Finding Propósito 

“When people talk about the Bay Area, the culture is Oakland. It’s not San Francisco. The core of that culture is Oakland, California. We deserve to have world class sports organizations and hopefully Roots can play a role in that.” 
Edreece Arghandiwal

Since 2020 my hometown of Oakland,California has lost its three major sports ( Raiders, Warriors and A’s). The teams played in This has left a tremendous void in the city from both an economic and cultural perspective, however that doesn’t mean people aren’t other emerging sporting organizations hoping to  inspire future generations. This interview was an opportunity to learn more about the purpose-driven football club,Oakland Roots, from one of its founders ,Edreece ,who has found a way to amplify Oakland’s cultural voice through football that has long been silenced by previous sporting organizations in the Town. 

More than anything else it allowed a space for two Brown Oaklanders to talk about their experience  growing up in the Town and find common cause in culture, language and place.

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Rafa Moraga: Tell me a little bit about what growing up in Oakland was like for you? 

Edreece Arghandiwal: I was born in Oakland and lived in the Bay Area my whole life. I was a product of Afghan refugees fleeing Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. The first place they landed was the Bay Area. My parents met each other here and got married. Some of my earliest experiences as a youth was in Oakland; particularly with the Oakland Athletics. I also was fortunate enough to see the Warriors win a championship there.These experiences shaped my identity growing up, as well as my family’s identity. Oakland is one of the most diverse places in the nation, and so to have been able to be a part of that in the early years of my life really led to the perception I have in totality. 

You know, we grew up seeing baseball, basketball, football, but never soccer at the Coliseum outside of random exhibition matches that drew 30,000 – 40,000 people. I knew that our community had an appetite for it, especially considering how diverse we are, but it just never it never actualized until we asked the question why not professional soccer?. And that question led to the ultimate creation of Oakland Roots Sports Club, and here we are. 

Rafa: Did you play soccer growing up? And what clubs were you following? 

Edreece: Yeah of course. Football is in the bloodline. My uncle was a goalkeeper for the Afghanistan National Soccer Team. My dad managed the club in his hometown in Afghanistan. Football was everything though baseball was the first sport I played. I adopted soccer as my dying passion around 12 or 13. I grew up loving OG Ronaldo, Inter Milan was my favorite team growing up, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic played for Inter right after. I also played semi professionally at Raimondi Park in West Oakland for the Bay Area Ambassadors. Not many people even know that team was a reality, but I know because I played and I twisted my ankles on those potholes at Raimondi. 

I always kind of craved and wanted a pathway to become a professional in Oakland, and that was part of the bummer. I have seen a lot of very talented Black and Brown kids not having a pathway towards professional and we asked that question. I am very proud to say that Project 510, our development platform, has developed eight Academy contracts this year, meaning we’ve been able to harness the talent of all these young 14 and 15 year olds in the 510 area code. And now you got kids from Richmond, Oakland participating in professional environments when that pathway just never existed before.

Rafa: I think the thing with Project 510 is about accessibility. I would have loved to have played football growing up.I played basketball, because that’s what was around, but I knew I was not gonna be playing in high school. I think it’s great to have this pathway because growing up there all of these elite private clubs. Kids I went to school with were playing in these elite clubs, and if you’re a working class Black or Brown kid from East Oakland or Fruitvale, it was almost impossible. So it seems to me like Project 510 helps open up that door to having more accessibility in football. 

Edreece: That’s absolutely right, that’s the whole premise of Project 510. So typically, professional clubs will create this academy system where they suck the money out of the communities. It’s pay to play, and then when the player doesn’t work out they move to another club. This is just a cluster of really bad kinds of infrastructure building, and that’s led to the demise of talent developing in America. This country has 300 million people, and should be one of the best soccer playing countries in the world, but because we’ve created this pay to play blocking mechanism, it’s led to, unfortunately, the leakage of talent throughout the entire United States.

