitch like this, not just because it gives people a place to play soccer, but they understand the economic and community value,” Ladipo said. “They understand how soccer creates vibrancy in community. Being able to say that we were a part of spurring this effort for soccer fields to be on main streets would be an amazing legacy for the soccer community to have. If Soccer in the Streets can play a small part in that, I would definitely enjoy that while I'm sitting on my rocking chair reflecting on my own life.”