ASN: Nepal Soccer Coach Shares Stunning Tales, Images

Jack Stefanowski, a New York native and the pinnacle coach of the Nepal nationwide soccer workforce, spoke to ASN concerning the terrifying earthquake that shook Kathmandu and what individuals can do to assist out. 

BY

Brian Sciaretta

Posted
April 27, 2015
2:50 PM

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SATURDAY WAS JUST ANOTHER DAY in Kathmandu for Nepal nationwide workforce head coach Jack Stefanowski, a New York native, as he deliberate to scout a few of his gamers within the native home league as a part of preparations for this summer season’s South Asia Soccer Federation Cup.

After which the earth shook.

Round midday he was together with his spouse, Christel, and four-year-old daughter, Lila, at their residence on the outskirts of Kathmandu when the bottom started to shake violently. After a number of moments of confusion, Stefanowski had his spouse and daughter stand beneath a sturdy door body because the partitions of the residence constructing started to wobble.

After a few minute the violent shaking, which opened up cracks within the Nepalese earth, stopped—however not earlier than destroying massive parts of Kathmandu. The Stefanowski household survived however many didn’t.  

Present stories checklist the dying toll from the Earthquake at 4,000 in what has turn into a world tragedy. The earthquake itself was an unbelievable 7.8-magnitude on the Richter Scale, one of many highest ever, and it led to lethal avalanches throughout Mount Everest’s extremely trafficked climbing season. 

“We’ve been lucky,” Stefanowski informed American Soccer Now from Nepal. “The aftershocks have started to subside but for two days it was frightening. I was at my apartment when it came. I had my family gather underneath a door frame. The building swayed back and forth. The longer it happened, the more scared you got. The aftershocks have been terrible since you don’t know when it all is going to end or when the next one will come.”

“It’s the second ones that really create the terror.”

Stefanowski, 40, doesn’t know the standing of his residence constructing however mentioned it wasn’t hit as onerous as different buildings in his space and was nonetheless standing. He’s planning to return dwelling on Tuesday to examine it and see if there’s warmth and working water.

The toll the temblor has taken on his household has been important. Lila was shocked with the primary earthquake and didn’t absolutely perceive it. The terribly highly effective aftershocks, nevertheless, have hit the toughest.

“She handled the first one OK,” Stefanowski mentioned with a pause. “When the second hit, the 6.7 aftershock, she grew to become extra frightened. She was scared when that one got here.”

As he started to listen to concerning the extent of the injury, Stefanowski got here to grasp it will likely be an extended, very long time earlier than Nepal and Kathmandu are the identical. 

There’s a historic area of the town that Stefanowski likes to go to together with his household the place the native legal guidelines forestall new buildings and the present design displays conventional Nepalese tradition. Stefanowski was there lately and had deliberate to go to once more this week.  

After the quake, nevertheless, Stefanowski may solely say that he has heard the world “is finished.” In response to the New York Instances, 4 of the world’s seven Unesco World Heritage websites have been severely broken within the quake.

Lots of those that have survived haven’t any place to go and the federal government doesn’t have the sources to assist. Aid companies are on their approach however it should take time earlier than they’ll mobilize and help.

In response to Stefanowski, there’s an excessive amount of confusion about what to do and the circumstances are poor all through the Himalayan nation. 

“At night it is cold, rainy, and wet,” Stefanowski defined. “You’ve got individuals outdoors as a result of they don’t have the shelter. They don’t belief that their constructing will maintain up. They’re staying outdoors and sort of tenting out. The circumstances are dangerous—particularly final night time when it was raining and chilly. There have been stories that one other large quake was coming and that created extra of a worry.

“It’s simply terrifying for individuals.”

Stefanowski is at present in his second stint as head coach of Nepal’s nationwide workforce. He was employed the primary time in January of 2013 with a one-year contract and was not supplied a brand new deal when it expired as Nepal’s soccer federation elected to go together with a neighborhood coach. Nonetheless, after a string of poor outcomes, Stefanowski was introduced again halfway by means of 2014. 

Earlier than teaching in Nepal, he had head teaching jobs with Puerto Rican golf equipment Bayamon FC and Sevilla FC.

In 2010 he was even the interim head coach of the Puerto Rican nationwide workforce. His longest tenured job was as an assistant coach with the second-division Puerto Rican Islanders and he was on the employees in 2010 when the Islanders pulled off a surprising upset to get rid of the Los Angeles Galaxy within the CONCACAF Champions League.

Two years later he discovered concerning the opening for the Nepalese nationwide workforce and was employed after impressing throughout interviews. Since that point, he has developed a decent bond together with his gamers. One of the crucial troublesome points because the earthquake has been contacting his gamers to see in the event that they have been secure.

A few of his gamers haven’t been accounted for and Stefanowski is anxious.

“I’ve contacted most of my players,” Stefanowski mentioned. “There are some I haven’t heard back from. I am still trying with sending messages and asking around. I am a little bit concerned right now because I haven’t heard back.”

Nepal’s home league is suspended for the foreseeable future and the metropolis’s most used soccer stadium, Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, suffered important injury. Soccer, as you would possibly anticipate, is the furthest factor from anybody’s thoughts.

One factor the New York College graduate hopes to do is assist with the nation’s restoration effort as quickly as doable.  

“Now I plan on getting back to the city and helping out with the recovery effort,” Stefanowski said. “Absolutely.”

The American soccer group is thought for its generosity for these in want, particularly in the case of rallying round one in every of their very own. For a listing of some companies offering catastrophe reduction in Nepal, please click on right here.