I remember bro balling with Mexican kids who would show up 10 minutes late to a game, and they would bang in six goals and leave but they never got discovered, because they just never had the infrastructure. They never had the pipeline or the proper kind of guidance. Project 510 is one of the first development platforms in the whole Bay Area, and even in the United States, that is entirely not pay to play. We have something called Roots Recognize Initiative, where we work with local youth clubs to find the best talent. The best talent at ages 14 -16  come to the Roots to train in our state of the art training environment, which was the old Oakland Raiders training grounds. We develop them, we provide them with professional resources, and we hone in on their abilities. It’s about finding real talent, then introducing them into the professional environment. This year we’ve had eight Academy contracts, which means that over the course of the past five years, eight young kids from the 510 are now playing for the first team. I would look into Athletic Bilbao in Spain as a kind of base for what we are trying to do locally, and really allow the focus and the core to be Oakland and the East Bay, and then that developing into the best talent in the world one day. 

Rafa: And so you mentioned Athletic Bilbao football, are there other clubs that you pulled inspiration from?

Edreece: Yeah, we try to really focus on the model that we’re developing. It’s very easy to turn to other inspirations, but honestly, a big part of our motivation is to do it differently. Bilbao is one of the clubs that we look at as as a source of inspiration But in so much of our action, we’ve literally paved the path, whether it’s the fact that we broke the American sports history record for most raised by the community, $3.8 million now and 6000 plus investors, like that just doesn’t happen, and we’ve broke the boundaries there. The other way in which we’ve broken a boundary is our purpose work. We’re one of the first purpose-oriented pro teams in America, and that means that everything we do has a tie back to our community and in the way in which we impact it. It’s not that we’re perfect, but we’re certainly trying to be that for the community, and then that manifests in our curriculum. We’ve coached hundreds and thousands of coaches now on how to create a more inclusive game as it relates to gender and racial equity, and these are topics that teams are just not thinking about. We actually approached it as, what is Oakland doing that is inspiring, not other professional teams, and we use that as our source of inspiration. 

Rafa: Going off of that, what does it mean to have local legends like Marshawn Lynch, Jason Kidd, and Gary Payton investing in the club?

Edreece: It always helps when you have buy-in from big names. It helps spread the word. There’s a sense of community. But one thing about that is that people from Oakland and from the Bay have a tremendous sense of pride of being from here, and we know that, and so working with these big names is actually a way for them to contribute back to the building of something meaningful. We’ve lost three pro teams. These pro teams were a source of inspiration. They’re a source of jobs. They’re a source of so much for the community, and the fact they’ve left, you see the impact of that. So for us, it’s really about getting the mobilizers, the galvanizers, together, and doing something positive for our community. And when you get big names involved it adds a lot of street cred. Having Marshawn, Billie Joe Armstrong, is also different in the sense that all of these people are hyper localized. They’re from here. It’s not that we’re getting people in our investment group that are not from the community; that is not Oakland, that is not East Bay. 

Rafa: It’s still kind of a huge thing when you talk about the A’s, Raiders, and Warriors that gives me chills. How do you negotiate filling that sporting void and rebuilding trust within the Oakland sports community? 

Edreece: Yeah, I mean, personally it sucks to lose all those teams.  The A’s were my first sports experience ever, and that has a profound effect on my identity.  It sucks to see that no longer be the case. And I grew up a Niners fan because when my dad came from Afghanistan, his first job was as a bank teller in San Francisco, and during one of his first gigs, he saw the championship parade with Montana, and that just stuck with him. And despite being born in Oakland, you know, I am a Niner fan. And so seeing the Raiders leave was devastating, because they actually were one of the most iconic sports brands I’ve ever seen. It’s just saddening to see that being stripped away from a community that shaped its identity so closely with the brand. The Warriors going to San Francisco is not as bad, but in my opinion, is still difficult. Playing in Oakland is different than playing in San Francisco. I respect the organization, but again, doubling down on the Town is super, super important and I take it personally, man. And that’s partially why I developed Oakland Roots. It’s to bring something back for myself personally, but also for people that are craving to see Oakland as a world class city. When people talk about the Bay Area, the culture is Oakland. It’s not San Francisco. The core of that culture is Oakland, California. We deserve to have world class sports organizations and hopefully Roots can play a role in that.

