It was too cold for shorts, a long way from home in Sudan.
One late January day a year and a half ago, Francis Khamis found an empty park at Maryland Parkway and Twain Avenue.
He juggled a soccer ball alone, his mind drifting back home, a village outside Khartoum where 22 kids are always ready to play, bare feet banging a sock stuffed with cloth, aiming for a goal made of two sticks and a rope.
Khamis had come to the valley five months earlier, six years after becoming a refugee from his country's ongoing violence. The 20-year-old and his family had bounced around the United States, trying to find a place to settle down. He had few friends, no team with which to play.
His feet were on Las Vegas soil but in his head he continued to wander. "I was imagining that I'm back home, in order to motivate myself," Khamis recalled.
Just then, two guys came up to him. From Cameroon, they asked whether he was going to play into the night, so they could go home and get their gear.
The fellow Africans got him on a team, introducing him to other Africans who took him under their wings.
"They told me, 'It's not easy being an immigrant, but it's up to you,' " he said.
A year later, he joined the Latin United team, which last weekend was crowned champions in the second annual Cinco de Mayo soccer tournament.
Sunday night, Khamis closed his eyes for a second, surrounded by celebrating teammates in a Salvadoran restaurant.
"I thought, 'I finally got (a win). I hope it's like this from now on,' " Khamis said.
The tournament came out of the newly formed Ligas Unidas, or United Leagues, a conference of nine leagues made up of 496 teams and about 10,000 players, according to Director Miguel Martinez.
Martinez himself immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, two decades ago when there was one adult league and 12 teams in the valley.
The nonstop arrival of immigrants to the Las Vegas Valley from all corners of a planet crazy for soccer has made it necessary to build an infrastructure, create a conference with rules and bylaws and organize tournaments, Martinez said.
The same thing is happening nationwide, as Latin-Americans and other immigrants follow promises of work and a safer life to the U.S.
"These leagues are all over the country," said Paul Cuadros, author of a book titled, "A Home on the Field: How One Championship Team Inspires Hope for the Revival of Small Town America." The book follows a team of immigrants in North Carolina as it fights to a state championship.
The leagues have made soccer "an important part of the immigrant fabric," Cuadros said, creating a sense of pride while building community and a sense of belonging.
Although most of the players are Hispanic, Khamis' experience is not uncommon.
Hermilo Gomez, who spent last weekend refereeing six games in the two-day tournament, came to the U.S. from Michoacan, Mexico , 17 years ago, having decided that earning $200 every two weeks as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant in San Diego was better than earning $70 a month in a state government job.
"I didn't speak Chinese or English," the 46-year-old Gomez recalled. So he would break open fortune cookies and look up words at home in a Spanish-English dictionary. He still remembers one: "It's a agood time to make good friends," the message read.
Using the same resourcefulness, and having taken advantage of an amnesty offered in the mid-1990s, he followed a brother-in-law's recommendation and came to Las Vegas seeking higher-paying work.
Now he's a union member and hangs drywall. He points to condos close to the Strip from the tournament fields and says he's had a hand in building many of them.
Throughout his odyssey, one thing has kept him going - futbol, or soccer.
He became a coach and a referee in the late ' 90s and says soccer has meant "missing our homeland a little less - and a way of becoming a part of this land where we've come to live."
Martinez said the year-old conference has helped bridge immigrant and U.S. cultures.
He decided to take on the project in late 2005 after a player dove feet first into his 22-year-old son Omar's knees. Martinez discovered that money the players were paying the team's owner for health insurance had been going into her pocket. The insurance issue, together with routinely unpunished dirty play and other problems, prompted Martinez to look for a solution.
A year-plus later, Ligas Unidas is the answer.
Cuadros said a similar process has been seen in cities across the country.
"A lot of immigrants in their native lands deal with informality. Here they realize they need a formal structure ... which is really part of American society, with its rule of law," he said.
Khamis and his team came up against the conference's rules en route to the championship. On Saturday afternoon, a foul by one of their players incensed a group of vocal fans of the opposing team. A few rushed the field, throwing water bottles. The referee called the game, giving the victory to Latin United.
A day later, in a game that saw the 6-foot-3 forward help score a goal, Khamis was a champion.
On Monday, he was still beaming.
"I want to win everything from now on."
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy