Physical Education Teacher Wang Xia: The "Football Mother" of the Village Baby

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In the villages of northern Anhui in September, crops such as sesame, corn and soybeans are ripening, and the air is filled with the fragrance of earth.

At Sanyi School in Xingliu Town, Yingquan District, Fuyang City, Anhui Province, physical education teacher Wang Xia issued a password: "Ready, drive!" The students began to dribble and stop the ball, and from time to time there was a "drip" sound in their mouths. This driving simulation game keeps kids new to soccer happy.

Wang Xia's father, who was the only physical education teacher in Xingliu Town, died unexpectedly when she was 16 years old. In 1994, after graduating from the Anhui Provincial Sports School, Wang Xia chose to return to his hometown to teach at Xingliu Middle School. In 2006, Wang Xia took the initiative to request to be transferred to the more remote Sanyi School and single-handedly undertake the physical education teaching task of 18 classes in the school.

In 2014, Wang Shengbiao, the principal of Sanyi School, hoped to cultivate a campus football culture, and the burden of football teaching fell on Wang Xia. At that time, football was strange and difficult for her, who was almost 40 years old. Wang Xia bought soccer balls himself, practiced at home or in the basement of the community, watched soccer teaching videos on the Internet, and asked other teachers engaged in soccer education for advice.

Slowly, Wang Xia can lead students to football training, and the Sanyi School football team has also achieved good results in various competitions. In 2015, Sanyi School was rated as a national youth campus football feature school. In order to better popularize school football, Wang Xia bought football at his own expense and gave it to other schools in the town, and regularly gave football lessons to the children of these schools.

Sanyi School is a nine-year school with mostly left-behind children, some of whom are poor. In addition to supervising children's studies, Wang Xia also cares about their lives, providing them with psychological counseling and financial support. When leading the team to participate in the competition in other places, Wang Xia will also wash the clothes of the young players. The children affectionately called her "Soccer Mom".

In recent years, Sanyi School has received support and help from local governments and non-profit organizations, football equipment and venue facilities have been improved, and some professional football coaches have also been infected by the football atmosphere here to teach students voluntarily.

Due to her long-term physical education, Wang Xia has injuries to her waist and knees, but she said: "I want to do my best to do more in football, so that more children can experience football and feel football." "Football is like a seed sown in the hearts of children, waiting for spring, drilling out of the soil, growing with joy.