Rafa: Can you expand a little bit more on Oakland’s mentality, because a lot of people feel dissed with these teams leaving, right?

Edreece: No it definitely is the case. I think the thing we’re trying to do is move from this chip on the shoulder mentality to fully accepting that we are world class. So here’s the interesting thing about having a chip on your shoulder. It means that you haven’t accomplished something yet. It is because it insinuates that there’s a gap between the action and the reality. And what I want is to try to transition our mentality to taking Oakland to the universe because we deserve that. We are expecting anything to be given to us off of reputation we have to earn it.  We have to develop the best brands and we have to develop the best product. We have to develop great experiences that are not replicable, right? Like the word always has to match the action, and that’s why I want to shift from chip on the shoulder to world class brand.It’s easier to focus on the work and to develop something that lets the work speak for itself, rather than to just be angry at the world because they don’t see you. And that’s how I’ve navigated it personally.That’s how we do it at the Roots.It’s not for everyone but if there’s a group of people that appreciate what we’re doing, there’s 8 billion people in the world. That means there’s more of those people that will like what we’re doing. You know, we sell merchandise in countries you would not even believe and it’s not that those people are from Oakland. They just rock with the idea of being who we are and connect to it. 

Rafa: You’re talking about a mentality shift, right? I do think there is a stigma associated with Oakland. People would always ask me “oh you must be getting shot at all time” growing up and it develops that sense of insecurity.. 

Edreece: People fear what they don’t understand, man. A big part of everything in life is making a connection to people. You can’t accomplish anything in your life without human connection, period. Work life or personal life. Our obligation is to actually educate people on the reality and we try to do that with the club every day, whether it’s highlighting local restaurants, highlighting the beauty of Oakland, people don’t understand how large Oakland actually is. People don’t get that.We have an ocean, we have Redwood parks, we have literally everything you could possibly imagine in our landscape, and it is some of the best climate in the world, and so these are the stories we have to tell. And I think the media always will look to demonize whatever they can get their hands on, because that is what sells. That is  what gets the clicks. I think it’s our job to create a different narrative, and we try to do that with the club. Let’s lead with love. Let’s lead with aesthetics, good design, positive experiences, winning world class football, and give no one an option but to speak positively on our community.

Rafa: What is that  like now that you are moving into the Oakland Coliseum? 

Edreece: I mean it’s responsibility, it’s heritage, it’s filling a void, but at the same time, it’s giving people a new experience. I take that as a tremendous responsibility, man. It’s exciting. It’s full circle. My first sporting experience of my life. Now the club I helped co-create is playing there. It’s kind of a wild trip but it also provides me with this strong sense of pride and just wanting to do whatever it takes to make it successful. So I’m excited for the home opener, and we’re looking to break a USL record for attendance. We’re going to have fireworks post game and Too Short performing at halftime. And it will be a cultural affair. It’ll be a family affair. Hopefully the Bay shows up and shows the world that Oakland never quits.

Rafa: I think about my nephew, he’s six, and was a big A’s fan. And now, my sister has to tell him the A’s are leaving the Town? So, when you think about the youth,what does that mean to you to be able to inspire the next generation with the Roots and Soul the way the A’s inspired you?

Edreece: I’ve already experienced young kids, 10 or 12 months old babies coming to a game and then a few years later I see the growth of that child at the games.It shapes their identity and their experiences. And I don’t take that lightly, either. Man, I mean I think that’s exactly what this club is here for. It’s creating a source of inspiration for people, a sense of unity and purpose too. And also like making sure that the team that’s playing looks like the community, right? Like having a Black and Brown kids see Black and Brown players perform at a high level and succeed; and to see Black and Brown men and women in positions of power within the front office and in soccer. We are one of the very few soccer teams that has a woman at the helm as president. These are all factors that contribute to the perception change and the motivation that young kids will have. So it’s a big part of it.

