In early 2010 God brought Alex Kalema (Left) and Brent Mullings (Right) together.
Alex had recently completed Bible College and was coaching this group of boys in his village as he waited to discern the ministry God had for him. He later discovered he was already where God wanted him to serve.
Brent returned to the USA and raised support from his generous community to purchase our first set of uniforms, calling the effort "Operation Kick It." Alex liked "Kick It" so we became Kick It Soccer Academy.
At right the first uniforms can be seen along with our first championship trophy! At left is Brent's family in 2010.
With a little financial help, our impact grew quickly. By 2012 we were fielding multiple teams. Private schools began reaching out to us and offering many of our players scholarships!
To this day, encouraging players to pursue education is one of our highest priorities. We have seen hundreds of our players recruited to top schools since 2010.
As the acceptance of girls soccer continued to grow in the nation, KISA was ready to provide talent. Martha(left) and Lydia (right) were two of the first girls who trained with KISA back in 2011. Lydia is now a business owner, and Martha went on to become a professional referee in the Uganda Premier League.
Our girls are important to us, and we were excited to see more leagues develop providing them opportunity to compete. We fielded our first girls team in 2020. Our young ladies have had great success both on and off the pitch.
Many of our young men and women have seized the opportunities God has provided them. We now have pastors, teachers, engineers, doctors, architects, professional soccer players, and more in our family! Joseph Ssemujju(above) was on the first KISA team and is one of several KISA players to rise to the professional level. Joseph and a few others have even represented KISA on the Uganda National Team. We are extremely proud of our young men and women who have worked, and continue to work hard to achieve their goals.
Alex and his beautiful family were able to build a home on the land we initially purchased, and we have since completed construction of the Kick It House seen above. The house serves as a multi-purpose building meeting several needs to include housing our office, location for team/coaches/discipleship meetings, temporary accommodations, and equipment storage.
As we had outgrown the village field, we were blessed to be able to purchase land adjacent to the Kick It House where we continue to develop our Kick It training grounds. Above you can see the progression of work, and the Kick It House can be seen in the distance of the first photo.
We hope you enjoyed this glimpse into our history. We believe we've only seen the beginning of our work and will continue to drive forward with the vision!
