At a time we all need reminding that out of chaos can come hope and how improbable forces can harmoniously converge if the spirits are willing, consider the tale of Nati Clarke — an immensely promising 15-year-old soccer prospect whose story is so much more than that.

No matter what sort of stock ought to be put in such declarations as being expected to be labeled the No. 1 player in the nation for the class of 2023 by TopDrawerSoccer.com in its spring 2020 rankings to be released on Monday.

“Regardless of whether Nati makes it as a professional soccer player or not,” Sporting KC Academy director Jon Parry said, “it is an unbelievable story.”

Born into destitute circumstances in Ethiopia, he first played soccer using leaves stuffed in socks, had few clothes and often ate only once a day. So he was placed for adoption by a loving but overwhelmed grandmother when he was 4 years old.

While he was in the orphanage, a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti in 2010. Their hearts pierced and moved by the example of adoptions set by another local couple and their Northland Christian Church pastor, Becky and Jeff Clarke felt compelled to act accordingly.

Nevermind that they already had three children and were around 50 years old at the time. They asked themselves what was different between those who brought home children in need and them.

“Every reason that we could think of not to do it was a selfish reason,” said Jeff Clarke, who runs his own business importing and exporting agricultural blades.

With Haiti in such turmoil that the adoption process there might take years, they considered more immediate alternatives. Which led them to Ethiopia and being matched with the child from the remote region of Bensa, where Lifewater in 2015 launched an initiative to improve access to safe water and improved sanitation.

They had seen pictures of each other ahead of time, but the Clarkes were braced for him to be hesitant or shy and take some time to warm to them. Instead, he came running.

“He just tackled us like we’d been his parents all along,” Jeff said, with Nati smiling and affirming the moment.

The Clarkes cried that day because of the instant emotional connection that has only flourished further with their nurturing over the years. But they also got a sneak preview of another aspect of the future that day.

When they arrived, the kids were playing soccer. Not with the socks jammed with leaves that Nati had known at home but everything from beach balls to oversized tennis balls to deflated rubber balls.

The Clarkes joined in and had an immediate sense of his love for the game.

“I wanted to play catch with him, because, you know, you play catch,” said Becky Clarke, an occupational therapist in Topeka’s Seaman school system. “So I tossed him the ball, and he just let it drop in front of him and kicked it. He had no instinct to use his hands to catch a ball. …

“So he was very attuned to soccer from the start, we could tell.”

Even through the profound changes ahead after they tended to all the red tape and returned to bring him home in February 2011 with appreciation of their new son’s native country — where the radiant faces and sheer goodwill particularly resonated.

“They were grateful to be alive, not ungrateful that they didn’t have anything … whether they were dressed in rags and lived under a park bench,” Jeff said. “You can’t really explain it. They were grateful and yet they had nothing. And we’ve got everything and we’re so ungrateful. It was very eye-opening.”

Speaking of eye-opening … The trip home and first few months remain indelible to all of the family — including Nati, who was engaged but listened more than he spoke the other day.

Along with older sister Rachel Haase, who like her other siblings made that trip, they all laughed at memories of Nati suddenly left doing splits because he didn’t know how to navigate an escalator … and spraying water on his face trying to figure out a fountain … and that funny feeling he had in his stomach when his first plane flight took off for his new life.

As it ascended, he remembered saying a sing-songy “Uh-oh.”

On the way from KCI to Topeka, he saw snow for the first time. And that was just the start of one new experience and adjustment after another, Becky said, even as he continued to sweetly maintain such homeland habits as carrying items on his head.

Such simple things we assume everyone experiences: Getting in a swing. Tasting ice cream. Having a bath. His first bike ride. Putting on roller skates.

The language transition wasn’t easy. But he was so smart and observant that he was able to rapidly expand his vocabulary in the months after the two Kansas graduates taught him his first English words: “Rock Chalk Jayhawk, Go KU.”

Then there was his first pair of new shoes, as far as they know: Soccer cleats, naturally, part of his pride putting on his first uniform.

He was a scoring machine from the get-go, Jeff remembers, and it stayed the same up through the ranks. Next thing you know, they’re hearing about him at the Sporting KC Academy in Kansas City.

“It was kind of like this legend was growing,” Parry said, about this kid “who could throw the ball a mile, was faster than everybody and could shoot the ball really hard.”

That led to a tryout and being asked to join the U-12 team as a 10-year-old and, later, national recognition as captain of the U.S. U-15 national team for a tournament in Poland last October.

In his fifth year with the Sporting Academy now, if not for the pandemic he still would be commuting with one of his parents five days a week from Topeka to Swope Park and typically arrive home between 8:30 and 9 p.m.

All in what has emerged as a single-minded focus on becoming a professional player. So much so that the only “hobby” he has is video games. But even that has a caveat.

“Only soccer video games,” Rachel said, evoking a shrug and smile from Nati.

His name is out there enough to be celebrated on various soccer rating sites, and the family has received calls from several agents seeking to represent him.

Just the same, Sporting Academy’s Parry and Declan Jogi scoff at such ratings and emphasize that potential isn’t the same as performance. They stress that everyone in the Academy has promise, and they note that things came so easily for Nati at times in the past it was a challenge for him to stay hungry. Besides, no one “arrives” at age 15.

“You can be the top player in this moment, this is possible,” said Jogi, … by way of setting up that it’s irrelevant in the grand scheme if complacency sets in.

But they also know the baseline is special. And they have seen him become more and more self-aware and emerge as a leader, one who is running miles around the neighborhood and doing skill drills in his garage every day with everything suspended.

In fact, he’s so mature for his age that their nickname for him is “Uncle Nati.”

Meanwhile, Uncle Nati and the Clarkes never forgot about his other relatives: Last summer, they set out to find the grandmother and rest of the birth family who had placed him for adoption.

Over Facebook, they connected with a searcher named Hailu Gelaye, who found the family alive and well — and whose name Rachel Haase, an emergency room nurse, enthusiastically encouraged us to include in case it could help anyone in Kansas City’s Ethiopian community seeking to reconnect.

(That community here includes the family of SKC Academy teammate Gage Akalu, also widely touted and part of the U-15 national team.)

So they made a family trip in January, when Nati discovered he had many other relatives, relationships thriving now in regular online communications between what has become an extended Topeka-Ethiopia family now.

“It meant everything,” he said. “It was a wonderful trip.”

On the very ground where he first played the game with leaves in socks, Nati and the Clarkes distributed soccer balls and Sporting jerseys and soccer shorts.

They were so proud to see what he has become … in every way.

“More than the soccer, Grandma wanted to know if he was a good boy,” Becky said. “Is he respectful?”

Yes, they could see. And then some.

All of it testament to the power of open hearts and hope that can be found in the unseen.

“He seems to have, I don’t know, the Midas touch,” Jeff said, noting his heart and his head and adding, “He’s going to succeed at whatever he tries his hand at. And that in essence was the whole reason for doing this in the first place.”

Vahe Gregorian

The Kansas City Star

816-234-4868

Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.