Rafa: So obviously you’re hitting a different level being in the Coliseum. What are some of the biggest challenges in terms of managing the growth of the club? 

Edreece: Yeah, I mean, each phase of business is different, you know, there’s different needs. When we first started in 2019 It was literally three employees. Now we’re scaled to 100 employees on the game days.There’s complexities with each stage and I think the stage that we’re reaching is one that is more focused on real estate and making sure that we secure our training facility for the long term, making sure that we have an interim stadium to play, than building a stadium for the future. You know, so much of America’s Sports issues stem from infrastructure. The reason why these three teams left Oakland is because they didn’t have a pathway towards infrastructure. So we really are doubling down on that as a business, and that’s become priority one, two and three and again, “the more levels, the more devils” I think, is what LL Cool J said at some point. You just got to navigate those nuances and details and handle them.  

Rafa: How do y’all manage that situation of public or private real estate investment?

Edreece: There’s so much to work through for the long term vision right now. There’s a pathway to staying at the Coliseum for several more years. I think that securing that is the number one priority, so that we can call that home and elevate Oakland Soul the professional next year, so that they have enough dates at the Coliseum. And then the business model will really start to work. We’re able to generate revenue meaningfully and the plan is to do the build of the stadium the way in which is best for this community. And I think that is the thing that most professional teams did not do. They did what’s best for the team, whether that’s public or private. That was something they couldn’t navigate properly. It’s our full intent to not get into this battle of asking people to fund our visions. That’s not a battle we want to be in as a purpose oriented professional team. So we will operate in the best way for our community. And it’s very clear that our community does not want projects at that scale funded publicly. 

Rafa: So Roots are in the United Soccer League ( USL) Championship and the Soul are moving to the USL Super league? What has the transition been for the Soul?

Edreece: So right now the Soul are amateur and they’re playing at Merritt College. The elevation of professionals means that we have a women’s team at the highest level in the American soccer structure. It means that their resources become equitable to our men’s side. It means that they’ll have full access to our training facility, expanded staff, professional environment, and we’re putting the building blocks together now to make sure that that transition happens in a way that is amazing. That reflects our ambition to create an equitable platform for women. And there’s not been an equitable platform for women in American soccer so that is something that we’ve navigated very carefully to then get to a place of fruitful outcome. 

Rafa: What are the goals for respective clubs this upcoming season?

Edreece: For Roots, it’s really creating world class soccer on the pitch, winning football. The goal is to really try to win a championship this year and make a gun for it, especially with us being in the Coliseum in a way that is meaningful. We want to continue to work on our real estate efforts, secure a training ground, secure our interim and long term homes. We want to meet our sponsorship goals and our ticketing goals. For the Soul it is to really develop a state of the art pathway to professional for next year. And for 510, try to develop the best possible talent pool for our first team ,and obviously try to continue to build the brand globally and make an impact. 

Rafa: To wrap this up, what are some spots in town you go to decompress? Edreece: The lake. I usually go on a run every day at the lake in the evening to decompress and, you know, absorb the energy that is Oakland. There’s a lot of beauty around the lake that helps me. Redwood regional is always helpful. Going to dinner with my wife to our favorite spots, that’s key. There’s actually a new restaurant called Jaji, a modern Afghan restaurant that just opened yesterday. So if you’re ever here you should check it out. But yeah, sometimes just being in my apartment and seeing the view of downtown is enough to make me feel inspired.

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Edreece Arghandiwal (he/him) is an Afghani American Oakland native. He is the co-founder and Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer for  Oakland Roots, Oakland Soul, Project 51O, a purpose driven football organization founded in 2018 . https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/

Rafa-1  is an Oakland writer and performer in the MFA Art and Social Practice Program at Portland State.